I'll start by explaining the second quote above - I'm not saying that production should be invisible. What I'm saying is that production should be so much a part of the song that it is virtually impossible to imagine the song without it. Beck's Two Turntables and a Microphone, David Gray's Babylon and Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey are all good examples. Although I'm sure that these songs had lives before they were recorded, it sounds like the production grew organically from the songs, instead of being imposed upon them.

Below I've listed a few points that I hope illustrate my production aesthetic.

1) Every note needs to have a reason to be there. When in doubt, leave it out.

Modern day recording is like a huge smorgasbord - between synthesizers, samplers, digital recording set-ups with an almost infinite number of tracks, etc., it's tempting to take a little bit of everything and find a place for it in your song. Sounds often get added because they're cool or hip, not because they help communicate the song in a more powerful way.

A better approach is to start from the song in its most naked form and decide what arrangement ideas best underscore the song's message. Would a fretless bass (with it expansive and expressive sound) provide the full (and almost cinematic) bottom on which you can layer a string section. Or is the song more rhythmic, requiring a thumpy bass and a consistent, hard-hitting drummer.

The point is that just because the artist or producer has lots of studio toys, doesn't mean one needs to use them on every song. It's great to try out lots of ideas but when it comes to the mix, remember that the space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

2) It's the edges that matter.

I took a few psych courses in college, being particularly interested in studies of perception. In one such study, babies were observed (with lots of fancy equipment) and it was determined that they focus on the edges of objects. Especially important were the edges of the mother's eyes and mouth. In other words, it's the transitions between objects (the edges), and not the objects themselves that command the most attention.

Although I haven't seen such a study done with hearing, I think auditory stimulation likely works the same way, and this has striking implications for music. It definitely helps me to explain how I feel about certain albums. I'm drawn to albums where the tones and timbre of each instrument are different and unexpected and where each song has at least one production element that distinguishes it from other songs on the album.

I tend to shy away from using lots of reverb or smoothing out every musical wrinkle with "Autotune" or endless editing. It's the edges that give the music personality - and command attention. The Rolling Stones knew this - so did the Beatles - but with our new-found audio tools, we sometimes forget this. As a producer, my job is to enhance those edges, not take them away.

3) Get the best performance

Although I enjoy interesting production, the most important factors that influence the quality of the recording are the song, the person(s) performing the song and the quality of those performances. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from artists that they spent so much studio time and money cutting basic tracks and sidemen overdubs that they had little time (or energy) left to focus on their own performances.

When making an album, one must prioritize carefully - and NOTHING is more important than the featured artist's performance.

That's not to say that you have to do 15 takes of a song. If perfection is the goal, by the 15th take you may have a perfect, but uninteresting, performance. The important thing is to have great energy when you play and sing. Two or three takes is usually enough. If it's not working at that point, go to another song and come back to this one at a later date.

4) Engineering Philosophy

Although I may occasionally hire an additional engineer to help with basic tracks or with mixing (to add his/her perspective to the recording), I generally produce and engineer most of the recordings on which I work. My reason for this is that for me, the sound of the album (which generally is credited to the recording engineer), is really part of the production aesthetic. If the production is to be lo-fi, that dictates a certain engineering philosophy. If it's an audiophile (hi-fi) recording, that dictates a different philosophy. At this point, I'm pretty good about translating what I hear in my head to a specific recording setup.

Andres Segovia, the legendary Spanish guitarist, paid perhaps the highest compliment to me (while he was making his last recording in NYC) when he said, through an interpreter, that his previous recordings all sounded like "the shadow of a guitar" while this recording "was the guitar itself". That's what I hope to achieve whenever I produce a recording project.