Contracts

I will send across a split sheet and producer work for hire agreement. This will outline that I, as the producer, will assign all master rights to the client upon completion of the project.

At this $600 work for hire price point, I will retain a 20% songwriters share on the song. If you wish to reduce or remove this share, a new work for hire fee will need to be agreed, contracted and invoiced for the outstanding amount before work commences.

Scoping

We will meet in online calls to discuss demos. This could start from a topline provided by the artist or from an instrumental demo provided by the producer (artist chooses).

The artist and producer will discuss the emotions, style, lyrical content, themes, story and history of the song, which will all help shape the initial ideation of the song's production.

Demo creation

The artist and producer will work together on the demo exchanging versions in progress. This will probably include a lot of humming, nonsense lyrics, weird synths and melodies that might not make the final cut, entire sections written that we don't end up using.

We'll make a first draft of the whole song's lyrics and structure and explore whether they are the best final version for the song or if there is some way they can be improved.

Once we reach an arrangement of the song we are excited about, we'll proceed to fully produce the record.

Instrumental demo

The first full version of the instrumental with the correct arrangement will be sent to the artist for them to practice the performance of the entire finished song.

Topline version

When the artist is ready, they will record the finished version of the full main vocal. Depending on the vocal style discussed through the creation process to this point, this will either be a single track, a pair of stereo tracks (rare alone) or 3 tracks for mid, left and right vocals.

Often, the artist will also send some backing vocals and harmonies to support the topline here as well to assist the production towards the holistic finished sound of the record.

First full production

The producer will take away the vocal takes and produce the full record around the vocal. This will include adjusting the arrangement, sound selection, melodies, harmonies, effects and vocal production to suit the final production.

When this is complete, the producer will send the artist the first full (unmixed) produced version of the song. The artist will then be encouraged to listen to where they can add adlibs and the artist will send those takes to the producer.

Mixing and mastering

The producer will send the artist the full unmixed version of the stems. It is recommended that the artist actually takes these stems to another mixing engineer for the final mix. However, the producer is happy to provide a stereo mix and master to full streaming quality standards.

Josh Smith