A Quote by Branford Marsalis

I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point? — © Branford Marsalis
I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point?
When you're a producer and an artist you're very critical of yourself. I like to produce other people, but I'm not that good at producing myself.
And once we have given our community a good start,' I pointed out, ' the process will be cumulative. By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves and better able to produce still better children in their turn, as can be seen with animals.
I mean, just like every other prominent songwriter or producer, you have the shot. You send in records and if they make it, they make it. If they get heard, they get heard. I'm not sure if you know how that circle of songwriting and producing works, but every time a big artist is working, everybody and their mother is in the studio writing records to try to get on it.
I like that kind of classic-type sound. A lot of my favorite albums were tracked live, with a four-piece band. I love the way those albums sound, but I want to make records that sound like that in the way I like to make stuff.
Hong Kong people, they treat me more like a director, like a producer, like a filmmaker. If they recognize me, they treat me as a producer more than a star. And also, I make one movie in three years. I think they already forget who I am, because I've been away too long!
Like a lot of the newer bands, like the more poppy kinda bands, although they make really good records and they produce them really great and everything, they don't really deliver onstage. And I think that's where like the heavier bands kinda score.
Trying to make your own sound is hard. When I was producing for other artists, I could just produce and write songs as a normal songwriter, and almost make them generic. The artists themselves, whoever is singing that song, can put their own twist on it. When it came to my own material, I had to really dig deep, because I was just writing generic stuff. It sounded like everybody else, like Justin Timberlake, like Usher. I never wanted to sound like someone, that's when you know it's not going to work.
There's not anything I can fix, change, make better its out to the world. I'd like to say that I like my records but it's for reasons other than enjoyment, it's more like a notch on my revolver, one more down. I am proud of my work, yes but its accomplishment to me and another year of schooling,in making records it can always be better!
It wasn't just like, "I want to make a record that sounds like classic rock" at all. It was more like, "I want to make a record that is a little more unsettling and maybe isn't as easily understood now." That just seemed more important, like, for me to make as an artist, than it was to make something to make people feel safe right away.
When you have the catalog of work, it doesn't feel like you've got one shot to get it right; it's just like, you're making a new document of something at the present time, and it's a living thing, and it changes. It's been cool to help other people make their records, to produce. You get a crash course in things that you don't get as the artist.
You make it all sound so simple. Run your guts out...collapse at the finish, throw up, that makes a good runner. Sounds like you regret not being more like Prefontaine....Everyone gripes to me that American marathoners are 'lazy-no-good-for-nothings'. My point is, many people have criticisms, but few have valid answers. I'd like to know what happened to the guys that kicked my ass in high school.
I'm not a real producer, so if someone asks me to produce, it's only because they like my sound. I'm not a professional, all I have is my own way of doing things, my little tricks.
For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?"
I know when I started I would have been happy to sound like the Beatles or Joe Tex or whoever. You want to sound like most bands, you want to sound like their records and that's how you learn your chops.
I've been around a lot of artists who are also good at business, and... one minute they'll sound like an artist, and the next minute, they'll sound like the characters in 'Mad Men.' Jay-Z's a very good businessman, and he talks about it and enjoys it, but he doesn't shift.
It's such a normal thing for a dance producer to make music and try it out in the club, but that was relatively new to me. I wanted to make a good album that felt like it had a point.
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