I've ghost-written (i.e., composed) and have been a silent co-producer on songs for others, but it's usually a different set of circumstances. It usually involves someone that I know and work with on a personal level, or an up-and-coming producer with a lot of potential that I want to help out, etc. I prefer to stay anonymous in those situations and let the others get the attention (and money, if there is any) that they deserve for their talents. Then again, I'm old and I've had my 15 minutes of fame.

But, if a DJ asked me to ghost-produce a song for him and that he would take the credit for it, I'd tell him in no uncertain terms where he can firmly shove it. Those guys are idiots and, contrary to some of the comments made here, DJs taking credit for other producers' works is not improving the quality of music - it's just changing who gets the credit and exposing these loser DJs for the pathetic, talentless hacks that they are. To be clear, I'm not referring to all DJs, only the ones who are so insecure that they need to pay someone else for their work and take credit for it just to give themselves an ego boost. I can respect guys who just DJ and don't try to take credit for anything other than their DJ skills and I can really respect guys who DJ and produce/co-produce their tracks.

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how i feel about ghost producers? ghost producing is ok imo, as long as you are the ghost, and not the client using them. they are a bunch of losers imo (the clients). whats the point of putting your name on something you havent made? seriously some people have no integrity.

I used to get pissed as hell and fired up over all of this. Especially when I'd find out time and time again, that some track I loved was really done by someone other than the name or names stamped on the track. I guess this came from years of busting my ass and learning things myself. I personally could never call someone else's track my own without always giving the creator the credit.

While I still think it sucks when there is no obvious credit given to the guy that actually did the work, I know it's just all business. Many of these engineers are home bodies and would rather get paid to produce than gig around the world as their client's enjoy doing. I've been approached several times now to write tracks for other people. It's something everyone has to decide how they will handle on their own.

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won't go into a huge amount of detail as i think both sides of the argument are equally represented in this thread. I will say that listeners now have the ability to find out who's really behind records of their favorite tracks, artists, etc very easily so the term "ghost" doesn't really exist in it's literal sense anymore. If you want to find out who, it's not hard.

On another note I think ghost" producers 10yrs, 20yrs, 30yrs ago made sense. You didn't have access to the equipment, the knowledge, the resources, the trade, etc. However now with most of the music in our field being done completely in the box I do think it's a bit of a faux pas. You do have nearly everything at your disposal you're just choosing not to learn it or master it yourself.

Lastly, one of my really good friends is behind just an insane amount of records and it's a career choice he's more than happy with:

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Eelke+Kalberg


Do what you think is right for you, if you feel uncomfortable passing on a piece of work you don't think you had enough input to say you made then don't do it.

I just decided I'm going to buy a manuscript from an author, and publish the book as my own work. Ssshhh, I paid the author off, he can't ever tell anyone he wrote the book. I also purchased a painting from an artist, and will pay him off, so I can call it my own. No one has a problem with this, right? OK, I'm off to a showing at the art gallery, where I will have praise heaped on me for my great work of art. After that, I'm off to a book signing for my best selling novel. Being able to buy talent is cool, baby!

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Glad you didn't do it. Someone said that he didn't care who made the track as long as it's good, fine, but why should the DJ take credit for the producers work instead of just playing the song? I dont get it. Sure it is probably a faster way to make money, but if everyone just stops with this nonsense the Djs will play the songs WHITHOUT taking credits for making it, that would certainly not do the track any harm.

The world already have enough centralisation, and EDM should not become (more than it already is) part of that IMO. What if the "chief" AKA DJ starts to interfere with the actual production and you have to take his orders just to don't get fired? Is that good for music?

Keep it up

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of mixed feelings from everyone on this one. Another reason why I decided not to work with that label was because we have different vissions. They wanted to go more on the commercial side and I wanted to go more on the darker side. My goal is to produce tracks a la James Holden, John Digweed, Eric Prydz, etc. You know, really dark, weird, WTF was that type of tracks! haha

Anyhow, another thing I didn't like was that they had a schedule. They wanted to pretty much release something every month. I wasn't down with that because that pretty much meant that a lot of my "work" would be garbage. As is, I feel I have not completed a single track. I feel that you can't put a timeline & hurry a track. At least I won't. I'll work on it until I feel happy with it.

Sometimes I'll work on something all day and put it away for months, than when something hits me, I'll come back to it. That happens to me a lot. When I do my rock remixes, somethings I'll do a beat for a particular track, but don't end up using it. Than months later, when I'm working on something else I'll use that beat/sound on the new track.

I know I gotta get over it and get some work out, but honestly, I'm in no hurry. Maybe I'll never even release a track, but who knows. I still feel I'm not ready yet.

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EDM is not a trend, it's a lifestyle. You either get it or you don't.

i think you said nofor the right reasons. You can not complain about a label being a business though. Don't you have a dj schedule?

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quote:

If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier

quote:

Originally posted by davidmclean My own personal opinion is that even though i am a huge lover of dance music and extremely passionate about it - i couldn't give a fuck who produces a certain track, and whether they try and make it look like someone else's.

Totally.

But that doesn't mean people SHOULD employ a ghost writer... I would have said no if I'd been in the same situation, but I think I've seen it happen so much that I've learnt to tolerate other people doing it!

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quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I've learnt to tolerate other people doing it!

Does it really piss you off that much?? Yeah I guess it is a shock when you hear a certain artist isn't actually behind a track you like, and maybe I do lose a little respect for them. But I really can't say it bothers me too much, let them do as they wish. If anything it somehow makes making music even more satisfying.

One reason that I think you guys should care about DJs taking credit for their ghostwriter's work is that it contributes to EDM's credibility problem. I don't know how much exposure you guys get to other styles of music, or how much time you spend working with or talking to other non-EDM musicians, but IME they generally don't have a very high regard or respect for them "techno" guys. It's already seen by many as being simple throwaway music made by amateurs, DJs, and wannabes, and the ghostwriting thing doesn't help that perception and certainly makes it that much harder for dance music as a whole to be taken seriously.

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I too used to get wound up about but now having worked in the industry, for a while, it's so rife, you just can't let it be a concern.

The only thing that does still annoy me about it is when certain artists get jobs based on work "they have done", and really it was someone else, who A) won't get credit and B) does not then get the higher paid gig that comes through off the back of that ghost work.

I can think of one hiphip/pop producer who did exactly that, and there's a clear difference between what they were making a few years ago, and the quite crap pop fodder they're pushing out now that he's actually making it himself (albeit with serious support from engineers and sub producers etc).

For me, as I look at the line between ghost and producer is very blurred anyway. If you take someone like sasha, who produced so many great tracks throughout the 90's, you had no idea Charlie May was behind 90% of them (but in fairness with Sasha producing as well), until many years later when he came out of the shadows, and Sasha helped him to fame.

Nearly every composer I've ever worked with ha assistants or sub composers contributing to their works and in some extreme cases doing entire chunks if not whole scores, while it's passed off as the work of said famous composers.

I know one EMMY winning composer, that barely does a stroke of work throughout a series, apart from write the initial theme, and review what assistants wrote.

It's part of the game and the ladder to get experience so you just have to accept it.

I suppose the only bit I really don't like is when the person taking the credit has no talent - i don't mind if they could actually do the work to that required caliber, but choose not to out of whatever contraints so get someone to do it for them, but that's a different thing to getting someone to work that you can't and passing it off as your own. Taht for me is the moral boundary.