Russ Hepworth-Sawyer started life as a sound engineer and occassional producer. He has over two decades' experience of all things audio. Russ is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and co-founder of the UK Mastering Section there. A former board member of the Music Producers Guild, Russ helped form their Mastering Group. Through MOTTOsound ([...] Russ now works freelance in the industry as a mastering engineer, writer, and consultant. Russ currently lectures part-time for York St John University and has taught extensively in higher education at institutions including Leeds College of Music, London College of Music, and Rose Bruford College. He contributes from time to time in magazines such as MusicTech, Pro Sound News Europe, and Sound on Sound. He has also written many titles for Focal Press and Routledge. Russ is the co-founder of the Innovation in Music conference series ([...] and also of the Perspectives on Music Production series of academic books.

Jay Hodgson is on faculty at Western University, where he primarily teaches courses on songwriting and project paradigm record production. He is also one of two mastering engineers at MOTTOsound, a boutique audio services house situated in England. In the last few years, Dr. Hodgson's masters have twice been nominated for Juno Awards and topped Beatport's global techno and house charts, and he has contributed music to films recognized by the likes of Rolling Stone magazine and which screened at the United Nations General Assembly. He was awared a Governor General's academic medal in 2006, primarily in recognition of his research on audio recording, and his second book, Understanding Records (2010), was recently acquired by the Reading Room of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has other books published and forthcoming from Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury, Continuum, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Focal Press, and Routledge.

Mark Marrington trained in composition and musicology at the University of Leeds (MMus, PhD) and is currently a senior lecturer in music production at York St John University. He has previously held teaching positions at Leeds College of Music and the University of Leeds (School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering). Mark has published chapters with Cambridge University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, and Future Technology Press and has contributed articles to British Music, Soundboard, the Musical Times, and the Journal on the Art of Record Production. Since 2010, his research has been focused on a range of music production topics with a particular emphasis on the role of digital technologies in music creation and production. Other interests include songwriting, music technology pedagogy, the contemporary classical guitar, and British classical music in the 20th century. His most recent research has been concerned with the aesthetics of classical music recording and a forthcoming monograph on the role of recordings in shaping the identity of the classical guitar in the 20th century.

Contributor Biographies

1 Introduction - Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Jay Hodgson, and Mark Marrington

PART 1- Music Production and Genre

2 Socio-Technical Networks and Music Production Competencies: Towards an Actor Network Theory of Hip Hop Beat-Making - Matt Shelvock

3 Boom Bap Ex Machina: Hip-Hop Aesthetics and the Akai APC - Michail Exarchos (A.K.A. Stereo Mike)

4 The DAW, Electronic Music Aesthetics, and Genre Transgression in Music Production: The Case of Heavy Metal Music - Mark Marrington

5 Antonio Carlos Jobim: the Author as Producer - Marcio Pinho and Rodrigo Vicente

6 Compost Listening: Vaporwave and the Dissection of Record Production - Josh Ottum

7 Classical Production: Situating Historically Informed Performances in Small Rooms - Robert Toft

PART 2- Music Production and Technology

8 The Politics of Digitizing Analogue Recording Technologies - Pat O'Grady

9 Producing Music for Immersive Audio Experiences -Rob Lawrence

10 Producing 3-D Audio - Justin Paterson and Gareth Llewellyn

11 Popular Music Production in Laptop Studios: Creative Workflows as Problem-Solving Within Ableton Live - Thomas Brett

12 Real-Time, Remote, Interactive Recording Sessions: Music Production Without Boundaries -Zack Moir, Paul Ferguson, and Gareth Dylan Smith

13 Tracking with Processing and Coloring as You Go- Austin Moore

PART 3- Concepts of Production

14 Working with Sound in the DAW: Towards a New Materiality of the Audio-Object - Stace Constantinou

15 Coproduction: Towards a Typology of Collaborative Practice in Music Production - Robert Wilsmore

16 Narrative and the Art of Record Production - Alexander C. Harden

PART 4 - The Context of Production

17 "Clever" Tools and Social Technologies: To What Extent Does Wider Access to Technology Necessitate a Step Change in Approaches to Teaching Music Production? - Alex Baxter

18 Contemporary Production Success: A Roundtable Discussion With Mid-Career Music Production Professionals - Russ Hepworth-Sawyer

19 Conversations With Women in Music Production - Kallie Marie

Index