The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing has announced an education initiative focused on best technical practices for music recording. Based on the P&E Wing’s published set of guidelines and recommendations for the production and delivery of recorded music projects, the initiative launched in Los Angeles in June 2018 with local recording education programs and is now gearing up to expand nationwide with updated versions of the recommendations in partnership with the Recording Academy’s 11 other chapters and their Producers & Engineers Wing committees.
These living documents, created by committees whose members span regions, styles and genres, are updated on a regular basis in order to address the ongoing evolution of the recording industry and its underlying technologies. With the goal of standardizing the recording supply chain and increasing efficiency, while maintaining high levels of sonic quality and integrity, the documents address such topics as:
- Secure backup and storage
- Versions and stems
- File hierarchies
- Naming conventions
- Proper crediting
In the current digital world, where recordings are frequently produced in multiple versions by multiple participants in multiple places, the documents offer clarity and suggested best practices for management of the overall recording process.
Nashville-based producer and engineer Jeff Balding (Dan + Shay, Eagles, Brynn Elliott) and digital entrepreneur John Spencer, co-founder of the recording data management firm BMS/Chace, have led this year’s committee for its review of Delivery Recommendations for Recorded Music Projects. Leslie Ann Jones, multiple Grammy Award-winning engineer/producer and director of music and recording for Skywalker Sound, and who chaired the committee behind Recommendations for Hi-Res Music Production, has overseen the update of that document.
