THE CASE FOR PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION
by Jose Ponce

            When the New Mexico Music Awards were first conceived some 22 years ago, (as the MIC Awards) the reasoning was simple; we wanted to encourage musicians and producers to create music on par with that that was produced nationally. No more of this "pretty good for local musicians" attitude. We wanted people to create projects that would be able to compete with anything released nationally.
            For too many years, New Mexico had labored under the illusion that the music industry worldwide would cut us some slack because of our location. Far from New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, we would be given special dispensation for creating music under the difficult conditions that existed in fly over country. It was this persistant attitude that drove some of our best musicians, producers and engineers to seek work outside the state. The now defunct New Mexico Music Industry Coalition sought to address this problem with an awards program.
            While emphasis is placed on composition and performance of a piece of music, 20 of the 30 award categories are based primarily on production quality. Other categories such as "Best Recording of a Live Performance" and "Best Engineering" also place a great demand on the production quality skills of the engineer in question.

            Every musician with a guitar and a tape recorder entered our first awards competition, it seemed. In truth, I think we had a total of 68 entries, but most were amateurish and not a lot of heart and soul went into the projects. Over the years, musicians have come to see the value of not skimping on production values and we have watched the quality of music in New Mexico reach new heights.
            Then a few years ago, it happened again. With PC's becoming less expensive and music programs becoming more and more sophisticated, musicians found themselves once again skimping on the production part of their recording. Digital quality meant that you could cut and paste; put together a piece of music using the best segments of several performances. Overdub took on a whole new meaning. Music performance and production lost its consistency.
            With that, the quality of awards entries began to decline. CDRs replaced finished CDs and cassette projects. It became obvious to our judges that these recordings were being done in someone's home studio rather than in a recording studio where recording chambers are constructed specifically for sound recording and where the equipment is much more sophisticated.
            Still, the New Mexico Music Awards have continued. And the best part is, studio musicians continue to sweep the awards because the performance of their music is supported on a solid foundation of quality production.
            Look, you'll most likely never see my name among the finalists on a MIC Awards list. I'm simply not that good a musician. My one and only MIC Award came in 1988 when the rhythm track of one of my songs was picked up by producer Eric Larson. He took it upon himself to hire musicians, book recording time at his own expense and produce what was just an idea into an award winning track. In my case, professional production made all the difference.
            The truth of the matter is that you only get out of a project what you put in. If you skimp on planning, rehearsal, production or post-production time, it's going to hurt you. Digital in most cases, doesn't fix mistakes, it only makes them more obvious.