Beat Maker Vs. Music Producer: The Real Difference

The music world, like every business, has various moving parts that work together to create art. Behind every component of a song is a person who has a special set of skills. Some of these skills come naturally, such as those who are beat makers, and other skills are learned through extensive education, such as music producers. Some beat makers feel as if they are music producers while music producers recognize the very REAL DIFFERENCE between the two.

 

Education

One distinct difference between a beat maker and a music producer is education level. While both are, no doubt, wonderful artists, the level of education needed to be a beat maker is ZERO, while major record labels prefer music producers with some sort of Bachelor’s Degree, or previous experience interning under a prominent music producer. What does this mean? With the right software, anyone can make beats. However, it takes the right level of education to be a music producer.

Salary

Another distinct difference between a beat maker and a music producer is salary. A beat maker can make an average of $65,000 depending on what music producer the beat maker is aligned with. A music producer can make an average of $100,000 up to approximately $2 million.

The reason for this difference has to do with the amount of work needed to create a finished product, song, or album, which brings us the additional distinct differences.

The Workload

While the beat maker may spend a lot of time creating, it is just one layer of the final product. The music producer has the job of putting those layers together. Also, it is very rare that a beat maker will receive any credit on a particular song, as the beat maker is most likely to sell the beats made, relinquishing all rights to the beat.

The music producer, however, is most likely to receive most of the credit for the song, since they are the ones that put the layers together to create the final product.

 

There Is A Real Difference

While the difference of beat making versus music producing is very evident, there are still beat makers who insist on being called music producers. If the beat maker is the one that creates the beat and the final product, they have the right to be called a music producer.

However, if they are not the ones creating the final product, with all the layers distributed cohesive as is, then they are, simply, the beat maker. The biggest mistake you can make to a legitimate music producer is downgrade them by saying they are only a beat maker.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a beat maker is someone who creates a portion of the layers needed to create a final product. The beat maker will create these layers and then sell them to a music producer. At times, the beat maker will lease their layers to various music producers, but if those layers are purchased, whoever purchases them owns full rights to use those layers for the final product, and the layers no longer belong to the beat maker.

The music producer then takes these layers, and adds more layers (vocals, additional instruments, additional sounds, etc.). Once the music producer finishes adding the additional layers, they produce the final product, or song, to be released to the public.