My name’s Andrew Yankiwski from the Online Mastering Studio, Precursor Productions. I’m a professional music producer and recording, mixing and mastering engineer from Canada. This article is part of a series that helps solo artists, musicians and bands learn to save money in the studio. It is important to make the most of your time in the recording studio and know how to get the best possible product. One of the misconceptions many people, not just artists, have is that the better the gear or hardware used when recording, mixing and mastering, the better the music recording will turn out. And although this can be very true, it is only half of the equation. What’s the other half?

The topic of this article is: What's more important - the gear used to make a recording, or the producer you work with. What is more significant to get you the best results for your final song or album. At the end of the day the producer, especially their knowledge and ability to work with others is the most significant thing. The reason why is that if you look back at the recording process 10 or 20 years ago there was a very few highly specialized people making recordings with very expensive equipment. The difference between project studio recordings and professional recordings was drastic. Now days there has been a democratization in the quality of equipment of available at a very low cost. It's also a lot easier to use this equipment than it has been in the past. And a lot of the knowledge is available online on how to record and produce music properly.

What this means at the end of the day is that the gear is easy to access and use and is relatively inexpensive to acquire. So what makes or breaks things right now is the knowledge level of the producer using that equipment. It's important to have a knowledgable and experienced producer working on your music who can communicate and work effectively with the people involved in the music production process. There can often be politics involved when large numbers of people are working on a single collective project and having someone in charge who can navigate it effectively is essential as well. Moreso than the type of gear used, the producer involved in the process is the most important part of ensuring you have the best quality final product.