Jim Greer — Music Producer & Multi-Instrumentalist, Bay Area

I have been working as a music producer, songwriter and musician professionally since 2003. I’ve worked with hundreds of artists ranging from pretty well known in the world at large (Macy gray, galactic, foster the people, Irma Thomas, Kaleb Cohen, del the funky homosapien, and more) to many more mid-level and local artists. I enjoy opportunities to work with people with bigger audiences, but I also love working with people with no audience who are just getting started. For me, it’s all basically the same task : we have a song, we have a vision, let’s sit down and focus on delivering the song in a way that’s enjoyable and creative, with no real rules or limits. I don’t have any genre rules, I’m generally inspired by artists who tend to create a genre of their very own, and I think the ideal path for an artist is to be the only one of their kind… I have a philosophy that in the world at large, we already have so much of so many things – so let’s be something new and be the only one, and create our own lane, as it were.

I am most comfortable in the realm of pop or pop adjacent music, meaning I am generally interested in music that is written by a songwriter or a band who is looking to employ creativity to record their songs – meaning, we have a song, now let’s use an array of instruments and knowledge to make the song sound a certain way that’s fun to make and (ideally) fun to listen to.

Over the years I’ve become a pretty proficient multi-instrumentalist, engineer, and mixer. I am more than happy to sit down with someone and bang out a whole song in a day or less, with no other personnel needed. Some of my best and most listened to songs out there on the internet are the product of an inspired day, where we start and finish something pretty quickly. Of course there are exceptions, but I believe we reach a point where we have the skills to just do the thing we want to do.

I probably have a bit of left-of-center in me, the music I like is generally pop – alternative and vision – driven, meaning less Backstreet Boys type of stuff ( not for me) more Tame Impala, Beck, etc. I think creativity is limitless and I will generally be the guy with lots of ideas and no fear, and no real need to adhere to any rules.

I’m not that into technical stuff – I have a room full of instruments and a very straightforward recording setup – I don’t love spending too much time on technical things. I would much rather play instruments and jam and write than spend hours on getting drum sounds, although, I have a strangely powerful ability to focus on whatever task is in front of me ( some call it Virgo power) so if drum sounds are the goal, I’ll do it.

Um… not to sound melodramatic, but the last frontier for people like myself is that all I really have to offer is me. Everyone can get a laptop and a bunch of soft synths and a microphone and work on their own music, and we now have top songs on Spotify, etc, being made entirely on computers by people with very little experience – which I think is fabulous. But I have noticed that having someone around who has a whole different set of contexts and experiences to bring to music can be really helpful, and most of all fun. It’s more fun to work with someone and create together, than to do it alone, although I do it alone quite often.

Another thing I’m kind of into is collective and community. So when I get to know people, I tend to create relationships and generally find myself wanting to help them not just create music, but help it grow in the real world. I am constantly connecting people and making little suggestions at least in the Bay Area for how people can take their music and make it part of the world, and let it grow. I think of songs and music like little seeds we create, and then we throw them out in the yard and see what grows from it. It can be really amazing what happens when you create something out of your mind, and it leads to things happening in your life that wouldn’t have otherwise. Music is this strange and powerful thing and once you make it and put it out there, it can find its way places. So I’m a very “just do it” kind of person about music, and also feel like life is short, and we should all do the things we want to do , as soon as we can.

Tell Jim you found him on Bay Area Studio Pros!

Web: https://digitalchildren.net 

here’s my latest producer reel!