Renowned sound engineer, Wei Ye Oteng, says musicians in Ghana do not pay sound engineers what they deserve for their hard work.
This, according to him, is part of the reasons the Ghanaian music sound is not well-appreciated on the international scale, due to substandard sound output.
Speaking on Daybreak Hitz with Andy Dosty on Hitz 103.9 FM, he said: “Most of the musicians in this country do not pay the engineers well.”
As part of the reasons for some artistes’ reluctance in hiring professional sound engineers for proper tuning of their sound, he stated that the rates they [producers] charge are above what the artistes are willing to pay.
“You can’t walk up to these people and expect to pay GHS 500 or GHS 1000 and expect him to mic things – uh turn on some pre-amps, produce the entire thing to suit the standard,” Wei Ye Oteng said.
”So sometimes, the charges that our artistes in this country would want to pay for that quality, oh my God, it’s so absurd… it’s sad,” he added.
The CEO of DrumLyne Audio Facility believes that some Ghanaian musicians are more interested in becoming famous and splurging, neglecting the importance of putting it back into the high-quality production of their songs.
The producer also observed that some of the musicians develop the habit of undervaluing the sound engineers they started music with, as they [musicians] get more popular, and eventually abandon them for not-so-good audio engineers, hence the diminishing quality in their songs.
Highlighting the two West African countries that are often juxtaposed when it comes to music, Oteng stated that Nigerian musicians and producers are ahead of Ghana when it comes to final output in sound – mixing and mastering before they are put out for public consumption.
Per the sound engineer, better sound quality by Nigerian producers is made apparent because their musicians invest properly into the production of their songs—and pay the sound engineers adequately.
Conversely, award-winning music producer, Mix Master Garzy, says that the production of the “international standard” quality of Nigerian music is no different from that of the Ghanaian – if not at the same level, Ghanaians should be leading the practice.
“Nigeria has a bigger market – that doesn’t mean they do it better than us,” Garzy averred. “When it comes to the best or quality, I think we all have the same – or at times, they have to learn from us,” he continued.
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