Producing, engineering, mixing, remixing, playing keyboards, programming — you name it, Carmen Rizzo does it. What's more, the genres that the multitalented Rizzo works in are as diverse as his job titles. Electronica, world music, rock, R&B, and pop are all styles he's comfortable with. His eclectic credit list (see “Carmen Rizzo: A Selected Discography”) includes artists ranging from Paul Oakenfold to Coldplay to Grant Lee Phillips to Kate Havnevik to Jem to Seal; he once even mixed a Ray Charles project.

Rizzo has a solo career as well. His latest CD is called The Lost Art of the Idle Moment (see Fig. 1). In 1999 he put out a CD called Life in Volcanoes, along with singer Christina Calero, under the band name of Povi. In his “spare time,” Rizzo is on the Advisory Council of the Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy.

FIG. 1: One reason that Rizzo put out his latest solo CD, The Lost Art of the Idle Moment, was to call more attention to his production skills.

When I interviewed Rizzo by phone for this story, he was somewhere in New Mexico, on the road with Niyaz, a world-music-influenced group he belongs to that also includes Persian vocalist Azam Ali and multi-instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian. “We've toured on and off for the last two years from all over Europe to India to Tokyo to Turkey to Montreal. We've done some really amazing gigs,” Rizzo says. “I'm very, very proud of the project. It's sort of a Middle Eastern electronic project.” But he adds that he's “trying to fade away from it” because it takes up too much of his time and he's got so much else going on.

You've worn many hats so far in your career. What's your favorite one?

I would say that producing is really how I make my living, and it's what I enjoy the most. That's parlayed into remixing a lot of records, and participating as a musician and programming and such. But it's evolved into being a recording artist. The reason I made the Povi CD, and my current solo record, was not to hopefully become a rock star or anything; it was really just to get noticed more as a producer. So people would notice my music as an artist, and a producer, and would hopefully give me more work as a producer.

But your solo career turned into more than that.

It kind of started out when I was doing the Paul Oakenfold record [Bunkka]; my manager at the time said, “You know, you're doing all these tracks, and this and that. You should do another artist record.” And it just kind of evolved that way. I'm fortunate enough that I have a very eclectic career. I've kind of purposely handcrafted that, and I've met a lot of wonderful people, done a lot of cool records, and so when it came time to do my artist record, it was convenient and easy to reach out to people that were credible, like a Grant Lee Phillips, Esthero or a Ladybug Mecca, or even Jem or now Kate Havnevik.

When did you start working professionally in music?

Well, I would say that I probably got my start in 1984 at Westlake Studios [in Los Angeles] as sort of a gofer. But I was working professionally in '89.

So you were there in the early days of MIDI.

Oh, absolutely.

And you saw all the technological changes, and the evolution of digital audio.

Yes, I'm 43 now. I showed up in Los Angeles in 1984 with $1,000, and I didn't know anybody. I was lucky to get the job at Westlake Studios, which of course was very primitive. I was fortunate to be around, seeing the first 3M digital tape machine, being schooled on analog tape machines, all the obvious old consoles. I can remember seeing a [Yamaha] DX7 for the first time, a sampler, all of that stuff. I feel old when I talk to kids.

So in the beginning you were an engineer?

Yes. I was schooled as an engineer, and then I was fortunate to start to mix records. And then where I think my career changed was when I started working with [producer] Trevor Horn. In the early '90s, I was working for Seal and Trevor, and I was going to London a lot. Trevor was way ahead of the curve. So I was involved with Euphonix consoles and samplers and all these wonderful keyboards, and that's when my career changed.

Was Horn your mentor as a producer?

Yes, because I was around him for so many years engineering and programming and mixing for him that I was seeing how he made records. I was such a fan of his work.

Is there a signature aspect to your productions?

For one thing, I pride myself on instrumentation. And sound selection is very important to me. I've really tried to create a very cinematic, lush sound, but one that is very complementary of modern electronics and organic instrumentation. And I think that that's something that I learned from Trevor. If you listen to a lot of his records, whether it's Frankie Goes to Hollywood, or Seal, or Yes, or any of those, there's a good texture of modern electronic instrumentation and beautiful organic instruments. And that's something I've tried to model my style after, which is to be very creative in the sound selection.

Are most of the people you work with individual artists, rather than bands?

Well, yes. I would say that. I don't work with as many bands as other producers do. I definitely have, though, but usually I'm sort of the person to go to when somebody wants to be a little bit edgy or a little bit different.

Rizzo recommends that personal-studio owners get as much RAM and disk space as they can to take full advantage of the power of their computers.

So you're running the show as far as the arrangements and instrumentation?

Absolutely. If somebody wants a safe record, they don't go to me. I pride myself on doing something a little bit different where the instrumentation is different, the arrangement is different. Something almost a little European sounding instead of U.S. sounding. Another great thing that I bring to the table is that I'm well traveled and I've done a lot of world-music albums. I think that's something that people recognize now in my work, from making a lot of records in France: a lot of world-music elements. So when I choose the instrumentation of records that I produce, I try to bring in instruments that the artist might not know of, or they've never heard, or they wouldn't put those two instruments together.

If you're mixing electronic and organic, you have a large palette to choose from.

Absolutely. And I think that was why with Niyaz, the three of us worked so well. You know, trying to blend and to make a sort of fusion of East versus West. Often, those types of records can be really cheesy. It was not easy to make it tasteful.

What are the most challenging situations you run into when producing?

Choosing the right songs. That's something that's not easy. The first thing a good producer does is to choose the best songs for the artist. That's something that's always a challenge: trying to convince the artists that certain songs shouldn't be recorded.

So typically, they'll come to you with demos and you have to pick from them.

FIG. 2: Inside Rizzo''s project studio, which is located in a commercial building in Hollywood. To enforce separation between his work and family life, he opted against having a studio in his home.

Yes. They might say, “These are my demos.” And I'm somebody who will be the first to say, “I'm the wrong guy for this song. I think you'd be better suited with someone else.” Another thing that's hard to relay to an artist is when they say to you, “I need a radio hit” or “I need a chart hit.” And I always say, “You're talking to the wrong guy.” Because that's not what I do. I do what I feel is the best for that song for this artist. If it happens to be a hit, then great.

Do you have a home studio?

I refuse to [laughs]. My philosophy is: when I go home, I'm at home. I've got children. I work enough as it is, so when I come home I want to just be at home. So I have a studio outside my house [see Fig. 2; also read the Carmen Rizzo online bonus material all about his gear] that's in a wonderful building in Hollywood that's becoming a music mecca. There are quite a few people in the building. Dave Stewart [from the Eurythmics] is right below me; Glenn Ballard; Michael Danna, who's a big film composer. It's right in the middle of Hollywood, and I get inspired walking out on Hollywood and Vine.

I understand you recently did your first film-scoring project.

I did. It was a film called The Power of the Game (Pathé Pictures International, 2007), directed by Michael Apted, who's a big British director.

What was the work flow like for that project?

They would send me a QuickTime [movie], I would load it into Pro Tools, and I would score it to picture and then send an MP3 to them for approval. Once it was approved and I would score any sort of adjustments, then I would post it on my server as an AIFF file, and it was done. The only negative thing I would say was that it was before I had my Xeon Intel Mac. And I had a G5, 1.8 GHz single. Boy it was hard, because I was running picture, virtual instruments, audio, live MIDI, and recording at the same time. I would say a prayer every time I hit play. It was not easy. That poor Mac, God bless it, was just huffing and puffing.

You've noticed a big difference with the Intel Mac?

Oh my God. Praise Intel for getting in bed with Apple, because it's made such a huge difference.

So you never have to worry about how many tracks and plug-ins you have going?

No. With my Intel Mac and my two Universal Audio cards, I'm like a kid in a candy store. I've got my TDM stuff, I've got my UA stuff, I've got my RTAS stuff — I couldn't be happier. And it's all thanks to Intel.

If you had to give a few pieces of advice to people who are producing songs in their own studios, what would they be? In terms of production techniques, things to watch out for or home in on, etc.

One would be monitoring. I think people don't monitor well enough.

You mean like having good acoustic treatment so that they hear things accurately?

Having a good set of monitors and trying to position yourself in a good listening environment. I think that's something that's overlooked. The second thing is, if you make music through or with a computer, you have to invest in power. People think they just need to get a computer, but then if they have no [extra] RAM, no drive space, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

Power in the computing sense.

Yes. Having a powerful engine. The third thing, which is something that I've always prided myself on, is, you have to take every artist seriously. I could give you countless stories of discovering artists who could not get arrested, who I took seriously because I believed in them, and who have become very successful stars. One example is an artist called Jem, who is very successful, probably sold a million records around the world. I couldn't get her arrested, I couldn't help get her a record deal. But I worked with her because I believed in her.

Any other advice?

Know your equipment the best that you can. I find often, a lot of my colleagues have a museum of gear, but they don't know how to use any of it. They have all this gear, but they end up using one thing. If I look back at my past, I made my best records when I had an MPC, a keyboard, and a sampler. And I knew those three boxes like the back of my hand. Know the gear as well as you can before you buy more gear. If you're on a desert island with a drum machine and a keyboard, you'll be making great music. But a lot of these guys have, like, 50 plug-ins and all this stuff, but they don't know how any of it works.

Mike Levine is an EM senior editor.

CARMEN RIZZO: A SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

Azam Ali, Elysium for the Brave (Six Degrees, 2006); producer, musician, cowriter

Rachel Fuller, Shine (Candycat Ltd., 2006); producer (with Pete Townshend), programmer, mixer

Kate Havnevik, Melankton (Continentica Records, 2006); mixer, producer, programmer, musician

Coldplay, “Speed of Sound” from X&Y (Capitol, 2005); engineer Niyaz, Niyaz (Six Degrees, 2005); band member, producer, cowriter, musician

Carmen Rizzo, The Lost Art of the Idle Moment (The Lab/Universal, 2005); musician, writer, producer, engineer, mixer

BT, “The Great Escape” from Chillout — A Nettwerk Escape (Nettwerk, 2004); remixer

Delerium, Chimera (Nettwerk, 2003); producer, cowriter, engineer, programmer

Alanis Morissette, Under Rug Swept (Maverick, 2002); programmer, keyboardist, engineer

Paul Oakenfold, Bunkka (Maverick, 2002); producer, writer, programmer

Ekova, Space Lullabies and Other Fantasmagore (Six Degrees, 2001); producer, engineer, mixer, programmer

Perry Farrell, “Song Yet to Be Sung” and “Shekina” from Song Yet to Be Sung (Virgin, 2001); mixer

Grant Lee Phillips, Mobilize (Zoë/Universal, 2001); producer, engineer, mixer, programmer

Planet of the Apes theme (20th Century Fox, 2001); remixer (with Paul Oakenfold)

Supreme Beings of Leisure, Supreme Beings of Leisure (Palm Pictures, 2000); producer

Povi, Life in Volcanoes (Nettwerk, 1999); band member, producer, cowriter, musician

Robbie Robertson, Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy (Capitol, 1998); engineer, coproducer, mixer, programmer

Seal, Seal (Sire, 1994); cowriter, engineer, programmer

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Beauty (Virgin, 1992); engineer, mixer