When someone says an album or music artist has good or bad production what do they mean?
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basically, the producers job is to take the raw inputs form the band, and balance the mix to make it sound good in the final record.
obviously, the musicians are trying to do this in the studio (though a lot of the time, the various parts can be recorded separately, so you get “cleaner” material to work form), but what sounds good to the musicians ears in the studio doesn’t sound the same when recorded. The volume levels aren’t right, certain instruments are too loud or quiet, or the mike picked up too much base/too much treble, etc.
the producers take this recorded info, and edit it to try and get it sounding good again. they adjust the balance of the different parts, making sure they arent too quiet or too loud, they selectively amplify or reduce certain frequency ranges so the music doesn’t sound “tinny” or “muffled”. stuff like that.
A big part of what they do, additional to this, is manage the musicians as well. Rock & pop stars, being very talented and successful individuals surrounded by people telling them they are talented and successful, have a tendency to get egotistical, and think they know the producers job better than the producer, or that their part of the music should be prominent in the final mix. Good producers know how to deal with this, and keep the end result sounding good, as well as shooting down bad ideas or otherwise helping with the creative process.
a badly produced song hasn’t had enough of this done. the instruments aren’t properly balanced, the bass is either overpowering or barely present, the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a tin can, or the lead guitarist forced the whole album to be just him doing solos for 90 minutes straight.
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