There has been a lot of talk about ghost production. By now, we all know more than enough about how the industry works, and we are aware that ghost producers are part of it. But in case there is still some absent-minded person who doesn’t know what a ghost producer is, we can define a ghost producer as one who creates and produces music, but gives all the rights and credit to a DJ, artist, company, or whatever, in exchange for a unique payment.
Ghost production in the industry has as many defenders as detractors. We are far from putting our balance in favor of one or the other; but we have always observed and analyzed it from a distance, with some fascination and awareness of the power that this practice has in the music industry in these times. In this sense, knowing how a ghost production is gestated and how this type of industry works from within, we have to admit (as morbid as it sounds) that it has always caused us some interest, and for this reason, we have been wondering for some time, what if we sneak into the sewers of the industry? What if we try in our own skin what it is like to order a ghost production?
Yes, today is the day, and we are going to do it.
Learning About The Ghost Production Industry
After a web search looking for our ghost supplier for our top-chart track, we decided on EDMwarriors, as it’s the only platform we’ve found where you can really order a custom track through the platform; it would be something like Soundbetter (recently acquired by Spotify), but to hire a ghost producer. As we researched, we found it belongs to My Ghost Market, a company dedicated to ghost production and the owner of several platforms of this type.
On this site, ghost producers register and offer their services like freelancers, and we just have to choose the one we like best (and the one that fits our pocket). It’s also possible to buy ready-to-go tracks, but that’s not what we’re interested in now; it’s not fun enough.
Hiring a Ghost Producer
The e-slogan of the site reads as follows: “Be a ghost producer, Be ghost produced, Be a Warrior.” I don’t know if it makes sense, but it convinced me.
Once inside, we are a little overloaded by the amount of ghost producers on the site, different styles, prices…Our budget is tight, so it’s a filter that limits our choices quite a bit.
After a quick search, we’ve chosen our boy, “Tech Gxd” (his name makes us think he’ll have good tech house skills): 400 €. We had it in our heads that the ghost production services would be much more expensive. However, we hope he matches up to our expectations (obviously, we don’t expect Maarten Vorwerk himself to produce the next summer hit, but at least we hope it’s decent, 400 € is a lot of money to waste it).
At this point, we’ve got our ghost producer, and we are completely determined to go into the darkness of the ghost production (a big shout out to that e-slogan), so it’s time to create our account on the platform: “Lazy Music Producer” will be our username— sounds congruent enough.
Once we make a first payment of 50 percent, we enter an internal dashboard, a project with a chat in which I can talk to the producer, and a line of steps that looks like this:
Let’s break the ice with our hit supplier:
Honestly, I didn’t know that ghost production had evolved to this point…a platform of this kind, where you pick your ghost producer and ask him for a song, has the same feeling as going to a supermarket to buy food.
Now the track is perfect, it’s time to ask some off-topic questions here:
A little bit more…
Okay, I’m not gonna stick my finger on the sore spot any longer.
There we go, we have the track we were looking for, then we complete the process, receive all the files, and of course, our contract signed by the producer. These guys from My Ghost Market think of everything.
Our Experience With Ghost Producing
Voila, we already have our track ready to publish, that’s how easy it is today to become a “producer.” We’ve skipped at least five years of music production learning, and today my track could be on the streets—it’s even a bit confusing. We will not be the ones to criticize what has become of the industry today, but perhaps we miss the magic that was in music years ago…that human touch and craftsmanship.
Anyway, this was our journey through the dark of the music industry, or not…who knows what will be next. Put our ghost-produced track on a record label? Who knows—we will keep you informed.
By the way, let’s not forget to share the most important thing: our ghost produced track, which now belongs to us. Will we be listening to it on the charts soon?
