The role of the producer is a bit vague as it may cover a lot of different areas, some of which the producer just oversees or approves, others which they perform directly, depending on the kind of producer. George Martin, for instance, was very much into the musical side of The Beatles' material, so he'd often score and conduct the orchestral parts as well as playing some instruments and suggesting certain changes in the songs (e.g., tempo), but he wouldn't be in the technical side of the sounds (e.g., EQuing) as that was not his speciality - he'd get excellent engineers for that. Bill Szymczyk, on the other hand, was expert in sound but not in music, so his contribution to Eagles' recordings would be more related to getting the best possible audio quality (e.g., positioning the mic at the soft spot to make the bass-drum sound more powerful) and offer suggestions from the perspective of a non-musician (which is quite valuable as most of the public aren't musicians themselves).
'Producer' is not the same as 'co-producer' in the same way 'pilot' is not the same as 'co-pilot'. Here's the list of who produced Queen recordings:
- 1971 Demos: Queen produced. Louis Austin was the engineer but not the producer.
- Queen (except The Night Comes Down as that was taken from the aforementioned demos): Chiefly produced by John Anthony. Roy Baker took over when Anthony fell ill with mono. Liner notes don't specify who did which song. This was the only album where Queen didn't produce at all (except for Night Comes Down).
- Queen II: Most of the album was produced by Baker/Queen, with the 'Queen' side being represented by whoever had written each particular song: on Father to Son, for instance, it'd be Brian who'd make the decisions with Roy, while on Seven Seas of Rhye, it'd be Freddie. Roy missed some of the sessions as he was also working with Gasolin' in Denmark, and Robin Cable took over for Nevermore, Funny How Love Is and part of The March of the Black Queen.
- Sheer Heart Attack: Baker/Queen, again with the 'Queen' bit being the creator of each particular song. They were slowly gaining more control and it's possible on this album that the songwriter would also do the mix (with Roy and the engineers, of course).
- A Night at the Opera: Queen/Baker (the band now got first billing). Each song was mixed by its creator together with Roy and the engineer (usually Mike Stone).
- A Day at the Races: Queen, assisted by Mike Stone. The songwriter would be in charge of each track, with Mike helping out with the technical side.
- News of the World: Queen. Mike was now credited as co-producer, which was closer to being a full producer but not quite the same.
- Jazz: Queen/Baker, reunited one last time.
- The Game: Queen. Reinhold Mack's labour was similar to that of Mike Stone's on News of the World. He engineered and co-produced but didn't produce per se.
- Flash Gordon: Mack/May (in that order). Mack mixed and Brian chose what would go on the album and what wouldn't.
- Hot Space: Queen/Mack (now he was made partner), except Staying Power which is Queen/Mack/Mardin (actually, Mercury/Mack/Mardin) and Under Pressure which is Queen/Bowie (actually Mercury/Bowie, Freddie being the one who made the final mix).
- The Works: Queen/Mack, all of it.
- A Kind of Magic: Most of it was Queen/Mack, but four tracks were Queen/Richards.
- The Miracle & Innuendo: Queen/Richards.
- Made in Heaven: Queen. Josh, Justin and David were engineers and co-producers, but not full producers.
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