Why I Hate Recording - Steve Albini
Buzzmuscle
Steve Albini, published in The Baffler #5, an excellent journal of the arts
available from PO Box 378923 Chicago, IL 60637 ($16 for the next 4 issues)
Background: Probably most noted professionally for his recording work on
Nirvana's second LP "In Utero", Steve Albini has been a tireless advocate of
independent rock music and aesthetics for over a decade. His work as a
musician in the bands Big Black, Rapeman and the current Shellac are fine
analogues for his outlook as a recording engineer (on over 500 projects) and
as a writer; intense, arresting, controversial. The posting of this excerpt
on rec.audio.pro is meant to engender discussion about the role of producers
and engineers in today's professional climate.
Excerpt follows:
What I hate about recording
1. Producers and engineers who use meaningless words to make their clients
think they know what's going on. Words like "Punchy," "Warm," "Groove,"
"Vibe," "Feel." Especially "Punchy" and "Warm". Every time I hear those
words, I want to throttle somebody.
2. Producers who aren't also engineers, and as such, don't have the
slightest fucking idea what they're doing in the studio, besides taking all
the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to become a
producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get a job as an
assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second engineer. Learn the job
and become an engineer. Do that for a few years, then you can try your hand
at producing. Now, all that's required to be a full-fledged "producer" is
the gall it takes to claim to be one.
Calling people like Don Fleming, Al Jourgensen, Lee Renaldo or Jerry
Harrison "producers" in the traditional sense is akin to calling Bernie
(local rock dilettante - bmuscle) a "shortstop" because he watched the whole
playoffs this year.
The term has taken on perjorative qualities in some circles. Engineers tell
jokes about producers the way people back in Montana tell jokes about North
Dakotans. (How many producers does it take to change a light bulb? - Hmmm.
I don't know. What do *you* think? Why did the producer cross the road? -
Becaused that's the way the Beatles did it, man.) That's why few
self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called "producers."
The minimum skill required to do an adequate job recording an album are:
- Working knowledge of all the microphones at hand and their properties and
uses. I mean something beyond knowing that you can drop an SM57 without
breaking it.
- Experience with every piece of equipment which might be of use and every
function it may provide. This means more than knowing what en echo sounds
like. Which equalizer has the least phase shift in the neighbor bands?
Which console has more headroom? Which mastering deck has the cleanest
output electronics?
- Experience with the style of music at hand, to know when obvious blunders
are occurring.
- Ability to tune and maintain all the required instruments and electonics,
so as to insure that everything is in the proper working order. This means
more than plugging a guitar into a tuner. How should the drums be tuned to
simulate a rising note on the decay? A falling note? A consonant note? Can
a bassoon play a concert E-flat in key with a piano tuned to a reference A
of 440 Hz? What percentage of varispeed is necessary to make a whole-tone
pitch change? What degree of overbias gives you the most headroom at 10
KHz? What reference fluxivity gives you the lowest self-noise from biased,
unrecorded tape? Which tape manufacturer closes every year in July, causing
shortages of tape globally? What can be done for a shedding master tape? A
sticky one?
- Knowledge of electronic circuits to an extent that will allow selection
of appropriate signal paths. This means more than knowing the difference
between a delay line and an equalizer. Which has more headroom, a discrete
class A microphone preamp with a transformer output or a differential
circuit built with monolithics? Where is the best place in an unbalanced
line to attenuate the signal? If you short the cold leg of a differential
input into the ground, what happens to the signal level? What gain control
device has the least distortion, a VCA, a printed plastic pot, a
photoresistor, or a wire-wound stepped attenuator? Will putting an
unbalanced line on a half-normalled jack unbalance the normal signal path?
Will a transformer splitter load the input to a device parallel to it?
Which will have less RF noise, a shielded unbalanced line or a balanced line
with a floated shield?
- An aesthetic that is well-rooted and compatible with the music, and
- The good taste to know when to exercise it.
3. Trendy electronics and other flashy shit that nobody really needs. Five
years ago, everything everywhere was bing done with discrete samples. No
actual drumming allowed on most records. Samples only. The next trend was
Pultec Equalizers. Everything had to be run through Pultec EQs.
Then vintage microphones were all the rage (but only Neumanns, the most
annoyingly *whiny* microphone line ever made.) The current trendy thing is
*compression*. Compression by the ton, especially if it comes from a *tube*
limiter. Wow. It doesn't matter how awful the recording is, as long as it
goes through a tube limiter, somebody will claim that it sounds "warm" or
even "punchy". They might even compare it to the Beatles. I want to find
the guy that invented compression and tear his liver out. I hate it. It
makes everything sound like a beer commercial.
4. DAT machines. They sound like shit and every crappy studio has one now
because they're so cheap. Because the crappy enginners that inhabit crappy
studios are too thick to learn how to align and maintain analog mastering
decks, they're all using DAT machines exclusively. DAT tapes deteriorate
over time, and when they do, the information on them is lost forever. I
have personally seen tapes go irretreivably bad in less than a month. Using
them for final masters is almost fraudulently irresponsible.
Tape machines ought to be big and cumbersome and difficult to use, if only
to keep the riff-raff out. DAT machines make it possible for morons to make
a living, and do damage to the music we all have to listen to.
5. Trying to sound like the Beatles. Every record I hear these days has
incredibly loud, compressed vocals, and a quiet little murmur of a rock band
in the background. The excuse given by producers for inflicting such an
imbalance on a rock band is that it makes the record sound more like the
Beatles. Yeah, right. Fuck's sake, Thurston Moore is not Paul McCartney,
and nobody on earth, not with unlimited time and resources, could make the
Smashing Pumpkins sound like the Beatles. Trying just makes them seem even
dumber. Why can't people try to sound like the Smashchords or Metal Urbain
or Third World War for a change?
(excerpt ends)
Steve goes on to pin the tail on the major label donkey, citing some
extremely specific cases of standard music industry chicanery in talent
relations and accounting. All in all, a powerful statement from a rare
populist viewpoint. Kudos to the Baffler and let the ASCII fists fly...
--
Rob Warmowski DBA GoMedia Freelance multi- and cross-media production
Phone / Fax +1 312 808 1675 Internet: gom...@rci.ripco.com
Tonya Harding Fanclub : 4623 SE Oxboy Parkway Gresham, OR 97080 No, really.
Children/Seniors - $5 Adults - $15 Corporate - $25 Nike Shoes - $25,000
Mike McTigue
analog bias showing through again. DAT's sound bad? Buzzzzt!
They sound different (more true?) mainly since analog taping
*may* color the sound in a *pleasing* way. DAT's are unreliable?
Hey, it's new technology. It will get better. It sounds like
the biggest problem he has with DATs is that they bring near
studio sound to the everyday guy. Anyway, thought it was interesting
but he lost me with the DAT stuff.
MikeM
Alan R Hirshberg
engineering for over 11 years, made some very well respected albums, and
couldn't answer all of his technical knowledge requieerments...(did he
mention a good pair of ears?) I also don't think you need to be a first
rate engineer to be a first rate producer 9thank god you don't, or I'd be
out of a job) A working knowledge of the process and it's limitations is
pretty important but I would be happier if my producers knew more about
arrangements than circuits. I look at the relationship betwen producer
and engineer in records like the one between Director and Cinemetographer
in movies. One handles the larger artistic questions and is resposable
for pulling performances out of the tallent, the other handles the
technical requierments of capturing that performance, of framing it in
the best light possible.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: ar...@Kaiwan.Com ::
:: Alan R. Hirshberg ::
:: Just another audio engineer from L.A. ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Jay Kadis
there's a grain of truth. On the other hand, it's the engineer's job to
achieve the technical realization of the producer's warm and fuzzy ideas, so
the producer really need not know how to calibrate the electronics or know
which desk has the quietest output stage. If the producer knows what he wants
to hear, he need only be able to communicate that to the engineer.
Jay Kadis
j...@ccrma.stanford.edu
Bill Vermillion
Buzzmuscle <bmu...@rci.ripco.com> wrote:
>The following is an excerpt from the article "The Problem With Music" by
>Steve Albini, published in The Baffler #5, an excellent journal of the arts
>available from PO Box 378923 Chicago, IL 60637 ($16 for the next 4 issues)
I'm going to rebut some of Steve's comments based on personal contact
with producers, and having spent 10 years full-time (and many years
part time) as a studio engineer.
>Excerpt follows:
>2. Producers who aren't also engineers, and as such, don't have the
>slightest fucking idea what they're doing in the studio, besides taking all
>the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to become a
>producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get a job as an
>assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second engineer. Learn the job
>and become an engineer. Do that for a few years, then you can try your hand
>at producing. Now, all that's required to be a full-fledged "producer" is
>the gall it takes to claim to be one.
Originally producers and engineers were miles apart. The transition
came when company owned studios were being shunned by artists who
didn't like the rigidity of those studios. That also included such
things a 3-hour session and 8 hour days per union requirements of the
engineers.
That led to a lot of independant studios. Because of that, a lot of
the early rock was poorly recorded, IMO. All you have to do is
listen to some of the classic rock recordings of the late '50s and
the '60s to hear that. Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" and the
RCA Elvis Sessions show what happens when you have an engineer who
knows how to engineer. So many of the legendary rock stars of the
'60s' and early '70s are represented only in recordings that are
technically inferior because, it sounds to me, that the 'engineers'
were self-taught and didn't know a damn about audio.
There was the us vs them attitudes. The old line musicians and
engineers disliked the new stuff, and the new engineers/musicians
classifed the others as 'old fogies' who didn't know anything about
current music.
The problem then became that a lot of the skills and knowledge that
these good audio engineers were lost to the current generation.
I wonder what Jimi Hendrix would/could have sounded like had his
recording been cut in a studio that had wide range mikes, properly
aligned recorders, etc.
To be a good producer you should have knowledge of music, or at least
the 'ears' to tell what is commercial/good. This assumes a producer
is trying to make a product that sells. If you are trying to get the
best out of a group/artist, with commercial aspects set aside, then you
have to know what they are trying to achieve. Arists/groups are
notoriously bad self-producers as they get too close to the music. The
old 'cant see the forest because of the trees syndrome'.
>The term has taken on perjorative qualities in some circles. Engineers tell
>jokes about producers the way people back in Montana tell jokes about North
>Dakotans. (How many producers does it take to change a light bulb? - Hmmm.
>I don't know. What do *you* think? Why did the producer cross the road? -
>Becaused that's the way the Beatles did it, man.) That's why few
>self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called "producers."
Yup. There are some real turkey producers out there. For some of them
I think the above jokes would actually be a compliment. Too many fit
the "I don't know, what do *you* think" mold. But I've met and worked
with others who knew EXACTLY what they wanted to hear, no more, no
less. If you had 10 tracks still open on the 24-track - fine. The
song is done - finshed. While I've worked with others who find there
is still one open track and decide what they need to fill it. After
all, their reasoning seems to be, if we are paying for 24-tracks we are
damned well going to use them.
>The minimum skill required to do an adequate job recording an album are:
> - Working knowledge of all the microphones at hand and their properties and
>uses. I mean something beyond knowing that you can drop an SM57 without
>breaking it.
Yes for an engineer. No for a producer. And the knowledge that if you
have an SM57 in the studio, the first thing to do is take it and toss
it down the closest storm sewer you can find!
> - Experience with every piece of equipment which might be of use and every
>function it may provide. This means more than knowing what en echo sounds
>like. Which equalizer has the least phase shift in the neighbor bands?
>Which console has more headroom? Which mastering deck has the cleanest
>output electronics?
Yes for an engineer, not for a producer. The producer must be able to
articulate the sound he wants, but the engineer has to deliver it.
> - Experience with the style of music at hand, to know when obvious blunders
>are occurring.
Yes for the producer, nice but not nessesarily for the engineer.
> - Ability to tune and maintain all the required instruments and electonics,
>so as to insure that everything is in the proper working order. This means
>more than plugging a guitar into a tuner. How should the drums be tuned to
>simulate a rising note on the decay? A falling note? A consonant note? Can
>a bassoon play a concert E-flat in key with a piano tuned to a reference A
>of 440 Hz? What percentage of varispeed is necessary to make a whole-tone
>pitch change? What degree of overbias gives you the most headroom at 10
>KHz? What reference fluxivity gives you the lowest self-noise from biased,
>unrecorded tape? Which tape manufacturer closes every year in July, causing
>shortages of tape globally? What can be done for a shedding master tape? A
>sticky one?
OOH! A lot of things to comment on here.
In the studio we found that the diversity of equipment became so great
in the digital era that it became counter-productive to be able to
trouble shoot a lot of that equipment, particularly the more exotic
gear. We found it was more time and cost effective to put the
equipment in a box, Fed Ex it the factory for expidited repair, and
have it Fed Exed back. Pro audio manufacturers have no problems with
this. Bad repuations in the close knit recording industry can put a
company out of business quickly.
I could tune drums, guitar, and I have tuned a piano. But I couldn't
adjust the bridges/pickups on the guitar nor regulate the piano. I
knew people who were experts at that. You can't be an expert in
everything.
If you care at ALL about the music then you really don't know/care
about the vari-speed. Once you start changing the speeds all the
harmonics change and the character of the music changes. However, most
things will tolerate a 1 step change if you aren't exceptionally picky.
If any of you remember the original Emulator, the one with built in
sounds and a floppy for local sampling, you can appreciate this.
I did the string horn recording for this. We (producer and I) found
that the maximum we could change anything without losing all the
character was 2 steps. So we recorded the entire keyboard range in two
step increments from bass, viola, cello, violins. The sound of three
double basses playing solo in a room is an amazing sound!
There is more to tape alignment than knowing about most amount of
headroom at 10KHz, unless you are making an alignment tape :-)
The specs given on the tape sheets usually show a recommended bias
point. However if you note the fine print these are for a specified
tape gap on the recorder. If you don't match then you can't use the
chart. You need to optimize your alignment techniques for individual
machines. If you need headroom at 10KHz, then it's best to lower your
record levels. I always set my machines up for minimum modulation
noise, which >usually< falls very close to the manfacturers
recommendation on bias for >most< tapes. I find the noises
contributed by analog tapes that are not properly biased for minimum
modulation are more disturbing to me than having maximum output at
10Khz.
We never worried about what manufacturer closed in July. We always had
enough tape on hand to cover every/any eventuallity. On slowing
moving things like 2" Agfa 486, we did only keep about 1/2 dozen rolls.
On Scotch and Ampex there was usually enough to do about 3 major
sessions back to back. These are 2-3 week lockout. NEVER depend on
your supplier unless you have backups. We even had 2 complete sets of
heads for every drum size we had, and had them in black-dot,
pin-stripe, and coated. If you have more than a couple of people at
the studio some of this responsiblity lies upon the person designated
as studio manager. You have enough problems co-ordinating musicians
and recording to worry about the other logistics.
> - Knowledge of electronic circuits to an extent that will allow selection
>of appropriate signal paths. This means more than knowing the difference
>between a delay line and an equalizer. Which has more headroom, a discrete
>class A microphone preamp with a transformer output or a differential
>circuit built with monolithics? Where is the best place in an unbalanced
>line to attenuate the signal? If you short the cold leg of a differential
>input into the ground, what happens to the signal level? What gain control
>device has the least distortion, a VCA, a printed plastic pot, a
>photoresistor, or a wire-wound stepped attenuator? Will putting an
>unbalanced line on a half-normalled jack unbalance the normal signal path?
>Will a transformer splitter load the input to a device parallel to it?
>Which will have less RF noise, a shielded unbalanced line or a balanced line
>with a floated shield?
If an engineer doesn't know the basics he can never make full use of
the equipment. I agree with most of the above. However when talking
analog design the build quality can make a lot of difference. You
can't just pick transformer output vs differential unless you take into
consideration component quality and design. You do need to know your
specific equipment however.
> - An aesthetic that is well-rooted and compatible with the music, and
> - The good taste to know when to exercise it.
How true. I've met engineers and producers who wouldn't know good
taste if someone shoved it in their mouth.
>3. Trendy electronics and other flashy shit that nobody really needs. Five
>years ago, everything everywhere was bing done with discrete samples. No
>actual drumming allowed on most records. Samples only. The next trend was
>Pultec Equalizers. Everything had to be run through Pultec EQs.
We used Pultec EQ's back when you could afford them on the used
market. Not 5 years ago - but 15 to 20 years ago. Good things were
always good. Too often new trends seemed like the cure all. "Look -
we don't have to buy replacement tubes anymore - this solid state stuff
runs forever". Too often someone forgot to listen.
>Then vintage microphones were all the rage (but only Neumanns, the most
>annoyingly *whiny* microphone line ever made.) The current trendy thing is
>*compression*. Compression by the ton, especially if it comes from a *tube*
>limiter. Wow. It doesn't matter how awful the recording is, as long as it
>goes through a tube limiter, somebody will claim that it sounds "warm" or
>even "punchy". They might even compare it to the Beatles. I want to find
>the guy that invented compression and tear his liver out. I hate it. It
>makes everything sound like a beer commercial.
So HE doesn't like Neumann mikes. I personally like them. If his was
'whinny' I suspect it had a problem.
Compression is 'current'? Hell, you've never heard compression unless
you've listend to some of the pop stuff from the '50's and 60's!
(A sidelight here - in a still previous life I was a DJ and MD. There
was an old classic called "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen. When you
played it and set the VU for 0, it never fell below -2 for the entire
length of the recording"). I HATE compression.
>
>4. DAT machines. They sound like shit and every crappy studio has one now
>because they're so cheap. Because the crappy enginners that inhabit crappy
>studios are too thick to learn how to align and maintain analog mastering
>decks, they're all using DAT machines exclusively. DAT tapes deteriorate
>over time, and when they do, the information on them is lost forever. I
>have personally seen tapes go irretreivably bad in less than a month. Using
>them for final masters is almost fraudulently irresponsible.
How about the good engineers that inhabit the good studios?
Studio quality has come down since a lot of people want to have 'home
studios'. A DAT can sound as good as a $10,000 PLUS reel-reel, but
you have enough money left over to buy some mikes, a mixer and some
speakers. Cheap sounds cheap. I seemed to remember we had about
$8000 (in late '70s dollars) in our monitoring system BEFORE we added
the loudspeakers.
If people are having DATs' that deteriorate, then there is a good
possibility that they are doing the cheap thing there. Cheap studios
tend to do everything cheap. My friend who has a good studio locally
( 40 input fully automated SSL's aren't cheap) has excellent results
with the Ampex DAT tapes. But they are going to cost you. A good many
people are using the DAT tapes designed for computer backup. They have
shown to be more reliable.
We did some comparisons in his studio. Live piano to AKG C-24 to
Studer A-80 two-track at 30 ips (that was about $12k worth of analog)
to Sony 601 - about $1200, to modified (with Apogee filters) F1 - about
$3k, and the modified F-1 one.
Later we did the same with DAT vs analog vs modified F-1. The F-1
sound more musical, but the DAT was quieter. This was an older
panasonic, not the current 3700, which is really excellent.
have
>Tape machines ought to be big and cumbersome and difficult to use, if only
>to keep the riff-raff out. DAT machines make it possible for morons to make
>a living, and do damage to the music we all have to listen to.
But morons made hit records with cheap recorders in the past. Chips
Moman was fond of saying he could cut a hit on a Wollensak!
I've been around big tape machines. The intial alignment on our A-800
took me two 8 hour days. The factory said it was set up, but I don't
trust ANYONE (well I trust Andy who has the SLL mentioned above, and he
trusts me - mutual trust after observing each other work - but we still
both CHECK the system even after the other aligned it.
If you want to keep the riff-raff out, you don't have to make machines
big and cumbersome to use. Just price them the same as analog.
That means a good DAT should be about $15,000. I like equipment that
is easy to use. Cumbersome and hard means that you spend more time in
operation of the equipment and less time paying attention to what you
are recording. Or if you pay equal time, the sessions gets very long
and expensive.
I loved the auto-locate when we got our JH-16 (boys does that date me).
Prior to that when we needed to get back to the start, we'd mark the
tape with white grease pencil and then rewind to that mark. Then when
it was time to do the overdub, we'd jump up to the recorder, move the
lever from sync to record, and then at the right instant, turn the
knob to record. In those days most designers of tape recorders kept
the record line high, so that if one channel was in record, if you
brought another set of electronics into record, you were in record NOW!
The ability to auto-locate and pre-set so you could do real punchins
was marvelous. If Steve wants to see 'cumbersome' he should do a
session on a 16-track Ampex MM-1000. Thank GOD I never had to do that.
>5. Trying to sound like the Beatles. Every record I hear these days has
>incredibly loud, compressed vocals, and a quiet little murmur of a rock band
>in the background. The excuse given by producers for inflicting such an
>imbalance on a rock band is that it makes the record sound more like the
>Beatles. Yeah, right. Fuck's sake, Thurston Moore is not Paul McCartney,
>and nobody on earth, not with unlimited time and resources, could make the
>Smashing Pumpkins sound like the Beatles. Trying just makes them seem even
>dumber. Why can't people try to sound like the Smashchords or Metal Urbain
>or Third World War for a change?
Or - now this may be an unpermissable statement in the music busines -
how about having the group sound like themselves!!!!!!!!!
This 'copycat' syndrome has been with us forever in all venues of the
entertainment industry. Make a hit movie, and there are all sorts of
variants on that. How many movies start with the first word of their
title "FATAL". Girl singers were taboo in early rock days. Connie
Francis has a hit, and all of a sudden there were more rock singers
than you could name. A true orignal comes along, is a hit, and that
starts a trend. It's hard to be original, and easy to be a copycat.
One problem is that since the music industry has become reall BIG BUCK$
is that companies don't/can't experiment (take chances) on things that
are unproven. The music industry is bottom line oriented and there
are few 'music men' in contol of the industry. At one time only
'music men' ran the industry - the some accountant found ways to make
more money.
It's not uncommon for musicians to get multi-million dollar contracts,
but I remember when Warner Brother bought Atlantic/Atco. Seven million
dollars. Hell, we've got a couple of basketball players in Orlando
that have contracts worth more than that.
Copy cats will always be there as long as the goal is to make money.
Speaking of the Beatles. The only time I've royally screwed up in
the studio was when I was intimidate/in-awe-of/nervous working with
George Martin mixing a simple audio track to be played on location for
sync at a film shoot. Here he was - THE producer of the BEATLES. I
left off the sync track on one mix - Nagra's don't like that :-(
>(excerpt ends)
>Steve goes on to pin the tail on the major label donkey, citing some
>extremely specific cases of standard music industry chicanery in talent
>relations and accounting. All in all, a powerful statement from a rare
>populist viewpoint. Kudos to the Baffler and let the ASCII fists fly...
This is just one of many articles and books criticizing the business.
If you really want so get an idea of how bad it is/was read "Hit Men" -
the story of the promotion business in the music industry during the
'80s, and how Columbia literally screwed Sony when they sold them CBS
records.
And then read "Stiffed - a true story of MCA, the Music Buisiness, and
the Mafia".
I've known people who are/were mentioned in both books. Deep down with
some companies, it can be a pretty dirty business. The record
industry, taken as a manufacturing/distribution business, needs the
recording industry - the creative side - for their product. However
the record industry doesn't control it all the way it used too.
It's no longer music producers looking for musicians, but lawyers
talking to lawyers, and the music suffers.
(Hm. this turned out to be another of my 'lengthy' posting, but I
though I should offer a counter view. As bad as it is, the music
industry surely beats working for a living :-) ).
--
Bill Vermillion - bi...@bilver.oau.org | bill.ve...@oau.org
U10...@uicvm.uic.edu
opinions for several reasons. One, besides Rob, I'm probably the only
person active in the Chicago underground music arena who reads this
forum regularly. Second, I am an acquaintance of Steve. Third, I'm
a sometime engineer. Here's my take on what Steve says:
1) Steve's wrong about DAT. Period. I think it's truly
hilarious that Steve bitches about DAT and then bitches about how
much he hates compression. The main sonic difference between DAT
and the good analog forms is compression. If he prefers analog, then
he should just say so, instead of dismissing the more accurate format.
2) Steve has a pretty good point about producers.
3) This wasn't mentioned in the excerpt Rob posted , but it
concerns Steve so I'll mention it anyway. It isn't ethical for an
engineer to record a band and then bitch about personal things
concerning band members in national magazines. When Steve was
quoted in Musician as saying that recording Nirvana was hellish
because of Kurt Cobain's " Psycho Hosebag wife" it really
made me sick. An engineer is present at some of the most stressfull
moments in a musician's carreer. He has an obligation , as a doctor
or attorney do, to keep things to himself, or at least not resort
to name calling in the national press.
4. It's my personal opinion that Steve was able to catapult
himself into the position of a big time engineer for two reasons.
First, his outspoken "punk rock" stance appeals to many. Witness
Steve's recent statements that the new Nirvana record sounds like
shit because Bob Ludwig fucked it up at the mastering stage. Right.
People who read Musician might buy that but it won't wash here. People
who participate in Rec.audio.pro are familiar with Ludwig's work
and they can figure out where the real screw ups occured. Second,
I feel that many bands wanted to capture the devastating sound of
Steve's band Big Black. Too bad the classic Big Black records weren't
engineered by Steve, but by Iain Burgess,. Iain has the best ears
of any engineer I ever worked with, and if there were any justice
he would have gotten that Nirvana job.
Anyway , that's my couple cents , I'm sure I'll gethell for it.
Brendan Burke
University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Mathematics
George Massenburg
My mind is, as they say, ablaze with reactions to Steve's notes...
I wish I could hear the conversation between him and Niko Bolas before
I die...
Sure, the music business sucks. But have you ever had to deal with the
cretins in the movie business? They VENERATE incompetence and
easily make music businesspeople sound like geniuses and look like
Father and Mother Teresas...
Although my passion is getting lost in the art of engineering, I chose to
produce because there are so few acceptable producers to work with,
and very few good ones. Peter Asher is a very good producer. Maurice
White is easily disposable as a man, a musician, and as a producer.
Incidentally, even though Peter Asher is not an engineer per se, he has
taken alot of time over many years to know a great deal about the details
of it all, and one always has the feeling that he should be listened to.
Good music production is so often confused with the kind of auteurism
found in single-vision cinematic production, it's no wonder that it is
assumed producers are responsible for everything having to do with
sound and music; the role embraces fools like Rick Ruben.
So I've done everything on Steve's list (at least part of a BSEE, built my
own studios, wrote, arranged, and played music, and made chumps
look good for years...) plus virtually everything else in the business
(mastered hundreds of 'albums', ran Finebilt and Fabel record presses,
learned graphics arts and process photography, printed lables and
jackets on offset presses good and bad, and built or rebuilt every piece
of equipment in the recording chain). I've been doing it for 31 years. I
work really, really hard at it. I still make lousy records; sometimes I make
O.K. records. Record critics (how did they get off so easy in Steve's
piece?) are the last ones to know.
In the end, my friend Bruce Swedien's maxim holds: the only rule is that
there are no rules...
David Alan Forsyth
>From: bmu...@rci.ripco.com (Buzzmuscle)
>Subject: Why I Hate Recording - Steve Albini
>Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 07:46:56 GMT
>The following is an excerpt from the article "The Problem With Music" by
>Steve Albini, published in The Baffler #5, an excellent journal of the arts
>available from PO Box 378923 Chicago, IL 60637 ($16 for the next 4 issues)
>
I AGREE with all that Steve says. Many of those questions I cannot answer
now but I will find out as soon as... being just an amateur myself I'll
probably never even see a genuine SM57 on my budget but I'll keep reading
an' learning an' hoping...
Dave
Alan R Hirshberg
: In the end, my friend Bruce Swedien's maxim holds: the only rule is that
: there are no rules...
Well, that just about says it all, doesn't it.
The minute I think I know all there is about engineering, about doing it
"right," I might as well become an accoutant. BTW, I've produced a few
albums myself and have gone back to just eingieering...it's so much more
fun!
P.S. to George: That new compressor is simply wonderful!!
Matt Carpenter
In article <gmlCL7...@netcom.com>,
George Massenburg <g...@netcom.com> wrote:
>I chose to produce because there are so few acceptable producers to work
>with, and very few good ones.
When I first apprenticed myself to this line of work, I always assumed a
sort of esoteric knowledge on the part of producers, some mythical gift
that made their opinions worth the reputations which preceded them. I'm
still waiting to encounter this. Having spent some time in the background
at major sessions, I've seen producers with the most philistine aesthetic
sense, making decisions that are just flat out dumb, whose work goes on to
sell millions of units. It seems that the business of becoming a
producer, a lot of the time, is just a matter of networking and attitude.
I'm still sort of hoping that the producers I've worked with so
far are exceptions to the rule. Any chance of that being the case?
>I still make lousy records; sometimes I make
>O.K. records.
I'm not sure I've ever heard a more modest comment.
-Matt
--
| Matt Carpenter |
| Philosopher, Recording Engineer |
| Sony Music Studios, New York City |
| (212) 399-7122 |
Bill Vermillion
>
>In article <gmlCL7...@netcom.com>,
>George Massenburg <g...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>I chose to produce because there are so few acceptable producers to work
>>with, and very few good ones.
>When I first apprenticed myself to this line of work, I always assumed a
>sort of esoteric knowledge on the part of producers, some mythical gift
>that made their opinions worth the reputations which preceded them. I'm
>still waiting to encounter this. Having spent some time in the background
>at major sessions, I've seen producers with the most philistine aesthetic
>sense, making decisions that are just flat out dumb, whose work goes on to
>sell millions of units. It seems that the business of becoming a
>producer, a lot of the time, is just a matter of networking and attitude.
Or they just know someone, or have something on someone :-)
> I'm still sort of hoping that the producers I've worked with so
>far are exceptions to the rule. Any chance of that being the case?
From what I've seen, no - that's not the case - at least in pop
music.
I have worked with two that knew exactly what they wanted. One
has had a few hits, but loses his groups to 'the big name
producers' after he cuts them.
His name is Tom Alom, and is quite talented, IMO.
He started as a 'tea boy' in the English studios. The first
thing he really engineered turned into a hit - "Smoke on the
Water".
He did two things in our studio back to back - Judas Priest
"Screamin' for Vengeance" and Krokus "Head Hunter".
We were doing another group in the studio when he got a call
from England. He had taken an unknown group into the studio,
and cut 10 tracks one day, and did the 11th and final track the
next. Had the entire project cut and mixed in about 2 weeks.
The phone call was to tell him that it debuted on the English
charts at #17. The group was "Def Leppard". Since he wasn't
well connected politically someone else got their next
producing job.
Tom had something that seems to be lacking in many producer,
and that is good taste, and the sense to leave well enough
alone, and not produced something to death just because there
were track left over.
The other is Larry Blackmon. He is
leader/arranger/writer/producer/musician with a group called
Cameo.
He knew EXACTLY the sound he was hunting for on each and every
selection. Sometimes is was a bit hard to translate his
description into audio, but I did it.
We had a 24 track 15 ips dolby master - and every track was
crammed full. Sometimes there could 3 or 4 different types of
overdubs on each track - other than the basic tracks.
That would mean 3 or 4 completely different EQ/comp/aux setting
for each of those tracks. On one cut, that ran about 9
minutes, we mixed it in 7 separate sections and then cut the
pieces together. We had masking tape all over the console
marking the position of the fader at the end of the first
section of the mix so we could start with the right levels.
I had a pair of tape machines doing echo and slap, and so much
outboard processing gear that I used up virtually all the patch
cords in the studio - had all 40 inputs used on the console.
But, as I said, Larry knew exactly the sound and the mix he
wanted. We started at 10am on a Monday morning, and at 7pm
the following Friday it had been mixed, edited, sequenced and
in the can. Total of 35 hours from start to finsh.
Challenging, fun, and one of the easiest sessions I ever did.
A couple of months later is was #1 on the Billboard 'Soul'
charts.
But I believe these are the exceptions. The absolute best
person I ever worked with in the studio on a tracking session
was Gladys Knight. I've never met a more professional person
in the studio. But 25 years of studio work - at that time -
helped a lot.
Other than that most of the pop producers I've worked with
don't seem to have a general plan. I've met, but not worked
with, others who seem to have a magic touch however. Probably
because they can tell the talented musicians from the
untalented and have enough clout to pick and choose.
>>I still make lousy records; sometimes I make
>>O.K. records.
>I'm not sure I've ever heard a more modest comment.
Modesty is not a trait you find often in the music business.
Insecurity is.