I found an interesting article online written by Steve Albini called "The Problem with the Music Industry." Although it's written from a fairly opinionated and bitter point of view, it is a worthy read.
[url=(dead link removed)[/url]
There's a paragraph where he rifles off 20 or 30 questions about recording knowledge, a pretty ego-deflating quiz, but it helped me realize that I have A LOT to learn before I can consider myself a truly skilled engineer. If anyone needs their head size decreased, or justified for that matter, this article may do the trick. Informative and entertaining at the very least.
Comments
Well I certainly don't consider myself as skilled or as exper
Well
I certainly don't consider myself as skilled or as experienced as Mr. Albini, but I noticed a sour accent in his 20 question game about experience: I think each of us so called "engineers" knows particular areas of a so wide and vast skill set like music engineering, and thus needs years and years of constant practice and dedicated work to master a reasonable amount of it, still, I think that getting to know "everything" isn't possible; Mr. Albini poses a lot of questions about things that belong to his personal experience (though most of them are mandatory skills for an engineer), most pertaining to the analog world o recording; what if we shift the focus on subjects like DAWs, drives cache size, IRQ assignments, PCI bus speeds, CPU optimizing for Audio tasks, OSX or Win XP management, Pro Audio Software knowledge etc.., I'm sure an engineer of Mr. Albini's caliber has the necessary knowledge to work everything out, but I want to stress the point that IMO nobody in an entire life will have the ability to "know it all", so I think one shouldn't be ashamed to have areas he/she doesn't know, but a willingness to learn the most; The best engineers I worked with and learned from were the least ego-boosted (about their knowledge) people that brought me to a higher level without me even knowing it.
Cheers
L.G.
This was a very good read for me, as my daughter's band is ripe
This was a very good read for me, as my daughter's band is ripe for being approached by an A&R guy.
We are in Sacramento, and they have already been contacted by some radio station in Phoenix who got one of their CDs and is interested in promoting them.
I especially found value in the warning about signing the deal memo.
This is all common knowledge if you've been following the music
This is all common knowledge if you've been following the music industry at all... BUT a very good reminder for naive young bands with skill and no brains. Don't sign s*** until you know you're going to make good money off it, not just a little bit.
As an amateur engineer and musician, I have always believed in fighting for the right of the musician, the creators of the material the labels and reps are making their money off of.
My hat goes off to the VERY few bands, like Tool, Dredg, and Courtney Love who have fought and given up lots for their right to make music THEIR way.
Tool especially. They told their producer to f*** off when they finished Undertow and he wanted to cut parts out to make the songs "radio" playable. Tool gave up a bunch of money on their contract to keep complete creative control over their music, and they picked their label from the hord of labels after them due to the fact that the label would let them do that. Wish all bands had that option, guess it takes a special underground movement behind the band to make it happen.
Originally posted by Breezes: Tool especially. They told the
Originally posted by Breezes:
Tool especially. They told their producer to f*** off when they finished Undertow and he wanted to cut parts out to make the songs "radio" playable.
Silvia Massey, thr producer/engineer who discovered Tool in a club is a woman an a GREAT engineer/producer. I can't imagine that scenario with her.
That article is required reading whenever I get a 'gotta get sig
That article is required reading whenever I get a 'gotta get signed' baby band in the room. Actually, most of the bands like to browse Fletcher's website. it's quite fun. I particularly like the 'Realities Of Life' gear picture.
Cheers,
ejm