Steve Albini is a rock producer most widely known for having produced Nirvana’s “In Utero.” The website for his studio, Electrical Audio, goes into impressive detail on the intricacies of the recording process.
This page on the Alcatraz room explains the benefits of a “dead” space and how to make one. There are diagrams, construction details, a 360 image, and more. It’s a great example of promoting by educating.
Clicking “membrane absorber” takes you to an even more in-depth page with hand-drawn diagrams:
There’s some great writing on the site too. Here’s a bit from the Control Room page.
The control room is designed to have minimal reflected energy, to provide uncolored sound from the loudspeakers. This type of listening environment is commonly called “once past the ears”, in acoustic geek circles, since the sound leaving the speakers goes once past the ears, then disappears. This provides accurate and even sound, which is great for studio monitoring, but not necessarily appropriate for dancing or making out. For these purposes we recommend the lounge or client offices.
Related: The Problem With Music is a famous rant about the economics of the music industry that Albini wrote years ago. It’s a bit dated now but there’s still plenty of meat there to chew on, especially the math breakdown at the end that reveals how a band can sell 250k records and still wind up broke.
The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never “recouped,” the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won’t have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.
There’s a lesson in the essay for anyone who’s counting on being “discovered” as their path to glory. When you pin your dreams on being lifted up by a major label (or, say, a VC if you’re a tech company), beware of the catch that often lurks in the fine print.
Daniel Holter
on 21 Jan 08What a GREAT point, comparing major labels to VCs… I wish more people in the music business understood that!
Often times, for both tech companies and bands, Majors/VCs have been needed to launch worldwide. But what an exciting time to be alive – launching worldwide is within anyone’s grasp if you have something worth talking about and utilize all of the tools available.
clifyt
on 21 Jan 08The only problem with his rant is that he bases it on the idea that musicians should do absolutely no negotiation beforehand, nor take any part in the marketing and direction of their product other than showing up and giving the label a product.
I’ve known way too many musicians willing to sell their soul for a contract…as if these aren’t a dime a dozen. Most of the successful musicians I’ve known have also been extremely interested in the business side of their product. I personally made far more as a minor / behind the scenes guy in the music industry than I ever have as a researcher / educator…I also had a great lawyer that didn’t work for the labels. I knew several other minor guys that were pulling in far more than majors. The majors I knew that made the most money in the industry are known as divas or jerks…but in real life are decent people with actual values and care about how people treat them. They speak up when their label rep wants to fly out to Aspen to catch a show to see ‘how things are going’ (i.e., a free vacation for said rep because it comes out of the artists pocket) and says Why Don’t You Just See The Show When We Hit LA. They’ve read the contracts (it isn’t like they are written in a foreign language) and know exactly what they are responsible for and what the label is.
I really get pissed when I see this rant shown as the reason the industry doesn’t work when it should be taken as a rant as to why musicians should understand it is called the music INDUSTRY for a reason.
beto
on 21 Jan 08As an enthusiast of high performance audio, I’m pleased to see you picking up on someone who knows the trade. One thing that irks me about the “everything for free” mentality that pervades the Internet is the severe underappreciation of the work that professionals like Albini and others like Steve Hoffman, Doug Sax and others have brought to the realm of recorded sound. In this age where it’s becoming so fashionable to “stick it to the man” and go the do-it-yourself route, given the technology and tools we have to our disposal today and the news of doom and gloom surrounding the music industry, I always wonder if the role of the recording engineer isn’t a career in jeopardy. Which for me is akin to someone ditching a graphic designer in favor of MS Publisher or the 13-year old nephew with Photoshop. You message will equally come across, but it won’t create the same impression on your end target.
Then again, I think that everything the music industry is blamed and guilty for these days has little to do with the art of recording in itself. I’m sure Mr. Albini is well aware of this. It will be interesting to see how the producer’s role redefines itself in an age where marketing-driven, megabuck pop acts will become the exception rather than the rule to follow.
sudara
on 21 Jan 08@beto
I mix my own music, give my music away and just dedicated a huge chunk of the last few months to launching a non-commercial web app for DIY musicians to freely host and deliver their music.
It is an interesting perspective to worry about the recording engineer’s job. Technology has moved fast- I now have the technical ability to create a recording that can compete with the best. Do I have the ears? Probably not. But my priority is getting my music out there. As labels and the ‘industry’ are not particularly helpful (unless you want to be an aggressive business person), bypassing the recording engineer becomes defacto truth. I don’t have $100/hr. I have only music that I want to make and share with others.
In my eyes, the recording engineer’s role will simply have to shift to accommodate ‘the new industry’ – after all, their paycheck comes (directly and/or indirectly) from the musician, and the average musician (NOT the top 5%, but the other 95%) is currently having a pretty tough time knowing who to turn to for work/support/contract/distribution at the moment.
Exciting!
Nick
on 21 Jan 08For me, starting a web app company is so the new “starting a band to get signed.” I used to chase that dream, and now I chase this new one. In reading Getting Real, did see some lessons that I could apply directly to music production. And it is possibly those mistakes that kept me from successes in the music business. And now I have gone back to music production with the “embracing constraints” and “less s more” philosophy, only using a few pieces of gear, and having fewer multi-tracks in the mix this time around. But the opportunity to self-promote and fill niches is so much better now.
Is taking VC for your web app company like getting singed to a major label in a bad deal? Possibly. I am reminded of Aaron Schwartz rant after Reddit was purchased and they moved him to the Wired office. I am thinking that we all do not want to be in that situation, just like we don’t want to be the band in Albini’s example.
Nathan Bowers
on 21 Jan 08I posted about this in my blog recently, citing the difference in results between 37signals’ “traditional” book and the self published Getting Real.
Music, books, and software no longer require large amounts of capital to produce and distribute. VCs, record labels, book publishers, and other gatekeepers are mostly obsolete, they just don’t know it yet.
I can think of a few cases where you’d need help from gatekeepers: you’re a capital intensive biotech startup, you’re a no talent singer or writer who needs a lot of marketing, you’re trying to make a blockbuster movie, or you’re a software company with no business model besides “get millions of eyeballs and then figure out a business model”.
Dave
on 21 Jan 08I feel that some posts miss the point on Steve Albini’s Problem with Music essay.
I don’t think he’s arguing against traditional methods of craft – recording in a studio, using an engineer, printing a book.
Instead, he’s arguing against leaving decisions to others.
DIY isn’t just opening GarageBand, making a song, and distributing it as an MP3. In fact, those, like Albini, dedicated to the craft of making quality recordings, might shun this approach. It’s just as DIY to research studios and find one that fits your band’s musical stylings. Even if you’re not doing the recording, you’ve made all the decisions and put up all the capital. You’re not indebted to anyone.
It’s paying middle-men to make decisions for you that The Problem with Music rants against. There’s nothing wrong with writing a book and finding a small craft letterpress publisher to make copies. The same way the audiophile musician winces at MP3 quality, an author who loves his work might bemoan PDFs.
steve albini
on 21 Jan 08As the owner of Electrical Audio, I’m enormously flattered to have our website noticed here. You’re very kind.
Regarding the essay, my point in writing it was to show how the institutionalized music business did not have the bands’ best interest as even a tertiary consideration. The music industry considers the bands raw material, like a bucket of sand, and does not care what happens to it in the process of generating income. In that light, most bands are better off on their own, where they have control of all the decisions that affect them and, more importantly, get to keep all the money.
I sometimes hear the criticism that bands can mitigate these effects through negotiation (I’ve read such criticism in comments here), but this ignores another point of the article, that the result of negotiation is a contract, and contracts provide no protection for the weaker/poorer party signatory to it.
Contractual protections are only enforceable by the application of money, lawyers, courts and time, and record companies have such an advantage in all these areas that they may simply ignore their obligations to bands, while stringently enforcing the bands’ obligations. Such a contract is essentially worthless to the band that signs it, but remains an important coercive tool for the record company. I’m sure you can see parallels in the software and web worlds, but the disparity was most obvious to me when watching my peers navigate the music scene.
So that’s it. A contract is meaningless unless you have the wherewithal to enforce it, and can endure the time (sometimes years) it takes a dispute to wind its way through the courts (during which time you will be earning nothing).
For this reason I don’t use contracts in any professional dealings, and I am convinced this is the best way to maintain transparent and amicable relationships.
That may be a more interesting topic for discussion than our studio, but thanks again for noticing our website. I’m sure it will tickle the fellow who designed it.
Gibbo
on 22 Jan 08That was a very well written article Steve, I’m going to link to it on my site today. As Dave commented above ” he’s arguing against leaving decisions to others” which is what it really comes down to. You DO leave a lot of decisions to others as they are expected to know more about these issues than you do. The problem then occurs when the “others” you’ve left the decisions to don’t have your best interest at heart. In the example given in Steve’s article, the Band’s manager should have been the one acting genuinely in the best interest of the band. Unfortunately this almost never happens through either inexperience, greed or neglect.
The internet is levelling the playing field to a large extent these days. Bands have many more alternatives than just getting signed to a record company. The recent Radiohead situation shows well what can be achieved when you are willing to accept a larger slice of a much smaller pie.
Record companies have been far too greedy for far too long and maybe it’s time for a bit of “karma” to kick in.
clifyt
on 22 Jan 08Steve—I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m just saying from a little guy’s perspective I’ve always been treated right by the labels.
OF COURSE they are going to ask for everything…and yes, when you are talking about something that is going to entail years and years of accounting, you need a contract.
From what I hear, you charge on a per project / hourly basis and that is it. I’ve done the same for some work and it has been hit or miss…on smaller projects where I believe in the project but know the artist can’t pay I HAVE to rely on royalties…for the label stuff…I try to go the hourly rate even if it is creative work simply because I can look at it as done and never think about it again (and my contacts know this is how I do things, so there isn’t a question…if they get too uppity, I never hear a word because my manager knows I’d rather be sitting in a lab doing research).
But again, I’ve know a LOT of musicians that have negotiated their contracts and had things taken care of before they signed and not a single problem. It is almost entirely the folks that sign the first damn thing in front of their face that have a problem…I know with my own company, the first contract I put in front of someone’s face is WAAAAY in my favor…I expect it will change once they read it and we have to negotiate. It isn’t greedy…it is business and I expect others that I deal with to treat a business as such.
Then again, I’m just a lowly peon and have always been…I’m not in the industry any more other than running a smallish soundware company and occasionally helping out friends or former co-workers (I guess this is what you call them) when they have something I’m actually interested in…all I know is that I made more money in my time in LA than I have the entire time in academia. Honestly, I find the fact that I make so little as a researcher and educating others kids to be far more problematic to society than musicians that can’t even find the time to read the document that is taking control of their creative soul for the next seven years…I have no pity for those illiterate through ambivalence out there.
—clif
J
on 22 Jan 08“I know with my own company, the first contract I put in front of someone’s face is WAAAAY in my favor…I expect it will change once they read it and we have to negotiate.”
Clifyt, do you not see that you’re exactly the aspect of the music industry that Albini was ranting about? When you submit that imbalanced contract, you know full well that the negotiations may make it more equitable but your intention is always for the end product to be more in your favor. Why should musicians even bother dealing with a situation where the deck is stacked against them?
steve albini
on 23 Jan 08Clifyt: You said, “and yes, when you are talking about something that is going to entail years and years of accounting, you need a contract.” No, honestly you don’t. My band doesn’t use contracts for anything and we do quite well. In addition, we spend nothing on lawyers, which is quite a savings.
clifyt
on 23 Jan 08Ok Steve, you have me beat. As I’ve said, I’ve always been a little guy in the industry and never anything else. The contracts I’ve ever signed have all simply been an articulation of what I needed and what the other guys needed. Always been fair for me. On my end, I’ve never had anyone sign something that wasn’t fair (even when I presented a contract to someone else and they were ready to sign without looking I MADE them negotiate…because there are things they want and things I want and it HAS to be equitable).
Maybe it is the state of law and misgivings from everyone that no one sees these as common sense. I’ve lost friends over businesses I’ve had on handshakes. I’ve also lost friends over contracts but it was written down as to what was expected.
Luckily for me, my current lawyer is a talented drummer up in Chitown and the only thing I ever have to do to repay him is to help with his writing or get his Logic Rig running smoothly. My point to all of this is that I’ve never been screwed, and the friends that understood the industry for what it is have never been screwed either (and they are much bigger than I’ll ever be…probably another reason I got out…I knew I’d never be anything but supporting cast for folks like them :-)
Nothing but respect for you and your work, but I’m just seeing another side of things…
- clif
This discussion is closed.