To anyone thinking of getting into mountains of debt to attend a recording school I'd highly recommend, instead, that you start building up a small recording studio of your own. It will be much cheaper than student debt and you'll learn ten times more, ten times faster.
not agree. Starting with education will give you a good "basic approach" to start off. I'd recommend joining a music school, then build a career by opening up your own studio. As a proverb says: " School gives you the ability to walk...Masterclasses will make you learn how to run!"
@@Jessie88ITA That nice proverb left out the part where you spend decades paying off monumental debt. Especially in this modern era of online learning, it is absolutely not necessary to attend a school.
@@conorm2524 am totally disagree...It's an investment in your future career....If you don't have the money, that's another thing, but learning everything by yourself won't give you the right background to make you run a recording studio. I m running my own for over 3 year, but i have attended 1 year of school...Have used all money saved in my whole life, but if you wanna do it, that's the only solution (to me) ;)
If you find Steve boring, tedious, etc., I´m afraid that is your loss, folks. The guy is a damn encyclopedia of recording (at least for rock music). I can listen to this guy ´til the day I die. He is not shy to share 35 years of his experience for free, and much of his knowledge applies a lot to the modern "project studio" approach. So, if you´re on a budget, starting out, or as he points out, you don´t want to get into a huge debt with a recording school, you might pay some attention to him. He might not be hip or flamboyant, but damn he knows his shit.
Who the hell finds Steve boring? I could listen to him talk for hours about anything, and indeed I have... I'm not even into production or anything, I just like listening to him. This guy is crazy smart and admirably principled.
@@rockboy360 damn, and I was just going through a period where I was revisiting Albini's work, listening to his interviews, etc. And this happens? R.I.P. He was a great artist, producer, and extremely influential. Always steadfast in his commitment to his craft
0:21 - Have you got any tips on separating two similar sounding electric guitars in a mix? 7:22 - Could you recreate your signature drum sound if you had to work in a basic project studio and how? What if you had to work with samples? 15:10 - What do you think about recording schools? What is the best way for a young engineer to become an assistant to somebody great like you? P.S. Some of the records you have engineered are the ones that inspired me as a musician and mixing engineer. 23:29 - Please talk about the Ghost's first album. I love that record. Such an amazing sound on each instrument. Full, warm and sparkly at the same time. How did you do it? 24:40 - What do you feel the future of recordings holds for us? Do you think the sampling era is coming to end basically, and some sort of classical instruments renaissance is on its way back, even speaking of dance music? 30:41 - What bands are you listening to right now? What's your favorite band of all time and why is it the Ramones? 33:17 - Please describe a few in-session discoveries that immediately influenced and impacted your future recordings. Why do you think much of the community is disproportionately focused on their tools rather than their ability to make a record with them? 39:00 - My college professor at Ohio University showed us a technique you developed for mic'ing the kit, dubbed the "crotch mic". How did you develop this technique? 40:58 - Hi Steve, I love the records you've done. When you are mixing, are you thinking about how the mastering process will affect the final product? Thanks a lot. 45:23 - As an avid user of 2" tape on my MCI JH24, I often wonder if I am approaching my tracking too conservatively and leaving myself more work come mix time. Question: How much EQ and compression will you do on the way in? When combining multiple mics on sources, say kicks and snares for example, are you "treating" each track individually and then "treating" the source to track as well on a sub group prior to hitting tape?
Honest to god, you can see in his face how he's considering responding to a question, and then he says the MOST intelligent, kind, thoughtful, encompassing response to every question he's asked. He's a living example of how to be, like, a PERSON.
Cheers to Steve for knowing and pointing out the situation we have when it comes to for-profit schooling that has promises to provide a magical education but also cost extraordinary amounts of money, indebting either the student or the populous.
I don't know if you people are watching the same interview I am, or maybe your grasp of the English language is weak. I thought Steve answered very thoughtfully, and even provided examples of what he was talking about. I think is was thorough and has a breadth of knowledge which he very graciously is obviously taking the time to share with the viewers. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done these sessions to begin with, and more than once.
The segment on “recording schools” hits home for many others I’m sure, in different vocations. For me, I could replace recording school with “culinary school”.
For people who don't get what he means about durability of tape, he means that analog tape will be compatible with any tape machine. With digital, if you have a session that was done in cubase, for example, and 20 years from now you want to revisit that session, you would need to have a computer that has a version of cubase on it that will open that project file, you need to make sure that you have your stupid elicenser, and all the proper plugins, etc. If Steinberg is out of business by then and no longer supports Cubase, then you would be out of luck trying to reopen that project. I don't necessarily agree with this notion because you could just save the stems of the project as universal music formats like .WAV. Its hard to imagine a future where nobody can play back WAV files. Even if WAV files become obsolete, they are so common that you will at least be able to find some sort of tool to play them back , similar to tape machines. Although if you want to keep all the session information like plugins and processing, you're stuck with the whole digital issue above.
I agree 100%. In fact, I'm giving some thought to saving out individual tracks on all of my projects from now on in WAV format, because then it won't matter what DAW I used. The idea that digital is bad as a storage format because a CD or SSD might not be readable in the future does not take into account the fact that you can make as many copies as many places as you want, and they'll all be identical to the original. I think the idea of archiving on analog tape is pretty funny, actually, in 2019. But I think Steve is a genius and just because I don't agree with him on this one thing doesn't mean he isn't right about all the other stuff in this video. Brilliant dude.
Yea I think I at least mostly understand his point of view... but I think it’s pretty skewed to his domain. To argue that a physical reel of tape that would have to be doubled to another reel and stored in another location to survive damage including fire, theft, freak accidents, etc. vs. digital files that can be transferred and backed up far more seamlessly to various drives for much cheaper, the cloud, etc. is a pretty sad argument... digital audio will clearly last infinitely longer than tape in the grand scheme of things (of course that’s to say nothing of their aesthetic sonic qualities)
R.I.P! Dear Thor, what a Super Geek and Super Genius! Always been a huge fan, but here he lays it bare. A true treasure. A genius and a HUGE inspiration.!❤❤❤
On the third question, Steve leaves out the word 'great' because he doesn't want to refer to himself as such. Modesty is rare in the music industry, and is another reason why he IS great.
+Bob Sell This guy is a moron. He can't answer the questions. He starts with excuses. Then side steps the question with responses that doesn't answer the question. As far as the guitar question goes, just EQ them differently. Have one with the highs dipped out and the other with the lows dipped out or a variation of EQ differentiation. pan them hard left and right then use a delay to widen them even further.
+Fontana that moron has respect, you dont, thats why he did some of the best records on history of mankind and you meanwhile calle him a moron from your keyboard... so... there you go
***** He didn't "Own" me I just dropped it. Arguing over this is retarded. Unlike the 99% who watched this I'm an actual professional, day by day, pays the bills, musician. I know what I know. And I don't care what this guy has done professionally. His teaching skills suck. That's all I'm saying.
I am by no means an analog purist. I love me some compression. I don't necisarily aim for "narturalistic" as a matter of course like Albini.. I barely agree with much of his philosophy on recording. but I could listen to that guy talk about calibrating tape machines or setting up microphones all day.
Yes or no question Steve. Do you like music? Steve: "Well, in my experience.........( one hour later)....short answer, yes. I could listen to Steve Albini and Rupert Neve talk all damn day.
Drum machines are great. You dont have to feed them. They dont talk back. If they screw up, its because YOU screwed it. Theyre an absolute god-send imo!
I couldn't agree more with regards to Recording Schools being nothing but a way to make money and put passionate people in dangerous debts... I had my taste of it. Once I managed to become a studio assistant (NOT BECAUSE OF MY SCHOOL DEGREE, DIDN'T GET ANY HELP TO FIND A JOB IN THE INDUSTRY FROM SCHOOL), I took the "old path" during which I learned 100 times more (under every aspect, from technical to personal interaction with musicians). Steve you're such an inspiration. I do respect you in every possible way: your work and human ethic comes from another world, a better place indeed.
That's a weird outlook on digital. Anybody can save off stems to archive tracks independent to how they were mixed. And amalog tape IS NOT everlasting. It is reasonable to assume a simple WAV will outlast a physical tape. That said, love your work and your POV. Thanks!
As both a drummer and an engineer I know that the top drum head is all feel and the bottom drum head is all tuning. Although there is a direct relationship between top and bottom head in reference to drum resonance, I find great success in placing mics on both top, bottom, and even internally from time to time. 95% of drummers I meet have no idea how to even tune a drum kit or why they do the things they do with a drum key. The same can be said for many engineers when recording drum kits. I think Steve hit the nail on the head all the way
Best thing about Steve is he always dresses like he's waiting for the lift to get fixed so he can swap out that radiator, top up your fluids and change the oil.
Steve Albini is one of the people I look up to in the industry. Intelligent, dedicated, honest and trustworthy. Plus he captures great sounding recordings. Thanks for doing this interview.
My old roommate went to college to be an engineer / producer. When he got there they were RIGHT in the middle of switching from OTB to ITB setup. He got barely any knowledge because of it. Dropped out,, and was left with a pile of debt he’s currently working his ass off at a factory to pay. I dropped out of high school, sat and watched RU-vid, videos like this, behind the scenes of my fav bands, etc. I now have my own production company with zero debt. I do lack a lot of “fundamentals” but the hands on trial and error really gave me my own sound, and drove me harder than any school could have with my interests and such.
Such a great outlook! have been thinking about this a lot myself recently. I've been trudging through hours upon hours upon hours of youtube tutorials and experimenting with every single free plugin I can get my hands on. I've been referencing some pro tracks and honestly -I'd say I'm almost there. I can kinda sorts compete -But, it's different... Haha! It's a different thing -My own thing. I'm not using a lot of compression. I'm not even using simple multiband compression or a lot of plugins and it's a much less layered sound, I would say... have been thinking that I might need an apprenticeship somewhere or to pay for a program or something... Meh...!
I say it all the time. I've never been unable to restore an analogue tape even from the early 60s, but have had many digital projects from even a few years ago that are considered "lost" simply because the archive medium was corrupt. If you want to store your stuff only on digital, go ahead, but I recommend a triple redundancy across at least two different kinds of media. I always have an analogue backup copy of important projects, even if they originated digitally. I've been saved by analogue copies too many times.
Good on Steve Albini for calling out for-profit universities, colleges, and schools! Go to real schools, kids! It's the only way to get a real education and a real job!
Steve: you're straw-manning the argument against tape. The master tape can burn in a warehouse fire (ie, the Universal Studio fire) 10,000 copies of the WAV in the cloud won't.
Steve is smarter than all of us. He nailed it on the head with higher education, those loans kill creativity for musicians, for profit schools are crap
Acoustic treatment has helped my small space, 10.5 ft x 11.5 ft x 8 ft. become a place with an ability to have a decent room sound for acoustic guitar and vocal recording. I also built several Gobo panels that can be arranged for extra isolation. But it's a one person, two at most kind of space. Obviously, it's not a place to record drums, so I program them and part out the drum tracks to a real drummer who tracks in his own studio. There are a lot of ways to do the small space work area. For me, it's just working working working in it in order to get familiar with the limits. Getting to know my monitors and mic setup possibilities is the key for me. And the integral part of knowing my monitors tell me "the Truth" was, first off, room treatment (rockwool. fiberglass in corners, parallel places, cloud on ceiling) It's encouraging to realize our small spaces can be a "good" limitation since it's all that's in the budget for the near future. Thanks for the encouragement!
@@rrrafiel There are much more chances for digital multitracks as properly stored dry tracks and stems will survive with perfect sound without generation losses. Queen did this already. The only thing you need is backup in time and Universal 2008 dumpster fire won't repeat.
For those of us who came up listening to Big Black, there's awesome irony in Albini being associated w/a signature "drum sound"...props to him for giving Mac McNeilly due credit. Great interview.
I stumbled on this guy Steve on the RU-vids. I can't believe I've never heard of him before. Anyway, he's quite boring but the whole mechanic, shop attire won me over and I've watched 10 long videos in a row now.
Excellent caveat on for-profit trade schools. I've worked for a couple of them; also at University of California. Start with an internship at a studio. Start by learning to make tea, coffee, and efficient ways to clean the lavatory, organize cable, answer phones professionally, dusting (no wet mops), so food runs, and be reliable which includes being on time.
33:38 Its the commercialization of the music business and Gear acquisition Syndrome. people confuse progress with money spent and struggle to find information.
Perfect example of his golden touch on the Helmet album In The Meantime. The 1st track is done by him and stands out so much compared to the other tracks on the rest of the album which were not produced by him.
Your mixes would probably cause him the same effect. This is golden Man, too much knowledge for just one hour, and the thing is not always sound, this man is talking bigger things here, anyway...
he's cool. but too steeped in the religion of punk. he's never made a record as good as anything Radiohead did after 1996. you can hate the sound of Def Leopard and love the sound of GOOD sculpted music.
Hi. :) Please, let us pray together. Dear God who art in heaven, hallow be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.
21:15 Holy cow you nailed it here. Education IS the new commodity without any question. People are so easily beguiled and want to know that all they have to do is lay down $80,000 to get an $80,000 (or more) a year job. Easy peasy right? Not reality folks and there is an entire industry Federally designed to separate you from your money for a product that may or may not have any value commensurate with the financial cost involved. Steve, you are brilliant in many ways. And well spoken.
Albini is wrong. Higher education in America has always been a private industry. But they were cheaper and affordable until the government and therefore the tax payer got involved and started backing student loans. Student loans need to go back to private banks so the banks can make an assessment of whether you should get a loan or not. The reason these schools charge so much money for tuition is because they can because they will get the money guaranteed by the government therefore you paying taxes.
Any time I don't like something in my mixes, and I tell my producer, he just tells me "Don't worry, we'll fix it in mastering"... sometimes he's right, sometimes he's not.
good mix of philosophy and technical advice in all of steve alibini's videos/interviews, even if they don't quite align with or challenge my own beliefs. its good stuff.
Tune and capo up. I do that all the time. I keep my acoustics in E flat and capo to E and it gives such a different color when I'm camp firing or whatever. I don't get a change to record often but he has an excellent point.
I'm not nuts about his musical aesthetic but I could listen to this guy talk about production all day long. This stuff is gold if you're really interested in learning how to do it.
this is good stuff, however the question is how can bedroom producers ever get into people that have the analog gear and skills to use it....producers with no ego, and good intentions..
its all about working up to it. Warm Audio has some really great high quality hardware equipment thats SUPER affordable. A lot of companies out there right are realizing there is a market for affordable hardware studio gear, for guys at home who don't have $3,000 to blow on a tube compressor. but of course it takes time to build up the finances to being able to afford it, no matter the cost. in terms of skill, it just takes time as well, knowing how to set stuff up, and how to manipulate it. the nice thing about gear, no matter if its hardware or virtual, its that generally speaking something like a compressor is founded on the same principles no matter what, and works the same way. and nowadays, there are so many videos sponsored by programs like this, and Sound on Sound, and guys like Bobby Owsinski that you can obtain a lot of useful information from all around the internet.
I wish more folks had asked questions about all-analog recording and the value + limitations of recording the way he does. As a self-recording artist that loves Steve's work, I have no option but to record digitally. I only hope I can get some material worthy of working with Steve.
Jay Toomuchhustle I think his bottom line with analog is archiving multitrack masters to tape for the permanence aspect, but I’d bet the rest of his reliance on analog outboard gear is down to service/repair convenience. Any competent electrician/tech can fix (or even design and build) an old-school compressor or tube mic preamp, but even digital outboard gear can have microprocessors that were programmed at the factory or basic operating systems on built-in rotary card drives, and are essentially bricked when these sorts of things break out of warranty. Since he stocks his studio to his liking and staffs people to work on the equipment, he’s probably leaned on things that are not proprietary or programmed, and you can buy generic components from lots of places to repair it. I don’t know this for sure, but it has a vague parallel with his views on tape machines and reliability.
I find Steve Albini's approach to answering these questions really insightful and empirical as he talks less about specific technology than a lot of engineers do and more about his personal experiences of how he captures great performances.
