extraits d'une conférence de steve albini

Steve Albini
Lecture at Middle Tennesee State University, March 12, 2004

Originally published in MTSU Sidelines, March 16th, 2004.
This is the unedited final draft of the story, with unpublished material.

by Andrew Young

Recording engineer Steve Albini spoke to over 300 students in the LRC Friday afternoon, in a lecture presented by the MTSU chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.

Albini is a freelance recording engineer who is one of the most recognized names in the independent music business. He has engineered over 1000 albums, and is best known for his work with the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. He owns Electrical Audio, a recording studio in Chicago, IL, and is currently the lead vocalist for the band Shellac.

Albini made his first recordings in 1978 on a rented 4-track. He moved to Chicago in 1980, where he majored in journalism at Northwestern University. He engineered his first album in 1981. During that time, he formed the influential punk/industrial group Big Black and recorded demos for his friend's bands. In 1986, he quit his day job, built a recording studio in his house and became a professional recording engineer. He opened Electrical Audio, a two-studio recording complex, in 1995.

As both a band member and an engineer, Steve has developed a unique perspective on the engineer's place in the studio, a philosophy which he spoke about at length: "It always offended me when I was in the studio and the engineer or the assumed producer for the session would start bossing the band around. That always seemed like a horrible insult to me. The band was paying money for the privilege of being in a recording studio, and normally when you pay for something, you get to say how it's done. So, I made up my mind when I started engineering professionally that I wasn't going to behave like that."

Albini spoke about the evolution of the recording industry from the late 1970s to today, giving particular emphasis to the heavy-handed influence of producers and engineers on the recording process:

"The bad part of the engineering culture of the 70s and 80s is that engineers would presume themselves to be the producers of every session ... The musicians weren't taken seriously. Bands and musicians were presumed to be 'dumb talent,' that is, their opinions didn't matter."

"Because the tastes and amusements of the engineers dominated the sessions," a few major technological innovations of the 1980s allowed engineers and producers to "horribly scar music," as Albini put it.

The introduction of drum machines and synthesizers allowed producers even greater latitude in determining the sound of a recording. "Records became more and more produced, and more and more layers of more abstract sounds were added. Generally speaking, this wasn't done at the behest of the bands," Albini said.

"The culture of recording engineers and producers was imposing this abstraction on the bands, and as a result, the music of that era sounds very dated. It sounds comical now, because there were always absurd choices that were made at the behest of the engineer. And he has saddled, for example, a hard rock band with this ridiculous Yamaha DX-7 keyboard sound," Albini said.

"None of those things came organically from the band, they were imposed after the fact." Albini notes that, in comparison, the albums from that period that people now regard as influential were "by and large, more simplistic, more naturalistic recordings." He emphasized that it is important for engineers to understand the experience and the reality of being in a band. "If you're not in a band, at the very least you owe it to yourself to understand that culture, that social organization which is a band."

Albini has engineered a number of popular artists, but he notes that those high-profile, major label albums are "very few and far between. I've made well over a thousand records, probably as many as 1500, and I've probably made six or eight that would fall into the category of major releases by major record labels."

He said that students should not focus on developing skills for use on big-budget, major label projects, which happen very rarely. "What you should do is spend your time and energy getting the nuts and bolts down. Learn how to do every basic task that's required of an engineer, and everything else will follow."

Albini's recording techniques are admittedly simple and utilitarian. "I'm often asked about mixing records … 99 percent of mixing is moving the faders up and down until you find where it sounds good … Not screwing with the sound, not dreaming up elaborate effects, not manipulating the sound … The great majority of what you do is solving problems."

Working primarily with bands who have limited budgets, Albini points out that most recording sessions last less than a week, and sometimes a little as a day. "The longest I've ever spent working on a record is 4 months, but that was a unique and absurd set of circumstances."

While Albini emphasizes practical experience over whimsical experimentation, he notes: "I do think experimenting is important. You should read; there has been an awful lot written about the science and practice of sound recording. It is very important for you to read, study and experiment, in that order." He adds that it is important for engineers to learn why their experiments work, so that knowledge can be used later when necessary.

Albini has developed a reputation for being against digital recording techniques, but not for reasons of sound quality. "I don't use digital recording because it's inappropriate for the work that I do. I do permanent recording of records that are intended to last forever. They are the history of the band I am working for at the moment, and it is vitally important to them."

He notes that digital formats are relatively impermanent in nature compared to analog formats, and that he has "yet to come across a circumstance where I couldn't accomplish what I needed to do using analog techniques." He concedes that digital recording is fine for most uses, but mostly for "stuff that doesn't matter to me," an admission that brought laughter from the audience.

Another part of Albini's reputation is his opposition to the major label recording industry. "I am opposed to exploitation of anyone by anyone. I think it's crass that an entire industry has developed where such business practices are considered the norm … I have done records for other bands who are involved in the mainstream record industry, and they and I both know that they're not getting a fair shake. And all I can do is have sympathy for them."

"I do choose to behave in a way which I am comfortable, and it has proven to be a very successful method in terms of my longevity." In his own business practices, Albini charges the same affordable rate to all his clients. He always deals with the bands directly, and he is still the guy that answers the phone in the studio. He earns a fee of $350 a day as an engineer, and draws a salary of $24,000 a year from Electrical Audio.

During the question and answer session, Albini responded to a question concerning the difference between major and independent labels: "Dealing with indie labels is much, much easier than dealing with major labels. Indie labels pay their bills, major labels don't … When you're dealing with major labels, it's vitally important to get the money before you do anything else."

Another audience question concerned Albini's work on his most notorious project, the Nirvana In Utero sessions. The recording sessions themselves were "totally normal, it was just like any other record I've ever done. We go to the studio, we make the record, they're happy with it, they go home. After that, when the record label finally heard it, that's when it started. That's when the record label started to try and influence the band, and started to call me names. It didn't affect me on a personal level … but it did begin an ugly period when I almost went bankrupt … The core clientele eventually came back, and I lived."

When asked on his thoughts about the recording industry program, Albini offered some sobering advice: "Certainly it's there to serve the interests of the students. The students want to learn this stuff, so that's why they're in the program."

"There are virtually no jobs available in this trade. In recording, all of the giant institutional studios are going bankrupt. What exists now are a million little one-man and two-man studios that are operated on second-hand equipment in a rented space someplace." The recording industry, he continued, is increasingly composed of small, entrepreneurial studios which offer the best chance for students to find employment in the industry.

John Arnold, the student chair of the AES, is responsible for bringing Albini to campus: "I cold-called him. I picked up the phone, dialed his number, and he said he'd be into it. Four months later, we picked a date. He was really cool about it, he was excited about coming."

Albini routinely performs at public-speaking engagements for the audio industry, but it is believed that this is the first time he has spoken to a group of recording industry students.

et l'article super connu "the problem with music" dans lequel Albini décrit le "système de la plantation" qui fait qu'un groupe de rock signé sur une major et qui vend bien est dans la merde jusqu'au cou...

enjoy :




The Problem With Music
by Steve Albini

This article originally appeared in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll Issue #133.

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.

Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim again, please. Backstroke. And he does of course.

A & R Scouts

Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a high-profile point man, an "A & R" rep who can present a comfortable face to any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire." because historically, the A & R staff would select artists to record music that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is still the case, though not openly.

These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their ranks as well.

There are several reasons A & R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip to the current musical scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences.

The A & R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even believes it.

When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember that great gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast.

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A & R guy, the band will say to themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all! He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he was hired.

These A & R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has been agreed on.

The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little memo, is that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band signs it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength.

These letters never have any terms of expiration, so the band remain bound by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes. The band cannot sign to another label even put out its own material unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two years by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all," A & R rep, on the basis of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of his promises [something he did with similar effect to another well-known band], and so the band wanted out. Another label expressed interest, but when the A & R man was asked to release the band, he said he would need money or points, or possibly both, before he would consider it.

The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent band, humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of inactivity.

What I Hate About Recording

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.

Producers who aren't also engineers, and as such, don't have the slightest fucking idea what they're doing in a studio, besides talking 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 Ranaldo or Jerry Harrison "producers" in the traditional sense is akin to calling Bernie a "shortstop" because he watched the whole playoffs this year.

The term has taken on pejorative 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? "Because that's the way the Beatles did it, man.") That's why few self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called "producers."

Trendy electronics and other flashy shit that nobody really needs. Five years ago everything everywhere was being 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 it sounds "warm," or maybe 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.

DAT machines. They sound like shit and every crappy studio has one now because they're so cheap. Because the crappy engineers 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 irretrievably bad in less then 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 damage to the music we all have to listen to.

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?

The minimum skills 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 echo sounds like. Which equalizer has the least phase shift in 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 electronics, so as to insure that everything is in 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 10Khz? 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 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 to ground, what happens to the signal level? Which 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 floated shield?
* An aesthetic that is well-rooted and compatible with the music, and the good taste to know when to exercise it



There's This Band

There's this band. They're pretty ordinary, but they're also pretty good, so they've attracted some attention. They're signed to a moderate-sized "independent" label owned by a distribution company, and they have another two albums owed to the label.

They're a little ambitious. They'd like to get signed by a major label so they can have some security you know, get some good equipment, tour in a proper tour bus -- nothing fancy, just a little reward for all the hard work.

To that end, they got a manager. He knows some of the label guys, and he can shop their next project to all the right people. He takes his cut, sure, but it's only 15%, and if he can get them signed then it's money well spent. Anyways, it doesn't cost them anything if it doesn't work. 15% of nothing isn't much!

One day an A & R scout calls them, says he's 'been following them for a while now, and when their manager mentioned them to him, it just "clicked." Would they like to meet with him about the possibility of working out a deal with his label? Wow. Big Break time.

They meet the guy, and y'know what -- he's not what they expected from a label guy. He's young and dresses pretty much like the band does. He knows all their favorite bands. He's like one of them. He tells them he wants to go to bat for them, to try to get them everything they want. He says anything is possible with the right attitude. They conclude the evening by taking home a copy of a deal memo they wrote out and signed on the spot.

The A & R guy was full of great ideas, even talked about using a name producer. Butch Vig is out of the question-he wants 100 g's and three points, but they can get Don Fleming for $30,000 plus three points. Even that's a little steep, so maybe they'll go with that guy who used to be in David Letterman's band. He only wants three points. Or they can have just anybody record it (like Warton Tiers, maybe-- cost you 5 or 7 grand] and have Andy Wallace remix it for 4 grand a track plus 2 points. It was a lot to think about.

Well, they like this guy and they trust him. Besides, they already signed the deal memo. He must have been serious about wanting them to sign. They break the news to their current label, and the label manager says he wants them to succeed, so they have his blessing. He will need to be compensated, of course, for the remaining albums left on their contract, but he'll work it out with the label himself. Sub Pop made millions from selling off Nirvana, and Twin Tone hasn't done bad either: 50 grand for the Babes and 60 grand for the Poster Children-- without having to sell a single additional record. It'll be something modest. The new label doesn't mind, so long as it's recoupable out of royalties.

Well, they get the final contract, and it's not quite what they expected. They figure it's better to be safe than sorry and they turn it over to a lawyer--one who says he's experienced in entertainment law and he hammers out a few bugs. They're still not sure about it, but the lawyer says he's seen a lot of contracts, and theirs is pretty good. They'll be great royalty: 13% [less a 10% packaging deduction]. Wasn't it Buffalo Tom that were only getting 12% less 10? Whatever.

The old label only wants 50 grand, and no points. Hell, Sub Pop got 3 points when they let Nirvana go. They're signed for four years, with options on each year, for a total of over a million dollars! That's a lot of money in any man's English. The first year's advance alone is $250,000. Just think about it, a quarter million, just for being in a rock band!

Their manager thinks it's a great deal, especially the large advance. Besides, he knows a publishing company that will take the band on if they get signed, and even give them an advance of 20 grand, so they'll be making that money too. The manager says publishing is pretty mysterious, and nobody really knows where all the money comes from, but the lawyer can look that contract over too. Hell, it's free money.

Their booking agent is excited about the band signing to a major. He says they can maybe average $1,000 or $2,000 a night from now on. That's enough to justify a five week tour, and with tour support, they can use a proper crew, buy some good equipment and even get a tour bus! Buses are pretty expensive, but if you figure in the price of a hotel room for everybody In the band and crew, they're actually about the same cost. Some bands like Therapy? and Sloan and Stereolab use buses on their tours even when they're getting paid only a couple hundred bucks a night, and this tour should earn at least a grand or two every night. It'll be worth it. The band will be more comfortable and will play better.

The agent says a band on a major label can get a merchandising company to pay them an advance on T-shirt sales! ridiculous! There's a gold mine here! The lawyer Should look over the merchandising contract, just to be safe.

They get drunk at the signing party. Polaroids are taken and everybody looks thrilled. The label picked them up in a limo.

They decided to go with the producer who used to be in Letterman's band. He had these technicians come in and tune the drums for them and tweak their amps and guitars. He had a guy bring in a slew of expensive old "vintage" microphones. Boy, were they "warm." He even had a guy come in and check the phase of all the equipment in the control room! Boy, was he professional. He used a bunch of equipment on them and by the end of it, they all agreed that it sounded very "punchy," yet "warm."

All that hard work paid off. With the help of a video, the album went like hotcakes! They sold a quarter million copies!

Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are:

These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record contracts daily. There's no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad, since real-life examples more than abound. Income is underlined, expenses are not.

Advance: $ 250,000
Manager's cut: $ 37,500
Legal fees: $ 10,000

Recording Budget: $ 155,500
Producer's advance: $ 50,000
Studio fee: $ 52,500
Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $ 3,000
Recording tape: $ 8,000
Equipment rental: $ 5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $ 5,000
Lodging while in studio: $ 10,000
Catering: $ 3,000
Mastering: $ 10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $ 2,000
Album Artwork: $ 5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $ 2,000

Video budget: $ 31,000
Cameras: $ 8,000
Crew: $ 5,000
Processing and transfers: $ 3,000
Off-line: $ 2,000
On-line editing: $ 3,000
Catering: $ 1,000
Stage and construction: $ 3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $ 2,000
Director's fee: $ 4,000

Band fund: $ 15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $ 5,000
New fancy professional guitars [2]: $ 3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs [2]: $ 4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $ 1,000
New fancy bass amp: $ 1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $ 500
Big blowout party for their friends: $ 500

Tour expense [5 weeks]: $ 50,875
Bus: $ 25,000
Crew [3]: $ 7,500
Food and per diems: $ 7,875
Fuel: $ 3,000
Consumable supplies: $ 3,500
Wardrobe: $ 1,000
Promotion: $ 3,000

Tour gross income: $ 50,000
Booking Agent's cut: $ 7,500
Manager's cut: $ 7,500

Merchandising advance: $ 20,000
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000

Publishing advance: $ 20,000
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000

Record sales: 250,000 @ $12: $ 3,000,000
Gross retail revenue Royalty [13% of 90% of retail]: 250,000 @ $12: $ 351,000
Less advance: $ 250,000
Producer's points [3% less $50,000 advance]: $ 40,000
Promotional budget: $ 25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $ 50,000
Net royalty: $ -14,000


Now, on the other hand, let's look at the Record company income:

Record wholesale price $6.50 x 250,000 $ 1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $ 351,000
Deficit from royalties: $ 14,000
Costs of manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ $2.20 per record: $ 550,000
Label's gross profit: $ 7l0,000


The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game:

Record company: $ 710,000
Producer: $ 90,000
Manager: $ 51,000
Studio: $ 52,500
Previous label: $ 50,000
Booking Agent: $ 7,500
Lawyer: $ 12,000
Band member net income each: $ 781.25


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 1/20 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...

About the Author:
Steve Albini is a well-known engineer as well as an equally well-known critic of major labels and the "music industry". Steve has worked with artists ranging from the smallest garage band to the Pixies, Plant-Page and Nirvana. In addition to his recording work, Steve was also the founder of the seminal '80s noise-rock band Big Black, and now plays guitar in the underground rock band Shellac.