Recording engineer Steve Albini told students Friday of the ill-effects heavy-handed producers and engineers can have on the quality of music.
He recounted the evolution of the recording industry from the late 1970s to today.
"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," Albini said.
"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," Albini said. "The musicians weren't taken seriously. Bands and musicians were presumed to be 'dumb talent,' that is, their opinions didn't matter."
Albini, a freelance recording engineer, is one of the most recognized names in the independent music business. He has engineered more than 1,000 albums, and is best known for his work with the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana.
He owns Electrical Audio, a recording studio in Chicago, Ill., and is currently the lead vocalist for the band Shellac.
Albini made his first recordings in 1978 on a rented four-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 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," Albini said. "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."
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," Albini said.
"It sounds comical now, because there were always absurd choices that were made at the behest of the engineer."
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 said.
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 1,500, 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," Albini said.
"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.
Working primarily with bands who have limited budgets, Albini pointed 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 four months, but that was a unique and absurd set of circumstances."
Albini emphasized practical experience over whimsical experimentation, but didn't discount the importance of experimentation.
"I do think experimenting is important," he said. "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 added 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," he said.
"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."
Another part of Albini's reputation is his opposition to the major label recording industry.
"I am opposed to exploitation of anyone by anyone," Albini said. "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."
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 who answers the phone in the studio.
"Dealing with indie labels is much, much easier than dealing with major labels. Indie labels pay their bills, major labels don't," Albini said.
"When you're dealing with major labels, it's vitally important to get the money before you do anything else."
Albini offered some sobering advice to upcoming graduates from MTSU's recording industry program.
"There are virtually no jobs available in this trade," Albini said.
"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 small, entrepreneurial studios offer the best chance for students to find employment in the industry, he explained.
Albini spoke to more than 300 students in the Learning Resources Center Friday afternoon, in a lecture presented by the MTSU chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.
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