On May 24, 12:15 pm, Bryan Smart <[email protected]> wrote:
> Frank, no problem. This is on topic.
>
> Nickus, historically, the tracking or mix engineer receives income from
> either the studio that employs them, or else was contracted by a project's
> Executive Producer. In either case, upstream of those people, the money came
> from larger projects, such as producing demo or album tracks for an artist,
> work on a film or television project, music for commercials, etc. The studio
> was the music and sound factory, and the engineer was one of the technicians.
>
> 1. Music sales are profoundly low when compared to historical figures. The
> huge music markets of the 20th century are gone. Since people aren't buying
> like they used to, no one wants to invest the huge amounts of money to
> elaborately record artists. From small time to big time recording artists,
> album production budgets have shrunk to the bare minimum. This is the case in
> all media. Instead of hiring live musicians, most film and television music
> is now sequenced. When people are actually recorded, in many cases, recording
> is kept to a minimum. It is cheaper to edit than to spend lots of expensive
> time to get the great take.
>
> 2. Without the huge in-flow of large recording budgets, the money no longer
> is available to support most of the large recording facilities of just a few
> years ago. As the facilities close, that means less steady work for lots of
> people formerly employed by the technical side of the recording industry,
> including engineers.
>
> 3. Anyone with $1,000 can record a passable version of a song at home, and
> anyone with $10,000 and a few years of practice and study can do a competent
> job of recording and mixing an album at home. There are wonnabee producers
> and mixers under every rock, and there are so many that they work for little
> to nothing. They might not have golden ears and decades of experience, but
> even those that do have found it harder to insist on past pay when there is
> so much competition and less money available to pay them. Why rent studio
> time to cut a demo when your buddy can run GarageBand? Why pay someone to
> write and arrange music for a commercial, and book musicians and a studio to
> record it when someone can be contracted through a web site to throw together
> some loops with a few overdubs for a couple of hundred bucks? Everyone is
> trying to make their project happen for less money.
>
> So, in summary, there is less money available to support a larger number of
> people that are attempting to perform this work. It's important not to live
> under illusions when trying to turn this sort of work in to income. The day
> of the mega studio and the recording engineer in the traditional sense is
> pretty much gone, with a few exceptions. The big cities for recording in the
> US, such as New York, LA, Atlanta, and others still employ people for this
> sort of work, but the jobs are far fewer, and they're flooded with people
> with lots of experience in bedroom studios.
>
> I know just a few people that still routinely get work in large facilities.
> The others that I know that are still making money with this sort of work
> have pretty much given up on the old model, and have turned themselves in to
> craftsman instead of techies. By that, I mean that they find their own
> clients, work with them on an on-going basis, and sell themselves as experts
> in particular types of recording. Even so, they are usually being directly
> paid by artists, and so are making due on far less money than in days passed.
>
> There isn't megabucks in this anymore, except for a small few. If you do it,
> you should view it as an art that you'd like to pursue, and hope to make
> enough to sustain yourself. Focus on a niche. Become good at on-site
> recording of acoustic instruments, find those musicians, and promote
> yourself. Become good and fast with editing, and fight with the hordes of
> others competing for jobs online. Become fast at throwing together
> instrumental tracks and beds in short periods of time so that you can serve
> the low budget new media people. Moving to the US or UK probably won't help
> so much. You can hunt up work over the Internet as well as someone in either
> of those places.
>
> Really, though, you must absolutely love this sort of work, because getting
> anywhere with it today takes a huge amount of time and effort, and the
> rewards aren't commonly financial.
>
> Sorry if that's gloom, but it's how things are. On the positive side, pretty
> much anyone that wants to record can now record. It's not an elite club
> anymore, nor does it require a lot of money. Recording music is becoming
> something that people increasingly do for themselves, rather than depending
> on technical experts. We're not quite to the point where GarageBand has an
> auto-mix button, but I don't doubt that a feature like that will show up
> before too many years. Those with golden ears will say how auto-mixes are
> lacking in this way or that, but most people won't be able to hear, nor will
> they care. In that world, you'll be working to please the people that still
> do care. I think that it will be like painting portraits in a world full of
> digital cameras. Someone in that position must love to paint.
>
> Bryan
>
> On May 23, 2011, at 2:41 PM, Frank Carmickle wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi Nickus
>
> > On May 23, 2011, at 7:49 AM, Nickus de Vos wrote:
> >> On May 20, 10:06 pm, Frank Carmickle <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>> Hello Nickus
>
> >>> On May 19, 2011, at 8:03 AM, Nickus de Vos wrote:
> >>> Snip...
>
> >>>> you get experience if nobody gives you a chance, well in the last 6
> >>>> months I have asked that question over and over but that's just how it
> >>>> is. It's not a easy industry to get in to.
>
> >>> The industry as a whole is really suffering right now. There are way to
> >>> many people trying to do jobs that are disappearing. I understand your
> >>> frustration. My plan is to hang in there and do as much as I can. Music
> >>> always seems to suffer the most during economic down turns. At some
> >>> point people will decide that they want to spend money on nice recordings
> >>> of good musicians actually playing music. The object is to be in a
> >>> position to work when the work shows up again. For some of us we just
> >>> enjoy recording. If I go blow $$$ on gear that I keep for the next 30
> >>> years then I can record for 30 years. That brings me great joy. How
> >>> much is it worth to you to make recordings? Or maybe you don't buy gear
> >>> but you rent studio time at place that has great gear that you wouldn't
> >>> be able to afford otherwise. Either way find a way to record if that's
> >>> what you love to do.
>
> >>> Take care
> >>> --FCHi frank
> >> I know that the industry is taking a dip because of the economy but in
> >> South Africa it's worse than in Europe or the states. Thing is here in
> >> SA the industry isn't as big we don't have 1000s of live engineers and
> >> 1000s of studio engineers, most guys do both or whatever they can to
> >> make money. We don't have massive studios like your Abbyroads in
> >> England, most studios over heer is privately owned with guys working
> >> alone. With all these factors I haven't even mentioned the blind thing
> >> as that scares people they think I'm stupid or something so that's
> >> another negative for me. The only way for me would be to basically
> >> start my own studio which would cost me a lot of money which I don't
> >> have, my other option is to start doing live sound to get in to the
> >> industry which I also can't do because I can't go in to places, do set
> >> ups etc. I can do live sound in places like theters with installed
> >> systems but because of the experience factor and the blind thing
> >> people just don't want to hire me for big shows etc. I am basically
> >> screwed for now, luckally I still live with my parents who supports me
> >> but sooner or later they are going to start getting tired of me not
> >> working. The ideal for me would be to go to England or the US because
> >> it sounds as if there's more oppertunities but with imigration and
> >> visa regulations these days you have to have a job on the other side
> >> before you can go. Anyway that's my story in a few words and before I
> >> get kicked off the list for posting irevelent stuff let me stop.
>
> > Well... Maybe Brian doesn't think that this is on topic but I do. I think
> > that the technical troubles are equally as hard to deal with as the lack of
> > opportunity. I think it is very very important for us to talk about how to
> > the skills to pay the bills. That means we need to be able to use the
> > gear, find and keep the clients, and everything in between. I think you
> > are greatly mistaken about the industry and how it is in other places than
> > your own. Some of us do live in Nashville, New York city, or Los Angeles,
> > but the majority don't. Even if you do live in NYC you still would have
> > trouble finding work. I know sited folk in NYC who are trying to make it
> > as audio engineers. Tom is correct in saying that it's all about
> > persistence. Most people in NYC are recording in their bedrooms. I really
> > think it's unfortunate. people have decided that they would rather spend
> > money on a few crappy pieces of gear than to go in to a studio. The
> > quality of recordings is surely suffering because of this. I am also
> > looking for the answers to a bunch of these questions. In the mean time
> > I'm going to record some projects and see if people start noticing my work.
> > If they do than maybe things will start looking up for me. I'm gonna keep
> > trying.
>
> > --FC- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text - Hi Bryan you are so rite. the big problem these days is
> that everybody can record and 99% of people in the world don't care about
> quality of music because they are use to listening to their mp3's on small
> headphones or cellphone speakers. It is so true that you must try and create
> and look for your own work. I am not planning to give up anytime soon because
> I love the sound industry and can't imagine doing anything else. I'm going to
> start figuring out a way to get in to the live seen, if I can work with
> techies who does the setups etc, then I can just arive at the gig, unmute the
> channels and mix, LOL like a typical selebrity engineer. I think this is a
> good topic think it's good that we actually share with each other and tell
> each other how and what we do in our day to day lives, in theory everything
> can be great but it's how we do it and how it works in practice which counts
> at the end of the day.
Nickus
