Steve Albini turned up in poker forum last week, ready to answer any questions the community might have about the record industry, engineering, Nirvana and how shit Urge Overkill were. As usual, Albini has some great insights on the workings of the industry, making the thread a must-read for any aspiring DIY musician.

Downloading and the culture of free music have affected the income of record labels, but the street-level music scene (as defined by bands, entrepreneurial independent record labels, studios like mine, etc.) is doing great. Bands have an easier time than ever getting their music out into the world, and bands don’t even need a label to have an international following. It’s actually a great time to be in a band.

The aspiring producer/engineer may not feel so enthusiastic after reading this post, however:

“Getting into the industry” is just about impossible. There are no jobs. I mean none, like zero none. Since the advent of cheap recording software, many traditional studio clients (ad agencies, film and tv productions, jingle writers and commercial music publishers) have been able to do most of their own recording in-house. Having lost much of their client base, the big institutional studios have cut their staff to the bare minimum to keep costs low, and most engineers have gone freelance. Studios that used to have dozens of in-house engineers now have only a couple.

Lots more useful stuff like that over on the thread, so check it out before Albini gets sick of the indier-than-thou types name-dropping obscure ’80s hardcore bands no one’s ever heard of and fucks off.

Voxtrot – The Start of Something

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