Welcome to the Satanic Church of Audio

[Slipperman]

PM from Womb member.

Names changed to protect the whaddawegot.


Hey Slipperman,

My Name is Joe Blotz, I’m 28y/o and if you could bare with me I’d be very appreciative.

I’m just writing to ask you some personal advice in regards to your experience as an AE, and the road in which you got there.
Basically I live in Sizable Metro Area, Australia, got my self a diploma in audio, and I earned myself an internship working for one of the bigger producers in the country, great guy and love my job been there the last 18 months, first in the door in the morning and the last out at night, drive the tape machine and perform all other general shit kicking duties, as i should being the assistant.
Catch is i haven’t been paid once, and I’ve been working my tits off in a jet-ski shop in between sessions to earn money, that's life, and I’m old enough to understand that's what i need to do. There’s 100 other kids behind me ready and waiting for their own chance.
Anyway now that you’ve shed a tear, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the industry outside of Australia. Is working in studios outside of Australia something that will set me aside from the next guy? Or should i pull my head in and continue to persevere within the current situation.
It’s not an easy thing to get into the states to work so I’ve been flirting with the idea of moving to Vancouver, Canada or London, England.
Thanks for your time slipperman,
Joe.


Here's what I wrote back:

Hey Joe.

OK. Where to start?
Christ. I dunno. The biz is SO FUCKED right now. If yer making records with ANYBODY who IS getting paid... yer in rare company. Canada has the worst fucking recording scene in "The Western World" as far as I'm concerned. Dreadful. England is so fucking desperately overcrowded and underpaid it's a joke. Has been for 15 years. As bad as Australia is.... at least you guys kind of have a domestic scene.

I'd say stay where you are off the top of my head. I may be joining you soon if things don't get better in the States. HOHOHO.

Best regards buddy, hope you start getting paid at some juncture.

Slippy

Here's my deal for posting this:

I felt pretty shitty about being unable to point this chap in a better direction.

Anybody got any sage words of WhaddaYaCallit for this guy?

I sure as fuck didn't.

Somebody kill me.

SM.

[Brendo]

Hmmm. Diploma in audio? Guy's either been through SAE or one of the tafes.

I do wonder who this producer is.

[Slipperman]

Hmmm. Diploma in audio? Guy's either been through SAE or one of the tafes.

I do wonder who this producer is.

Yo B. Not for nothing but... If that's the quality of help we can expect I'll take the fucking thread down. NOT getting on yer bones... I'm JUST SAYIN'...

IN GENERAL:

This is NOT an AUSTRALIA thing.

It's a "Is ANYPLACE doing well?" and a "Spectre of indentured servitude" thing.

Not being contentious.

This is a subject I think a LOT of people in ALL walks and levels of AE are wondering about these days.

Best regards,

Slippy

[Sam]

I feel for this guy, and I kind of was him a few years ago. BUT - I think he is being taken for a bit of a ride too. I am not sure who the producer is the poor bastard is slaving for - or what and how well he is doing it for said producer (must be doin fine as he has lasted for 18months!). I was at UNI here after growing up at a small commercial studio my dad ran. I was schmoozing and enjoying being amongst like minded kids into music etc etc...along came a producer of some note for a guest lecture, we ended up talking shit over lunch and got on well - he invited me out to sit in on some sessions, I went. I made myself fucking useful at every oppurtunity I could, coffee, tea, rolling, guitar setups (from my other line of work in an axe shop), PT help, blah blah blah you know the drill....

Long story short - he liked me being there, and after that first record he wanted me back for next, and put me in the budgets at $100 a day as his assistant. Quite soon after I became PT bitch and tapeop - and spent my days brainsponging off him. More and more he was happy to just sit back and let me run the engineering part of the show so he could think only of the music - and that how things are to this day. As I did more, I got more dough. For the last 2 years I am totally consulted on budgets and name my price for the session. I have always worked freakin hard for him, and to his credit my efforts have never gone unpaid and unvalued.

So while I may have been a little 'ready made' to step into the tasks I was doing at the beginning, having done it a bunch as a kid and teenager, I still commend him for not taking advantage of me and being honest and fair with me - I have seen that he is this way with all our assists and session guys too, anyone who is on the session really. If someone wants to be involved he will always say they are welcome but it will be very clear from the get go if there is budget for their efforts or not.

I can understand a few months cutting your teeth for no bread, but if you are doing the job without needing any babysitting then maybe you need to start shaking hands with some other cats and see whats around somewhere else. 18 months is a long unpaid internship to me, and if there never any promise of money from the start then maybe fair - but if this was a 'come in now and you will start getting paid when you are competent' deal, and you are now competent with your tricks then you need to say something - see what the reaction is - and make a move from there.

The biz isn't that bad out here that you should work for free if you have moved past the coffee boy head lead roller stage....I know I was very fucking lucky to have it all play out the way it did for me - but if things went differently, I wouldn't have hung around for years waiting to get paid if I thought what I was doing was worth $$...

thats my 2c anyways....

[weedywet]

if he's working for a producer who is BUSY down there, then he's already in a good place.
I'd stick with that until the day that guy passes along some fallout work.
And I'd be vocal about WANTING to do some of that work (assuming he feels ready to do it)... you know, something along the lines of: "I want to learn as much as I can form you, so that one day I can be your engineer and eventually produce, myself... so any mentoring or help you can give me..."




I am also looking forward greatly to the naked photo of Slipperman and this guy together after he "bares with" him (sic)

[Zoesch]

He is in a better place than most kids out of school, he's also building a reputation and if he's smart networking with the bands, engineers and other people in the industry.

But I basically think he's an idiot for not addressing something as basic as "Pay me for my work", he should negotiate back a pay rate (Which is going to be hard since he's starting from the point of having done a lot for a number of years and not getting paid) and develop that backbone necessary to survive in the industry.

[qharley]

Here we have to basically wing it. Nobody is hiring, and most studios are into a survival mode right now. They are very very extremely apprehensive of anyone that would come and work for free... Think inside job.

If you made yourself unmissable, you have to hint that you are having financial troubles, and that you may have to go and work full time in order to make ends meet, if you do not get some form of compensation form the studio.

Bold move. Will take some balls.

[Mo Facta]

Here we have to basically wing it. Nobody is hiring, and most studios are into a survival mode right now. They are very very extremely apprehensive of anyone that would come and work for free... Think inside job.

If you made yourself unmissable, you have to hint that you are having financial troubles, and that you may have to go and work full time in order to make ends meet, if you do not get some form of compensation form the studio.

Bold move. Will take some balls.

Yeah, ain't that the truth. I think this is the worst possible time to be thinking about any changes to whatever mainstays you might have in your career right now. All I can do is talk from my own personal experience.

What I would say is DIVERSIFY and GET INTO LIVE SOUND! You can do this part time. Barring the obvious advantages of learning the crucial aspects of sound (micing, mixing, routing, system config) you'll make money. Right now my studio is pretty dead (well, I'm in the middle of mixing an EP and I have one more project before we go into 'dead' mode again) but live gigs are saving my ass and paying my rent. I went through a pretty rough 3 months prior and to make ends meet, the only thing that got me by was the gigs. I can't imagine Australia being much different from South Africa, in fact, you may be in a better position there than anywhere else in the world at the moment.

My colleagues and I are all studio engineers but our motto has always been 'DIVERSIFY DIVERSIFY DIVERSIFY". IMO, you can take the route that you're currently taking where you patiently wait until your superior dies and you take over his position or you can get out there, network, learn, share, and take chances. I took the latter and thank god I did because even though I have my own studio, I'd probably be there twiddling my thumbs in front of the console right now. Finally, if you find yourself with a lot of downtime at your current studio, record some music! I'm sure your superior won't mind as it can only make you better at what you're there for, i.e. make you a better assistant and eventually a better engineer.

My 2c (ZAR)

Cheers :)

[Sam]

'DIVERSIFY DIVERSIFY DIVERSIFY"

Best advice on this page! There is no way I would be earning a living from recording and mixing rock records right now....luckily I had an interest in post, and geared my setup for 5.1 mixing and so the HDTV and doco business has filled in the 'dead' spots for us over the last year in a very fundamental way....

I find myself doing something different every week - basically whatever someone will pay me to do I will take on right now....some of it is soul destroying - but none of it is getting me into a damn suit in an office so I am grateful....

[Brendo]

Yo B. Not for nothing but... If that's the quality of help we can expect I'll take the fucking thread down. NOT getting on yer bones... I'm JUST SAYIN'...

IN GENERAL:

It's a "Is ANYPLACE doing well?" and a "Spectre of indentured servitude" thing.Well, it's a very similar situation I find myself in, having gone through JMC Academy. Where am I working now? Live audiovisual for corporate gigs. Out of my class, I know of perhaps 6 guys who are actually working in anything vaguely audio-related at all (including myself).

I haven't even bothered to try hunting down a job in studioland yet, since the prospects always seemed a bit dire to me - so I'm very interested in where the thread is going, that's all.


(Also, it sounds an awful lot like one of the guys in my class who's working for a reasonably well known aussie producer - although i suspect he's getting paid for his work)

[mclights]

in the same boat myself, minus working under a producer. its hard, harder especially when you have to go to your day job (that, might i add, you probably HATE with a firey passion) after only getting 3-4 hours of sleep after doing the audio gig. shit compounds each day, starts possibly affecting your day job...the dung beatle pushing a growing ball of shit uphill comes to mind for some reason.

im not really in the position for giving 'sage' advice, per se, but i can say that if it were me, i would most definitely stick with it. sure, it blows dragging your ass outta bed early in the morning after a late night (several in a row, maybe) but atleast you have something to look forward to and work towards. nothing worse than working a job you hate day in/day out with no prospect of getting anywhere with this audio thing. and if you got chops, should be a matter of time before your name gets out there. besides, you can only get better with time.

...i meantion i hate my job? dunno if that came up:D

cheers

[strangedays]

I've come to the conclusion you are very lucky to be an astronaut but we can all stargaze and get some rewards.

[Tommy Fobia]

Some good (and very fucking familiar) advice Mo!

Currently I'm quite lucky with regard to the amount of studio work I'm doing at the moment although in my 'dead-time' I've also ventured into the live sound game and have started freelancing at a large theatre.

Doing something different every week is quite cool - it makes a welcome change from wallowing in my own self replicating paradigm. :lol:

[nobby]

I am also looking forward greatly to the naked photo of Slipperman and this guy together after he "bares with" him (sic)

Be careful what you ask for.

[Tim Halligan]

Over this side of the country things are a little different...they're worse if I'm reading you other blokes correctly.

It seems to me that if you want a job in a studio, you pretty much have to buy a place and run it yourself.

There's a very strong DIY mentality with bands over here who don't see why they should pay a producer/engineer/studio any money at all when a PTLE rig can be had for three fifths of fuck-all.

I know...hell we all know that going the DIY route is "wrong", but there have been some fairly successful bands that have come out of Perth doing it themselves that have given hope...or at least a sense of "it's possible" to the local bands that remain.

There are exceptions of course.

There seem to be two market segments that consistently seem to have money to spend: the Christian/Praise mob, and Indigenous bands.

We have a young engineer who works with us on occasion who is a music engineer as well as a postpro guy. He has stated point blank that he cannot meet his mortgage payments on music work alone.

I'd love to be recording bands...making records that will impact on peoples' lives...but in this town it just not possible to do that and put food on the table and a roof over your head as an AE alone.

I can think of two music engineers - both extremely competent - who have to supplement their incomes from other non-music related sources.

If this kid is recording music every day, then he needs to sort out some kind of remuneration package as has been suggested by others.

The answer is most definitely not "go west young man".


Cheers,
Tim

[J.G.]

Aiiii, the blues of it all--this industry is becoming damn-near a washout.

On that note, think I'll go do a dark load o' laundry, while I workout some frustration in the ole home gym...

J.

[Tommy Fobia]

I know...hell we all know that going the DIY route is "wrong", but there have been some fairly successful bands that have come out of Perth doing it themselves that have given hope...or at least a sense of "it's possible" to the local bands that remain.


Marketing has pushed the DIY route for years, to the point where many musicians in bands don't realise the real value of hiring an experienced producer or engineer. Affordable recording equipment and stories of the 1 band in a 1000 who actually made a great record on their own leads to reinforce the viability of DIY recording endeavors.

I like bands going down the DIY route. If they produce a great record I'm more than pleased for them, if not (99% of the time) they learn a valuable lesson on the art-form which is recorded music.

Anyone who tries to record themselves will realise just how much of a massive undertaking it is. By the time they've written/produced/performed/engineered/edited/mixed/mastered their record, not to mention the huge learning curve with which they have to contend as novice recordists, something along the process will have most likely suffered. Either the record doesn't meet its raw potential or by now, the band HATE the songs.

When the dust settles, (providing the band haven't had nervous breakdowns or split up) and they want to make a second record without killing each other, thats where WE come in. The 'M-Box marketing spell' is broken and the band realises the value of professional producers and engineers.

Of course if they DO make a great record, more power to them!

[Mo Facta]

Marketing has pushed the DIY route for years, to the point where many musicians in bands don't realise the real value of hiring an experienced producer or engineer. Affordable recording equipment and stories of the 1 band in a 1000 who actually made a great record on their own leads to reinforce the viability of DIY recording endeavors.

I like bands going down the DIY route. If they produce a great record I'm more than pleased for them, if not (99% of the time) they learn a valuable lesson on the art-form which is recorded music.

Anyone who tries to record themselves will realise just how much of a massive undertaking it is. By the time they've written/produced/performed/engineered/edited/mixed/mastered their record, not to mention the huge learning curve with which they have to contend as novice recordists, something along the process will have most likely suffered. Either the record doesn't meet its raw potential or by now, the band HATE the songs.

When the dust settles, (providing the band haven't had nervous breakdowns or split up) and they want to make a second record without killing each other, thats where WE come in. The 'M-Box marketing spell' is broken and the band realises the value of professional producers and engineers.

Of course if they DO make a great record, more power to them!

:Thumbsup:

Very good post.

Cheers :)

[J.G.]

Damn, Mo, every time I see your sig I get a real strong urge to fill out a captcha.

Cannnnnnnnnnnn't resist---

reach

; J

[Mo Facta]

Damn, Mo, every time I see your sig I get a real strong urge to fill out a captcha.

Cannnnnnnnnnnn't resist---

reach

; J

:lol:

Is it overbearing? Do you think I should thin it out a little?

Don't wanna, you know, be too loud or anything.

Cheers :)

[qharley]

:lol:

Is it overbearing? Do you think I should thin it out a little?

Don't wanna, you know, be too loud or anything.

Cheers :)

Now why would you want to change a working billboard? If it even gets JG to complete the capcha... :Wink:

Cheers,
Q

[radiationroom]

IN GENERAL: This is NOT an AUSTRALIA thing. It's a "Is ANYPLACE doing well?" and a "Spectre of indentured servitude" thing. Not being contentious. This is a subject I think a LOT of people in ALL walks and levels of AE are wondering about these days.

Slippy...

The problem is that there are so many people trying to break into the biz that interns practically/proverbially throw themselves at studio owners or anyone that can get them inside a studio because the competition is so great. As well all know, an abundance of available labor drives wages down and in the case of 2nds and assistants, they are so plentiful that their wage scale has been driven down to free/volunteer/unpaid. This seems to be the rule at 99% of not just recording studios, but other music oriented businesses as well (such as music retailers) here in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA.

In 2001 when I was taking the recording program at Sheffield (http://www.sheffieldav.com/sira.html), I was offered several internships that involved cleaning toilets, playing "security guard", maintaining stockrooms, working a shipping dock, and answering telephones, but NOT ONE promised anything that involved anything on the inside of a session or on a sales floor. The list of studios and retailers included a who's who of the major rooms in both Philly and Baltimore/DC.

And considering that my resume already had many many years of experience in concert sound, radio broadcasting, electronic retail, and electronic manufacturing at the time, being offered a no-pay internships cleaning toilets that were a good hour to three hours drive each way left me demoralized.

And I have seen NOTHING since then that convinces me that the current crop of major studio owners and music retailers in my area see aspiring music professionals as being anything other than roadkill to make hamburger out of. There are simply TOO MANY people attempting to enter music business related professions for the amount of opportunities that currently exist and people in positions of power are taking advantage of the typical wanna'bee's desperation to "make it". And I fear that the really great talent might be falling through the cracks because of this.

I place a good bit of the blame on gear manufacturers, their ad agencies, slick catalogers such as Sweetwater and Sam Ash and Musician's Friend, and the fill-in-the-blank recording/musician magazines that are selling the idea of "the dream" as a way to sell merchandise, the majority of it being high-profit electronics. Those of us who are in positions of credibility need to start pushing back against the gear vendors and call their advertising for what it is. The gear manufacturers' interests are very different from those of the working music professional.

I rest my case.

Cheers! - Peter Carli - http://www.radiationroom.com

[Dave Perry]

At least he didn't say he thinks he's lined up his first sessions doing some tracks for a band called Bitch Slap. :icon_eek:

Edit: seriously, though, since I see now this is supposed to be a no B.S. thread, I think Slipperman can only help the guy by making him feel like it isn't just him and his fucked life. At least he will know that times are tough for everyone. He should hang out on Bob's forum, since we commiserate over there on a daily basis. Who knows, maybe we will all put our heads together and help find a way out of this muddy hole we've all driven into.