Dynamic Industry! Where is this all going?

[bsteeve@ozemail]

Hi there,

Just would like to have your guys opinion on the this:

There's been fundamental changes in the way music is produced today. Big studios start to find it hard to survive as smaller studios with less overheads are ripping the benefit of a slowlly but surely decreasing budget in record production. The fact is that nowadays, thanks to computers and more affordable recording equipment, you can make great record with less! I'm sure people will start arguing about this, but to me if you have good hears, you know what you want and you are an inventive and open-minded person, you should be able to produce a great sounding record with anything, computer (PT HD, nuendo, Logic etc...), a good mid Size room with some good instruments and amps, some good microphone and pre's, somebody who know what they doing capturing it, and most of all, great music, is all you need! (and what i mensionned is already a lot! remember that the Eurythmics recorded their first album with almost nothing, a 4 or 8 track tape machine..can't quite remenber... a reverb unit and one mic!)

Ok... Less money but still need to make a good sounding record means that you are going to have to cut down something in the recording chain! What cost you the most when you make a record? The studio and the people you hire. That is where you cut! Do you really need a big studio with all the pres, compressors, mics you'll ever need and beautiful big rooms? Do you really need a Producer, an Engineer, his/her assitant, a mixing engineer down the line and of course a mastering engineer at the end? For most project, you can't afford the luxury to have all of this unless some poeple are working for free (which is sometimes the case, how many producers out there had to cut down their entire fee to make a record happen ... quite a few!), I'm saying most project because big scale recording like orchestral recording will always requires big studio and more than 1 people on the job. Also I can't avoid the fact that artists with big budget sometime prefers to work in big$ facilities and top people which is normal, I'll do the same if I was in that situation.

Now Where is this all going?
To me it is all coming down to value for your $

From the Studio side, unless daddy was very rish and you spent all his money on your studio! You'll need to cut down on some of the toys you think you need and work within your restrictions. Get what you really need and work your skills up. Retrictions are great! they allow you to be more creative and the reward is greater to achieve more with less rather than the other way around.

From a Staff point of view, I don't think being an engineer, or a producer is going to be enough for much longer. It is becoming more and more of a 1 man job (cost less). You are going to have to be versatile and talented in more than 1 area, understanding and practicing recording, mixing, producing, arranging, writting, communicating, managing, networking all at once! You are going to have to be Technical Person, a Creative Person and a Business person all together! And you will be paid one fee for all that. The realitity is that less people are going to be able to do all this without frying their brain and going mad! However there is going to be bunch of us who will... and those are going to be the people working!

By the way I don't that what I'm saying is a new subject, isn't it already happening?