Credit Catch 22, BS and the Success Machine, Pay for Play

Alex Oana

Nathaniel Kunkel doesn’t realize it, but I’m in his debt. Not because the famous producer recorded my favorite song or because he recommended me for a gig, but because he gave me permission to be career vulnerable. Some months back within his regular back page editorial in Electronic Musician magazine Nathaniel pointed out that engineer friends of his are finally starting to admit not only is business slow, but they are not working. The entire economy is bad enough that President Obama has given us permission to admit things are bad and probably going to get worse before they get better, making business doubly bad for those in the production stream.

I moved to LA from Minneapolis 5 years ago with a dream: to show this town that I kick ass and become one of The Names I read in so many liner notes. Little did I realize the record industry had already entered its death throws. On top of that, I had no idea how to network LA style. I had risen to the top of a market small enough that I could build my reputation organically and steadily as a guy who cared and tried as much or more as he had talent and who was committed to making indie records to compete with the majors. That ain’t the way it works here. Like the Twin Cities, LA is more than one town, but unlike MSP’s single musical tree, LA music scene is made of thousands of trees, some of which exclusively breathe ocean air, others residing in their own secluded, smoggy valleys. In LA it’s easy to have many isolated gigs and not have it add up to any kind of a presence or word of mouth.

Matt Freed, an engineer buddy of mine from MN, who’s considering moving to LA to work as a location recordist/post mixer asked me on the phone the other day, “Would you say you’ve been successful in LA?” Answer: Work my old clients from back home thankfully send me has been the difference between making it here and having to move back. That’s one answer: these days proximity to the client matters less as long as you have an internet connection.

Back East, as Californians are fond of referring the the Midwest, my credit was made of not only the names of artists I worked with, but word of mouth recommendation and acceptance based on the quality of my work. They say LA eats people up. One of the main culprits, The Credit Catch 22: how do you get name brand credits if you haven’t got any? You can get lucky, be in the right place at the right time. How do you market yourself to musicians whose noses are very sensitive to the smell of BS yet drawn to dream of the local success machine? In LA the right measure of confidence+calling back+courage to work one step ahead of your skills. Of course, knowing the right people is everything, but the connected people I know have welcomed me to start from the same place they did: the bottom. It would be hard to start over, slogging it out as a thirty something tea boy, soon to be father of two. Besides, that big music studio system is dead.

Angelinos have a habit of giving out cards and cell numbers and saying, “We should totally get together,” but never following through. Strangely as a gregarious Midwesterner that’s how I’ve rolled out here, too. After an introduction it’s easy to be haunted by self defeating thoughts like, “Oh, this guy probably knows 10 engineers with bigger credits than mine. If he does want to work with me I’ll have to do it on spec.” So I’ve toiled away in my home Pro Tools studio concocting mixes that I’ve been praying will be heard by the right person and make me my lucky break.

Savvy musicians who used to fantasize about signing with a major label and getting their big break have given up on that dream and are embracing, if not creating as we speak, new ways to reach the still hungry masses. How do we record producers do it?

I also came up in the Twin Cities at a time when the delineation between engineer and musician was distinct, making it easier to make a name for myself as a guy a band would need to get their dreams recorded. I understand for every one of the millions of DAWs in the world there’s a “producer/engineer/mixer” behind it, the majority of them self-recording musicians. I have to remind myself of my value as a classy engineer, brought up in analog and now expert in the box, who has unique creative gifts to share with other musicians and a listening audience still hungry for something exciting and excellent. Or are they? One producer friend of mine says most of his clients want to sound lo-fi, while T Bone Burnett is advocating for superior audio delivery formats.

The question that remains: will the sacrifice it takes in Los Angeles to create and maintain one’s network actually improve one’s net worth? Think of the long drives to gigs, the competition for work that requires longer hours for less pay, the schmoozing, the hustling, and having to prove myself all over again. If I move back to Minneapolis, my work prospects are immediately better, cost of living is lower, I’d be more likely to see my family more often, there are real lakes and rivers and the air is clean, not to mention downright freezing sometimes. But… would I be giving up on my dream? Just as the dream has changed I think my dream is changing. These days I’m attracted to the idea of apply my skills of engineering, communication, and general inventiveness (if I do say so myself) in a more integrated way and in a more lucrative setting. And I’m a people person — it’s lonely doing everything over the internet.

Even for those in the music biz lucky enough to be working steadily, the ability to recognize changes in the industry and adapt is key. For example, Pro Audio Review, one of the magazines I write for, took on the realities of the economy by tightening the page count, focusing content and upgrading its look. I think it’s a stronger rag that just needs to figure out how to pay for a bit more space so I can be more verbose!

The record industry is not dead, but it’s really different than the one I dreamed of starring in for the last 20 years. Subscription based or advertiser supported music streaming services seem poised to get the ol’ revenue stream flowing again. Regarding radio performance royalty legislation before the US Senate today, California Senator Diane Feinstein said she has long been an advocate of protecting the right of creators to be paid for their work and warned of the ill effects of removing monetary rewards.

-Alex Oana is a featured writer for Pro Audio Review and other NewBay Media publications.

alexoana.com

Read also:  digital TOanablog – my post on Blogger.com

Barefoot MM27 vs. K+H O300, Vintage King Speaker Shootout, Review

Infrasonic is a really great indie studio where I had a blast doing a session a couple months ago. The outboard gear is esoteric and sounds unbelievable, the mic collection is gorgeous and well rounded, and their Neve 5088 may be my favorite Neve console ever, but the control room acoustics are a work in progress. The environment was not right for a speaker listening test. For example, the meter bridge was not long enough to accommodate all three sets of speakers, so one Barefoot sat to the right of the console on a stand. New acoustic treatments have been installed recently which have made an improvement, but sub frequency information is only available at the back of the room.

In my opinion, none of the speakers sounded like themselves. I’ve heard each sound very different in other environments. After I adjusted the placement and angling of the O300s and the Barefoots, things made a bit more sense. Jeff, Pete (the owners of Infrasonic) and I agreed future shootouts would work better in their large live room with lots of baffles and gobos around.

I have rarely liked the sound of the Focals, so I pretty much ruled them out and only turned them on a couple times briefly. Incidentally, at Tape Op Con a Focal engineer confirmed my observation of harshness around 3kHz by revealing to me that the Beryllium tweeter has a resonance at that frequency. [After this blog posted, my friend Simon Côté from Focal contacted me to dispute the other Focal staffer’s claim. Apparently that guy was not an engineer and the resonance is actually at 1294Hz. Perhaps the first harmonic (2588Hz) of the resonant frequency and the crossover point of 2500 are having some interaction.—ED.]

Some program material sounded better on the O300s and some on the Barefoots. In many ways, I think the O300s were better for Infrasonic’s control room and actually exhibited better bottom end, a surprise considering that I’ve felt the O300s to be lacking in deep bottom in the past. But that control room has some weird issues in the bottom that did not allow the Barefoots to shine down low.

On the majority of the program material it’s fair to say the O300s sounded the most spectrally balanced and neutral. The Barefoots presented a surprising upper midrange bump, a sound I’ve not associated with those speakers in the past. The Barefoots have become regular in-house speakers at Infrasonic. The owner/engineers there informed me they had found a much better placement for them behind the console on stands. I imagine the strange upper mid rise and lack of body I perceived would be diminished at that placement versus where they sat on the console’s meter bridge.

The O300s easily had the widest sound stage–a very broad image that extended well past the outside edges of the cabinets. For some material this was pleasing. Vocals sounded very clear and natural on the speakers, but there was something just a bit metallic about sibilance when compared to the Barefoots. The Barefoots, set up vertically, presented a much more focussed image, locked in between the speakers, but much more defined than the O300s. Vocals especially seemed to live and breathe right in front of me. In the end I preferred the imaging of the Barefoots because it seemed very direct and point-source-like, whereas by comparison the O300’s image did not seem to converge as the sound emanated from its three speakers. Perhaps the science behind the O300s very complex front baffle shines in some circumstances whereas the Barefoot’s simplicity of three speakers in a straight line on one plane works in others. When I had the O300s in my studio I noticed an unsettling comb filtering happening in the upper mids when I moved off axis.

The final and most swaying area of judging was enjoyment. There’s something about the top end of the Barefoots that’s just really nice to listen to. Each time I switched to the Barefoots, even if the spectral balance seemed whacked, the sound was compelling and pleasing. Based on this I concluded I would just really enjoy working on the Barefoots. At Infrasonic I tracked a 5 piece band live in a very fast paced session. Monitoring through the Barefoots, I made quick and confident decisions and enjoyed the feedback they gave me.

From past listens I’ve the Barefoots have struck me as “juicy” sounding. I had figured they wouldn’t work for me because if the material would already sounded good I wouldn’t work as hard to make it sound good. I’ve not worked on any bad recordings on them yet, but from what I can tell, not only are the Barefoots juicy, they’re also very very revealing.

Considering the O300s cost half of what the Barefoots do, I think they are an amazingly smart choice. None of the speakers on that day were at their best in that control room. I’ve gone back and forth on what I think would be the best speaker for me. At this point, if I were to not over-intellectualize it, I would go with the Barefoots for sheer listening pleasure. I think that fun would translate to my work. Everyone I’ve asked has had a lot of luck with the way Barefoots translate to the outside world.

In truth, what I’m focusing on at this point is getting my control room to sound better acoustically. I’ve significantly changed my space recently. I think the real conclusion here is that it’s the speaker in concert with the room that creates the monitoring experience. Either the Barefoots or the O300s can work great in a room that is adjusted to suit the speaker. Of course, sometimes you get lucky, too.

The O300 is a world class product and I recently wrote a very positive piece on them in Pro Audio Review . My new observations and love of the Barefoots don’t contradict anything I’ve written or said about the O300s—I just have new information. I would still be overjoyed to make records on the O300s. To me, the K+H sound is a bit more scientific than emotional, and right now I’m compelled by emotional—I’m compelled by the Barefoots.

—Alex Oana

I’m a producer, engineer, mixer based in Los Angeles. You can listen to my work and find out more at alexoana.com