Original subtitles

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[Matt Ross-Spang] America is a relatively new country.

We don't have like old Templar Knight churches.

To me, that's the old recording studios.

Those are kind of our temples, our castles.

[Mark] A traditional studio that's properly put together

could be a magical place, we call them "temples of sound".

The first time I walked into a recording studio I knew that's where I wanted to be.

[Steven] It's really about an environment, uh,

that was specifically created for recording.

So it's not in someone's house or basement,

it's a specific place just for the process of making music.

[Marc] The traditional recording studio has just got to be an environment

that fosters creativity and gives everyone an opportunity to make something magical.

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When I was growing up the bands, the only dream we had was we gotta go get in the studio.

When bands do finally make that decision that they--

"You know what, let's take our game up a little bit"

most of the time they think about going into a studio.

If you wanted to do a multi-track production,

you kind of had to go someplace

that had a pretty fair amount of relatively expensive gear,

and there weren't a lot of people with experience in operating that gear,

and getting stuff done that way.

So you automatically, by engaging that process,

you brought yourself into a kind of a certain level of participation.

You know, you just want to get out of your environment

and go to this new place where the entire focus is about creating this art.

You know, it's about the environment, and the character, the vibe,

and the accommodations, and the service, so that you get your job done.

And of course, the equipment should all be pristine and everything should be there,

so you can, you know, create your art in the most respectful fashion.

The benefit of the recording studio has always been the kind of temple,

the safe space for an artist to go, you know, for musicians to go.

I think it helps when they're well equipped, regardless of,

uh, how elaborate the design might be.

I think it helps to have instruments and equipment that's available to musicians.

They're artists that don't have access to those things usually, you know.

They for instance, maybe they've always been using a synthesizer for a piano patch

or an organ patch.

To some degree there's a real experience when they sit behind a real piano, you know.

Different things happen, accidents happen.

Try and really make the technical aspect work in support of the musical aspect.

If you have ideas or if you're getting creative,

you don't wanna wait to get into the creative process.

You wanna say that "I wanna be able to do this"

and a good engineer will have you ready to do that quickly.

You know, we worked in these amazing facilities.

We could have anything we wanted.

We had all the best studios, we had all the best gear,

the best musicians, the best engineers, the best producers, the best writers,

everyone who is at the top of their game.

[rock music playing]

The acoustics that you're recording in make a pretty big imprint

on the recording that you make.

The room accentuates the music you put in there.

[Richard] I love how they sound.

I mean how acoustically it's just peaceful

and somehow I find that very focusing.

[Michael] Well-designed studios, well-designed control rooms,

and well-designed, uh, isolation rooms are invaluable.

There's no replacing a sound quality that you can get, the space factor is enormous.

Hospital-grade power, and all the floating floors, and custom hanging ceiling,

and just doing everything like acoustically correct,

and the lighting, changing the feel if you change the color.

Like there's a it's creative environment,

it's a fun environment, people are comfortable.

Just wanna feel creative and we hear all the time people say,

"I never worked so creatively so fast.

I just felt as in the space and it's just it's neat

and you just feel creative and you just kinda get into your work."

I love being in studios. I love it. I've always loved it since I was a kid.

It always seemed like this incredibly cool laboratory, you know.

And I love that environment.

[Matt Sawicki] You can come here and be as loud as you want.

Nobody will come and tell you not to be.

Being able to check out on reality of the world, and be able to just be in this space,

and doing your own thing, and not have to worry about

what else is happening is like very powerful.

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People don't often think about the building facility really being part of a tool.

They think about it when they're in their basement

and the heater kicks on in the middle of the take,

and they think about it when the train goes by, or they think about it when it starts raining,

but when you're in a building like this,

uh, those things aren't problems.

[Barry] The studio in themselves have the expertise and history behind them to,

I think, improve upon what the general public can do.

I make it a point, with almost every record that I make,

to include some aspect of the recording in a, "real recording studio".

It's important.

You know, you go to the right place, it's not gonna get worse, you know.

It can only... You know, there's only levels of winning.

Just spend a little money on it.

They see that, and they experience that, and they feel like music stars,

and they should feel like music stars, they deserve that,

and I think it certainly doesn't hurt their performance.

This person is renting a space, buying a space.

They're buying more and more equipment.

They're putting in the effort to make this a business.

First of all, you have to absolutely love what you do.

You have to really love it. It's not an easy business.

I mean you're working very hard for a very boutique industry.

And even regardless of a studio space, you know,

the engineer is probably more important than the room, you know.

It's always been the engineer, and then the gear, and then the room, to me.

The mix of the really good talented people that we have, where we have the music,

the ears, the understanding of corporate communications, the understanding of broadcast.

I know my limitations and I depend heavily on the engineer.

I trust their ears.

I trust their instincts.

Now, at the end of the day, I'm producing the project and the final call is obviously mine,

but I love working with engineers who are also musicians,

who know me and have the kind of relationship with me

where they want my music to be the best it can be.

I'm not a transaction to them.

I think the three of us as individuals are all smart enough

to realize that we're not very intelligent.

[Kenny laughing]

So we're better off just to like listen to somebody

that knows what the hell they're talking about.

Okay, at this point, he's like the fourth member.

Like he just really clicked with us.

He'll have an idea, we listen.

We're not, you know, like, "No, that's stupid or whatever,"

unless it's stupid, which is very rare.

First of all, the energy in the control room for me is special.

I think that translates for the artist.

The artist has a little audience, but a very loving and supportive one.

[Kristeen] Tony is a great vocal coach. I've really never found anybody else

who makes me feel as supported.

Like he won't just say, "Great vocal", you know, like which--

[laughs] So many people do.

Like he gives me very specific feedback and I like that.

The important aspect of the recording process is that you go somewhere

that makes you feel creative and you have people around you to help you feel creative.

I think a lot of people can record themselves at home,

but I know for me I need to collaborate with people.

And, you know, really when you can, uh, devote your time to just the one aspect,

you can do it so much better

than when you're trying to split yourself between all these different roles.

I don't trust myself completely just to do everything on my own.

I don't know if I have enough love to make an entire record all by myself,

but I know with twelve other people, we could certainly get up enough love and emotion.

To invest that record and that's what it is about being in a studio, it's that process.

One of the reasons why I've been playing music

and playing in bands for as long as I has now

is because I get to have very close relationships

where we have shared goals and those relationships

that I get through my band are probably the most important adult relationships that I have.

But when I'm working with people and they value the integrity of the music as much as I do,

then I can trust them, and this is how I know they do, 'cause they're not afraid to tell me,

"No, dude. I wouldn't do that."

[Steve] Having been in bands and being a musician makes me

sympathetic to the bands that I'm working with.

It also gives me a perspective where I kind of understand their problems, you know.

And if there's a conflict or if there's a some problem, it's likely a problem

that I've experienced firsthand and so it makes me sympathetic.

And in some cases, I'll have an insight of how to get through a situation without,

you know, ruffling anybody's feathers or without causing an additional suffering.

[Vance] Everything for me is about the sound.

I will talk to guitar players and guitar players who worked with me would back me up.

I will literally talk to them about I need something that goes

[mimicking guitar sounds]

You know, and they'll go, "Oh, like, uh."

I think there's a sense of play with me in the studio and there's a sense of, uh,

exploration and curiosity, uh, which hopefully they find fun and, uh, and useful.

I'm gonna be able to help you achieve your vision,

and you're gonna be happy with your product, and you're gonna run out,

and you're gonna go wanna sell your product.

Part of our job is to give it longevity and depth,

putting things that you know will be discovered, not on the fifth listen,

not on the tenth listen, but maybe on the fifteenth listen,

because there's nothing better for me than when someone says,

"Steve, what's that little sound that's on that song?"

and you go, "Now, for you to know that little sound

means you've heard that song fifteen, twenty times

and if you've heard that song fifteen or twenty times,

it means that it means something to you."

I think it's important

to find people, whether it's engineers or mastering people or whoever,

mixers, that, you know, inevitably can have a stake in what it is you do.

I've always, always enjoyed being in a big studio.

Um, it feels better, it sounds better, all that stuff is great.

But there's limitations there.

There was only a limited selection of professional audio gear

that was available in the '50s and '60s, and Technisonic had all of it.

It had the big microphones, the instruments, the reverb chambers, the EMT 140s,

and Ampex tape recorders, and Mr. Harrison was always keen on getting the latest thing.

So we had access to virtually everything,

but it was a concrete floor, the Transite walls.

And you're familiar with that material,

it's a kind of a hard asbestos like material with holes drilled in it.

So it was very institutional.

We had big incandescent lights in the control room, and I spoke to Geoff Emerick about this,

and he laughed, because it's just like Abbey Road.

But the fact is most professional recording studios

in that era were equipped very similarly.

[Doug] Working on Gravity Kills stuff, it's funny, you know, console,

and all my outboard gear,

samplers, and synthesizers, and, you know, my Pro Tools rig, and I would take it with me.

Like if we went to go mix down,

I needed to stick it on a truck and drive the whole studio out.

I needed to hit the play button, and we needed to play everything off of the keyboards,

trigger everything MIDI-wise, and then record it on the 12-inch tape.

And now, literally that entire studio is on my laptop.

When we first started recording, we were recording on 4-track cassettes.

Uh, when Pro Tools really came online,

when the people started legitimately using it on major label records, uh,

it changed for us, 'cause it allowed us to actually get a record done quicker.

[Bill] When I started all the recording equipment was custom-built.

It was an 8-input, 2-bus, 4-track console.

So each it was custom made by Bob Bushnell, uh,

using API components

back when all the consoles were handmade.

There was no such thing as an off-the-shelf mixing console.

You would hire a company, uh, to build the console for you.

History-wise, one used to be able to buy a 2-inch 24-track in the '70s

and a simple automated console that was tape automated,

and, uh, say about $120,000, $140,000 in equipment not the studio,

and charge about 120 an hour.

Now, we have much more invested than that and we can't charge 120 an hour.

So we have to be pretty clever.

In the '90s when software started getting easy and available,

and eventually by the end of the '90s started getting cheap, uh, everything changed drastically.

Because then, uh, all of the all of our clients had their own software,

and they had their own studios,

even if it was just in a broom closet in their production house, in their office.

Um, agencies that previously had shied away from setting up a studio,

'cause it was quarter million dollars to set up a studio, now they're saying,

"Really? So we can go out and spend like 10 grand,

and have a decent enough room where we can do all of our demos for our clients in house?"

Uh, that just gutted the business.

The availability of the software, how inexpensive it was,

it just gutted the business.

Having, you know, the software the software that you can actually put it down,

get it down, and get it the way you sound, the way you want it to sound,

and the way you like it, and then that could be your album.

Software is getting cheaper and people are expecting to pay low prices for software.

So the days of spending, you know, hundreds of dollars for individual pieces of software,

it really doesn't exist anymore.

Now, I think as the industry's changed to the extent

that everybody has a little recording device,

it's not as good of an idea to spend huge amounts of money.

We have to figure out how to deliver, uh, that extra quality and still be reasonably priced.

Quality of audio is has always been driven by the technology,

right back to the point where drummers played very quietly,

because there was no amplification.

And then all of a sudden, you got electric guitars and drummers played louder.

So now, the art form has always been led by technology.

You know, multi-track recording led to the Beach Boys and multi-layered harmonies.

Studio design led to the Bee Gees doing "Jive Talkin'" and those tight records.

[Bill] From roughly '75 to mid-'80s,

it was really idealized in a lot of people's minds.

And those of us who were going through it, didn't understand that this would be the case.

it's like when I was in high school, a friend of mine had a '68 Camaro.

I mean, you know, who knew? It was just a car.

But now, people look back on the whole patina of the business in those days

and attribute a lot of it to the equipment.

Partly, it was, because we were always fighting the equipment,

but it was a teamwork effort with the musicians, and the engineers, and the designers,

and the business people trying to recreate the moment as best we possibly could.

Nowadays, people just create moments, uh, from scratch.

This is not necessarily bad, but it's a different kind of thing.

[Steve Lillywhite] I didn't enter music to become a typist.

That's so much of being a producer now is being a typist,

but you must always look behind you.

You can only learn from the past.

You can't learn from the future because you don't know it yet.

This has been this perfect marriage of like lowering budgets,

but more efficient recording techniques and technology.

[Bill] When you see an ad for a digital audio workstation,

it's generally implying that you don't need anybody,

you just need our box, and you can cut the hits.

The challenge of keeping things current is difficult, too,

because the time you get to the point that

you barely pay something off you gotta buy something new and, uh,

the rate of change is short in this industry.

[Steve] You know, the technology industry, which is what the music business is now,

it's technology industry, you know, it's moving fast.

Some people embrace that and some people are a little bit hesitant to embrace it.

Now, we are on the very technological side of this industry.

You know, we're virtualizing basically the whole entire recording studio.

Some people love that, other people aren't quite used to it yet.

The change that's most affected me as a record producer,

for sure, is going from analog to digital and I love that change.

What I really love about it is it enables me to do my day's work quicker.

The tools that we use are to make it as inexpensive and as fast as possible,

the highest quality with the fastest speed.

[Bill] The middle-class studio is the place that's most endangered today,

because of the pressure from both sides.

The latest, and greatest, and most amazing technology is prohibitively expensive,

yet entry-level technology is almost free.

People are gonna have big budgets and they go to the big studio

that still has that technology and equipment or they'll just do it themselves

or have their nephew do it.

[Gary] They call their bedroom a recording studio and, uh, I can't compete with them,

because they're only charging $15, $20 an hour.

[Jason] It's just plug something into a computer and I'm a recording engineer now.

And it's not.

You're a recordist, you're someone that is just recording.

[Michael] People wanna have this conversation about technology and sound,

which is a good conversation, but the sort of I think the other conversation

is how a lot of younger record makers today go about making records.

And it's not necessarily in an informed or an organized fashion.

No, they're trying to make it up, uh, figure it out as to do it.

And I think that's a problem.

What I'd love to see is people treat all audio

the way it should be treated instead of an afterthought.

The amount of tracks that come in that are distorted, that are labeled improperly,

that have bad editing done that, you know, that are just out of tune.

Sing it again.

We have a lot of people coming up into this business

who have never listened to music other than, uh, mp3s through ear buds.

And if that's all that somebody has ever experienced, they don't know how good music could sound.

They don't understand the difference.

People who, uh, pay attention to details make great recordings on anything

and that is so much more important than the technology itself.

But that being said, the technology has such incredible potential.

We live in a good enough society.

Stuff that is recorded in not in a studio is often good enough.

When it got to people just listening to music on the stereo speakers on their laptop

or just carrying around their phones,

you might as well have just gone back to the AM transistor radio back in the '60s.

When I think of older people and their connection to music,

it was the experience of listening to it and it could be a very enveloping experience.

You know, there was a higher preponderance of good sounding systems, um, then there is now.

I think it's interesting that with all the progress and all the technology that we have,

most people are listening on worse systems than they were thirty, forty years ago.

You don't hear horrible audio anymore.

The problem is you don't often hear great audio anymore.

The average is probably better than it used to be.

[Steve] I used to hate vinyl.

For me, vinyl was the weak link in the whole process.

Ss would tear something terrible on vinyl.

So when CDs came in, I thought this was the weak link fixed.

But it's the mentality of the people making the music that is changing.

You know, when you look at music rather than listen to music, it's going to be different.

I loved all aspects of the production,

but I was particularly drawn to the reproduction of a moment.

I had watched records being made where the performance happens,

and the tape machine is there, and the tape machine is your witness to the performance.

And you play it back, and that performance, that moment lives.

Because there's something really great about the first time a song comes together,

when it all gels and everything connects,

and, you know, those moments when that does happen,

if you are lucky enough to capture that to tape, it's really great.

There's not much I like more given enough time

And the right kind of gear of getting a lot of it on the floor

and making the band sound good on the floor, and doing a big tracking project.

It's the love of creating,

whether it be spontaneously, in a live situation,

which is unparalleled.

What you experience on stage in front of people, you're a lightning rod,

and you're just receiving, and it's the music is flowing through you.

In the studio, when you're creating something,

and there are those moments when you're so in it,

and that happens, it's the same lightning rod.

And then you sit back and you look at what you've created. That's magic.

I think you've got like two things going and ultimately it's best if they come to a peak

and if you can record it at the peak.

You still have the passion and you have performed it enough times

to where you're nailing it.

The best records are gonna be done when you don't realize you're making them.

[rock music playing]

Artists, when they're thinking about the recording, sometimes take their eye off their art.

You don't have a song, you don't have shit.

So you couldn't just show up with a room full of cats,

you know, on someone's dime

and wing some shit that you were gonna compose on the fly in the studio.

Whereas, unfortunately, today that's exactly what happens.

People come to me and say, "Hey, can you mix this record and make it sound like that?"

No, I can't. I can mix the record, it's gonna sound great,

but the only way it can sound like that is if we get that artist in that studio,

and those songs, and all of that stuff, and the time of day we record

like all those things make that record sound the way that it sounds.

In the old days, hit records a lot of times used to align with well-made records.

[Carl] It really just comes down to patience.

Making sure it's right from square one.

You know, I tell a lot of the guys that I work with,

especially assistants, something like that.

Like "We don't put our name on it till the quality is in there."

And that's what we have to live by.

[Danny] Performance is way more important than sound quality.

[Matt Sawicki] I like hearing emotion come out of something.

[Carl] I can tune you, I can time you, I can make you sound like Katy Perry,

I can do all of those things, but I can't give emotion.

And that's the one thing that artists still need to be able to find.

You know, it's the music business, I wanna be entertained.

[Steve] Most important part about making a record absolutely is, uh,

not the bass drum sound, it's nothing like that.

It's making the song speak to you, and by definition, to make a song speak to someone,

it is through the vocal.

Just 'cause we have the tools to fix, to edit, to tune, to manipulate,

you know, isn't it great just to sing?

Listen to those old Motown Records, listen to Aretha Franklin,

listen to some of those great Atlantic Records that Tommy Dowd recorded,

and I think we're losing that in our musicality.

People don't play very well, because they don't have to.

Somebody will play the drums pretty shitty

and then they'll just expect I'm gonna cut it together and make it better.

Or, uh, "Oh, cool, I played this 4-bar section, uh, played it really well,

I'm gonna quantize that and then I'm just gonna loop it everywhere."

Okay, well. I mean that is a way to make records,

but that's not I mean it's a way to make records.

The work is not as satisfying these days

to sit in front of your computer by yourself and fix music.

[Doug] Copying and pasting for all the downsides of it,

it saves people a lot of money or tuning their vocal but it's kind of like

Close enough. Let's just.

Right, moving on. Moving on, moving on.

Now, that hasn't helped live performances at all.

People go to shows all the time.

And they come back, I'm like, "How were they?"

and they're like, "They had no business being on stage." Like, "It was really terrible."

Like, "It was bad. These guys cannot play."

And you listen to the record and you're like and it's like,

"I know", 'cause there's a lot of trickery.

More and more people are afraid of committing to things, because they don't have to.

When I started out, you wanted this guitar tone,

that's the guitar tone you were gonna end up with at the end of the day.

Now, people will record the direct signal from the guitar,

and they'll put an amplifier plug-in on it,

and they may change it as they're listening throughout

or they may just send me the DI'd guitars.

Recorded this great bass player once, T-Bone Wolk.

Played Saturday Night Live for years, he played with Hall & Oates.

Plays the first verse in the chorus and he stops, he goes,

"Okay, fly it to the second and third." Bullshit.

I go, "You're T-Bone Wolk."

Like, "You don't get it, you're like the greatest bass player I've ever met in my life.

Can't you just play it? 'Cause I know you're gonna play something cool."

"Yeah, alright, Carl." Punch in and record, and he just kills it.

And it that's the stuff that I miss.

I miss the musicality throughout a song.

There's always been boy bands, there's always been pop stars,

you know, manufactured music, and that's not gonna change.

The difference is, is now you don't have any filters.

You know, well, before when I was a kid, record companies were filters.

They separated the wheat, you know, and it's not nearly as, uh,

as easy as it used to be I think.

But we used to have to save up money, go out, and buy records,

and listen to 'em over and over until we were absolutely sure we didn't like it.

Whereas now, it's first listen...

I mean think of all the bands

that you if you listen to one time

Would you have ever listened to Bob Dylan more than once if you only, you know,

if it if you didn't pay for it?

The devaluation of the product that we create

has sort of affected all aspects of the business.

People just don't see the effort and the expense

that goes into creating these pieces of art.

One thing I learned over the years,

recording so many different people, is how talented people are.

[Richard] So once you get to a certain level,

it's this magnetic force that draws people together

and that's why it's a small incestuous business.

[Danny] The players are so damn good.

I watched an 18-year-old drummer clip just yesterday that blew my mind.

And the way that that kid was playing wasn't even taught

or believed to be possible when I was growing up.

Kids are learning how to play.

Now, learning how to play something interesting that someone wants to listen to

not just once but a couple of times, that's the challenge.

"If I sound like Beyoncé, if I sound like Justin Bieber,

am I really as good as they are?"

And be honest with yourself. Compare your music with theirs and go,

"No, it's not good enough. I'm gonna keep working until I get something that is as good."

Over the past couple of years, it's just like, uh, things have slowed down,

and slowed down, and slowed down.

[Steve] Well, first of all, most of them, uh, have really closed down,

but the others that are still around, they're struggling.

Has been tricky for sure, because right when we opened up the studio was in 2006.

And if we remember, back then nobody had any money to do anything.

And you just don't see the people like we used to see and activity going on.

I mean we had three control rooms and five studios,

and days when they were all busy, and people coming and going.

[Gary] New York, you know, rent, insurance, all of that, through the roof.

The building that we bought, I wanna say we bought it for $240,000

and to buy a similar building now would be an investment of well over a million dollars.

Big studios close because they're worth more as a home

than they are as a studio or something like that.

The land value is worth a it could be a Starbucks or something.

[Gary] Trying to sustain a large space uh, with expensive equipment

uh, is just not realistic.

I don't think New York really has a recording studio culture anymore,

because of the cost of real estate.

And in London other than Abbey Road and a couple of other places,

there really isn't anything.

A number of large studios have closed, because there is just less work in large studios.

Can you even imagine in this day and age if somebody just wants to do a song demo,

of them coming into a studio, and paying a big studio to do that?

People would not do that anymore.

That, uh... They have software at home.

[Steve] So many of the studios that I even worked at as a kid

or interned at, they're all gone.

The business has to change just like any business would when technology strikes.

So now, it's gotta be more about the experience, uh, the service, the atmosphere, the vibe,

getting away and coming to this creative place,

that's really what a commercial studio has to sell themselves on.

Budgets have been slashed, so we have to adjust our prices.

Man, when I started off, I remember what the studio rate at Ardent,

Studio A was 1,850 a day, plus engineer, plus tape.

Nobody batted an eye.

Because the economy was really in the tank, studio rates just kind of evened out.

Everybody's got their rates down as low as they dare go to be competitive.

It does feel like at times there's a little bit of a race to the bottom in terms of rates.

Up to a certain level bands weren't going to studios.

Record labels would sign a group or an act or something like that and they would say,

"We're not sending you anywhere. You're from Rochester.

Like what's the best studio in Rochester? Okay, we'll bring the producer to you.

Just... You know, we don't have to pay for gas, food, lodging."

[calm music playing]

There are so many studios now where guys are charging what? 50, 60 bucks an hour.

That's for the studio, for the personnel, for everything, you get 60 bucks an hour, right?

That's what studios were getting in 1985. So in 30 years

[scoffs]

In 30 years, studios and engineers are getting paid exactly the same amount

that they were getting paid in 1985.

Okay, you could say, "Well, things are cheaper now, so, you know."

Well, I'm sorry but, uh, real estate isn't cheaper,

hiring a contractor is not cheaper.

Things are cheaper in some ways, but microphones still cost money,

mic pres still costs a lot of money, compressors still cost a lot of money,

room build-outs still cost a lot of money.

That does not change one salient fact and that is the person who's recording your album

is making today exactly the same amount of money that I made in 1985.

I don't know that it's just this industry.

I mean it seems to me that this is a problem across the board.

If you really look at wages for the Americans,

they have stagnated over the past 30 years.

Yet things are two to three times more expensive.

People, uh, are insured, yet they can't pay their bills.

The music business is just a little microcosm

of the fucked-upness of the whole fucking system right now.

And until we fix all of that,

but in particular in the music industry,

people are gonna have a very tough time making a living in this business

and very few people are gonna find a path to retirement.

The worst times were hand-to-mouth, you know, really dealing with, uh,

trends that you, uh, every small business knows.

A big hurdle is just trying not to worry about where money's gonna come from

and where the next session's coming from, and I think the only way of doing that is,

you know, you get judged by your last project that you do, um,

and so concentrating on that what you're doing that day and doing it really well.

It's a matter of adapting to the smaller market.

So that's big.

And being able to come up with new ideas to shift parts of the business to, uh,

continue to, you know, grow or build or survive.

These days we have to compete with a lot more than people had to compete

with when they're in the '60s and '70s, because people have the internet and their phone.

They can be watching a movie, they can be playing a game,

they can communicate with anyone anywhere in the world or they can listen to music.

Whereas it in past times, you know, there were three TV channels,

they went off the air at ten o'clock, there weren't that many things to do, right?

And so listening to records is something

that people would engage in a more focused way.

The industry is depressed. It's transitioning.

It's just transitioning from old model to the new model.

There used to be a business to it. You know, it was a business.

And now, it's like a bunch of people make music,

and they put it up on the internet for free,

people listen to it for free, and somehow, somewhere somebody makes some money.

Well, I'm not sure anymore what the music industry is.

The music industry Is kind of this many-headed beast that goes in a lot of different directions

at the same time and on a regular basis eats itself.

[Marc] It's hard enough to get anybody to wanna sign any band

and it has been for obviously eons and eons,

but of course downsizing, you know, now just exacerbates that problem.

Right when Too Much Stereo came out we had redone our deal with Virgin Records

and we kinda started seeing a bunch of people at the record label just getting fired.

Almost anyone can make a record

and most importantly now, can get it, "out there".

[Vance] You can record a record on your laptop in your bedroom.

You can put it out on iTunes yourself.

Now, that is power to be able to publish, self-publish,

to record yourself, do yourself,

and publish yourself, and put it out there. That is serious power.

The problem with it is not everybody should do that.

Anything is available for us to hear.

I mean every song, whether it's great to you or horrible to you, it's right in your face.

So the "music industry" is flooded with shit,

with a lot of bad music, and nobody is curating it.

And because everybody can record at home, in the computer,

nobody wants to pay to come to a place like this.

Not nobody, but not everybody.

You're no longer bound by coming up with that big chunk of money

to get a thousand CDs pressed.

You know, you don't have to do that anymore.

You know, in 2006, streaming came out and, uh, Spotify was on the market,

and then there was Pandora came out,

and YouTube was becoming more and more of a place where people were putting up music,

and all of a sudden sales plummeted, and they continued to plummet.

And they've been falling continually for the past ten years.

Our business is affected by changes in the overall studio environment,

in, you know, the worldwide studio environment,

which has been affected by changes in the distribution of music.

Now, music distribution being primarily electronic now,

there is much less emphasis on physical manufactured goods,

much less emphasis on retail sales, much less money in the recording business generally.

So a lot of bigger recording studios

that depended on major label product being their bread and butter, um,

a lot of those studios have gone under, because the profit has kinda fallen out of that.

[Steve Ewing] We started seeing that radio was not actually selling records anymore.

iTunes was really bumpin'.

I think the music business imploded because people didn't want to foresee

what was gonna happen with how technology was going to change the music business.

You know, as soon as people,

you know, started downloading pirated music in the early 2000s,

that's when, you know, a light bulb should come on in the music business and go,

"Okay, we have to change our business model now."

If we think we are gonna compete with free by selling people $15 CDs,

you know, we better get our heads checked.

So in 1976, Congress reformed all of the copyright code called "Title 17"

and in it they put provisions for how much radio had to pay songwriters

for the songs that they spin.

We have no such statutory rate for songwriters to be paid off streaming.

I got a royalty check the other day, Melissa Etheridge record, she did a soul record,

it's a really great record, it's on Concord, I got mixed points on it, I made one penny.

One penny. On that record.

So, you know, I mean what's the point?

[Danny] Bottom line is it's literally the same kind of money.

It's 1980 dollars, it's 1985 dollars, it's the same money.

So I have no expectations of making any money.

You know, there's a lot of people out there that,

you know, illegally download our record, which I can't fight it.

[laughs] So might as well just accept it.

And if they have it and they like it, great.

Those people often will buy a shirt or something and realistically nowadays too,

especially when dealing with labels,

we make more money off of selling a T-shirt to somebody at a show

than we do selling a 12-inch record to them, so...

I don't think we'll ever get back to a place where you can make Nirvana money.

I think today's Billy Corgan doesn't get to buy a Jaguar,

but I kind of think that that's cooler, too.

Nobody's buying music.

Sales are how we reap the reward.

Uh, although, these days sales, uh, don't exist.

The music has become free.

That's not right, but it's become that way.

You certainly don't get it from the streaming services that are out there, at all.

I mean it's pennies and it's not, you know, it's just not worth talking about that.

I mean even you're Taylor Swift and you're not really making much money from streaming.

[Richard] My income has not waned.

I mean I'm not I'm still, you know, increasing every year.

Uh, but I think I've just been very fortunate,

but a lot of my friends, it's a very different story, you know.

Where we used to put out records and then tour to support those records,

now it's sort of the reverse.

Now, we put out records to support tours.

The applecart is flipped around backwards.

Uh, my friends who do indie records and are out on the road,

they are only making money playing live and selling vinyl.

Go figure.

I hate using the term "trickle-down".

But, you know, like if more people were buying records,

you know, more engineers and producers could stay afloat,

and, uh, and be able to do it well.

I don't think the consumer gives a shit.

I think the consumer is like, "Well, music has always been free for me."

Even if you're my age, music's always been free to some degree,

because you could listen to the radio.

But the difference is radio is mandated to pay and streaming sites are not.

They think of it as a product that's replaceable like with any other product.

That concerns me

because any art form is so important to a culture.

It's the heart of the culture.

It concerns me that there's no heart.

[Steve] Society as a whole, we're kind of underfunding our creative people.

It's happened in journalism, it's happening everywhere, nobody cares about content.

If the general economy has any say in the creative economies,

then there are some very rich people and the rest of us are hosed.

Well, of course, it sucks.

I mean it's just a different time and those days are gone, you know.

And it's just different.

Has it affected me? Yes. I'm making less money for the same amount of work.

But I'm doing something I love.

It was told to me a long time ago if you do something you love,

you never work a day in your life.

My account has changed, my bank, but the love of what I do hasn't.

I always wanted to own a recording studio and for my sins, they gave me one.

The definition of a recording studio has changed so much over the years.

I used to believe in the traditional model, because that's what I grew up in.

That it was a fancy place with beautiful wood walls, and floors,

and, you know, a dead part, and a live part,

and a big fancy console, and everything else.

I still love that definition, but I have come to realize in recent years

that a recording studio can be anywhere where talented people get together and create.

[Brian] What a recording studio is isn't so much defined by the space

that you're in but what you're doing in the space.

[Richard] Most of the sessions I do now, like nine out of ten,

I'm doing at my house, in my studio.

There's pros and cons.

I mean the great thing about the way the industry is now

is that we're seeing a lot of incredible talent develop in bedrooms

as people become their own producers and engineers out of necessity,

and sometimes it's amazing.

You know, sometimes it's phenomenal, because it's really pure and it's unadulterated.

It's unaffected by labels or by "producers" or, you know,

people telling them how things should be.

[Steve] These guys are doing it from bedrooms, from basements, from living rooms.

I mean they're making incredible-sounding music with great songs

and they're doing it without, you know, being elite or rich or having,

you know, to book out some big studio for, you know, 25 grand a week.

[Andy] Honestly, most of the time when I've gone to something that is like a pro studio,

it's been there's at least a little bit of like posturing to it, you know.

On my end as a performer like a little bit more nervous or, you know.

Um, so there is probably some truth in just more casual the atmosphere,

uh, the better for comfort level, performing, and stuff like that.

[Sunyatta] Playing in studios was always a little bit intimidating,

typically the engineer is a very accomplished musician,

and they're around really accomplished musicians all day,

and people put their part down, and then I'm like, "Ooh".

You know, get real like just, uh, stage fright basically, um, in the studio.

The first guitar solo I ever recorded, I did like over 70 takes.

And I was like near tears, and just losing my mind,

and like that performance is one of the worst things I've ever done.

It's like let it be sort of off the cuff, let it be casual, you know.

We did home recordings too and I didn't have any of that fear

and the process was just a lot smoother just because of the sort of stage fright

that I used to get in that situation.

It's strange that I found like I'm just more comfortable

with it being in my extra bedroom, you know.

I'm not a fan of tan walls, and oak trim, and the glass right there,

and dual speakers with wooden horns, and "this is a console".

You know, who gives a shit what kind of microphone it is

if the person isn't inspired to do their thing in front of it.

I've always been fascinated by the control of having a home studio.

And by control I mean control over how much you're spending,

control over the availability of time, control over your schedule,

and ultimately control frequently over, uh, you know, just the musical workflow,

how does this work and not feeling bad about walking away from the room if you need to.

You know, and saying... It's not happening right now.

Now, that's the other disadvantage of mixing in a studio is I got to go there,

I can't mix in my pajamas unless I have no shame, the client is paying for that room,

so I can't just say after six hours, "Uh, I'm not feeling like mixing today."

Here, I can do that. Whatever.

Uh, you know, I'm a little tired today, I don't feel like mixing.

If I blow off a day it's because I need to blow off the day, I need the space,

I need to reset my head, I need to get away from it, whatever.

There is some kind of urgency to it in comparison to a home studio

where you can just be like, "Uh, I'm gonna go make a pizza

and I'll come back in a half an hour," you know.

But again, there was so much urgency when I had the space

that I never could like have fun doing it.

Shame Club recorded an album uh, at a place called Mousetrap.

The Mousetrap in Norman, Oklahoma, with Carl Amburn.

Well, he had like a full studio built into this, uh, barn in like his mom's backyard.

So that was really, really chill.

We would just like sleep in the barn.

He had like on cots or whatever, and he had AC in the in the sound room,

so like there wasn't a bathroom out there, there was just like a piss tree.

Like if you had to take a shit, you would have to go into the house

and walk past his mom, you know, and be like, "Hi".

I mean why to why I have to why be pigeonholed into something?

I mean I think being open to different spaces

sometimes I record vocals in my bedroom, at my house.

And I love the fact that I can do that, 'cause financially

and economically, it saves me money,

to know that I can be able to do that or I edit vocals on GarageBand,

because I don't have the time right now to learn Pro Tools.

I write lyrics in fits and starts, and it's really, really nice.

Once I get that specific, uh, lightning strike to just go in and start recording vocals.

And spreading those songs apart, um, and getting some arrangement going.

And if we had to book a studio, at those super,

you know, right at that moment, um, that would be, you know, an obstacle.

You know, there's a Rundgren album cover

where there's a picture of him and a mic is taped to like a broom

up against the back of a chair, and it's his living room, and he's at home making a recording,

and I've always been really, really intrigued by that.

Any place that is comfortable and makes good music is a studio to me.

It can be cheap, and shitty, and still have personality,

and like that's the important thing that I wanna convey.

If it's just you and your laptop, and, you know, a couple of hundred bucks for the gear,

you can have your creative outlet.

If you wanna create art, why should you have a barrier of having to,

you know, be rich or be elite just so that you can create your art?

I think it's a fantastic thing that everyone can walk into a music shop,

and spend a few hundred bucks, and get a recording interface, and spend 14.99,

and get a bunch of great processing plugins that can reproduce

what a big commercial studio can do.

Because it used to be that you couldn't you had to have a bunch of money

or you had to be pre-approved from someone else

in order to get access to ever even recording stuff.

Now, every any kid can just do that on their phone

or, you know, that's just amazing to me.

And some people will see that as a negative thing and I disagree.

I think that's a positive thing.

There's no reason, you know, nobody else has to press play,

you know, but everyone should be able to at least...

-Hit record. -Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

[calm music plays]

[Kenny] Home recording has definitely picked up,

but I don't think that it renders the recording studio obsolete by any means.

The thing you that one might think is, "Well, when you have a professional recording studio

that you're gonna be worried about people recording at home,

and the home recording revolution, and the laptop revolution,"

and, uh, I was aware of that when we started my studio 1980.

I think I'm probably on the sixth or seventh backlash

from recording people going record at home,

realize it's harder than they think, or realize they really love it,

and then they wanna get into a studio, and do it.

What I've found is that the home recording revolution really has just given me better educated,

more experienced clients.

[Matt Ross-Spang] If you do a home studio and you record a little bit,

you realize why you need to go to a studio.

I think that's for a while.

A few years ago, we had a big boom in home recording and studios were really suffering,

but I think people now are realizing it doesn't sound as good,

you need to collaborate with people, you need to have experts

and professionals work with you if you wanna have a bigger sound.

[Jeff] There's obviously the studio and the acoustic design of a room

that gives it its own personality,

but more important than anything are the people that work there.

[Matt Ross-Spang] What you don't have is the guy who's been recording for 30 years,

who knows how to get interesting sounds and push you in ways

that you need to be pushed to do stuff.

I mean one of the roles of an engineer is to make the technological process disappear,

so that the musicians and producer can just get at the music

and be as creative as possible, and there's not time wasted trying to figure out

how to get a sound or how to make the computer do what you want it to do.

That's to me why people come to studios to work with certain people.

In one sense, I think there has been kind of a resurgence of appreciation for

what is a traditional type of production ethic.

You really have to be diverse to be able to be able to make it.

Had to adapt over the years and, uh,

or obviously we couldn't have stayed in business first two years.

To become kind of like this eight-armed octopus.

[David] Our longevity is partly because we also did related things that also were, uh,

contributed to income here.

We do rock, but we also do hip-hop, but also we're a post house.

Programming, uh, coding at the earliest website times, yeah.

But then we're also a music house, we've done custom music.

It's a recording studio which is about 7000 square feet of our 12,000.

Um, we have the vinyl mastering suite.

We've expanded that into digital mastering as well.

We do the next step in vinyl production, which is electroplating,

and then we have a company called Mara Machines, which restores MCI tape machines.

And we weren't afraid to tackle really things a little beyond

what the scope of just recording.

[Steve] You know, technology disrupts a lot of industries and you just have to continue on,

there's nothing you can do about it.

So I mean do I see it as a bad thing that now a lot more people have access to,

you know, low-priced tools to create art?

No, I don't see it as a bad thing.

Do I want guys who've spent their careers running commercial studios to fail?

I don't want that either.

[Marc] The only way for those big rooms to sustain themselves

is just to really have corporate clients,

and do film and TV stuff or else they're just gonna have to like,

you know, lose the memories of what they used to make and deal with it.

You have to have a core clientele

and you have to serve that clientele within their means.

And that's our challenge, you know, to make the most of what we've got, and look out,

and figure out how we can be a value to people,

and generate the sort of income that keeps us going.

[Jason] A successful place is probably one that's owner-occupied and owner-run.

Too many paychecks bring the bills down.

You know, you can hope that you get millionaires now and again,

but you cannot base a business on the occasional occurrence of millionaire clients.

And whatever, may be the millionaire musicians go away,

but, okay, I'm alright with that.

Let me make $30,000 a year writing dumb songs.

Nobody sits down and listens to a record anymore.

That just makes a guy like me sad.

That doesn't mean it's right.

I miss that and I miss the importance of creating that experience for people,

but now other people are creating other experiences,

and what I see as an exciting thing is these, uh,

audio experiences that are being created that I have never even thought of yet,

and I see young people who care a lot, and that gives me great hope.

But I think the pendulum swings and certainly being in business this 30-plus years, um,

you see that pendulum swing a lot.

In some ways, it's kind of over already.

I think like the golden era, it's kind of passed.

No reason of being scared of that, you know.

It's just the change has already happened.

Maybe it's just somebody else's golden era right now.

The sonic communication business is still very strong.

People are talking about budgets going down.

I'm a very positive-looking guy.

I mean vinyl's selling like crazy.

We have the internet now, which means anyone can promote their music and put it out,

so there's more ways to get your music out there.

The options now are incredible for people

and I think it's not any different than it was back in the day,

you just have to be talented and you have to think outside the box.

[David] It's in our court. What can we do to continue to be relevant?

In 35 years, we've managed to remain relevant.

[Chris] I think it's a great time to be making music in this industry.

Right now, I'm working on a project from a band from Singapore,

and they Hightail me their tracks,

and I mix it and send it back to them, and that's awesome.

[Mark] I think it all has to stem from a love of music, and enjoyment of other people,

dedication to doing what we do.

I have a saying which is, uh, "This stuff is way too important to take seriously."

I'm not afraid by any of it, I just enjoy it and, uh,

you know, any obstacles can be gotten around.

Often when something kinda dries up, it bubbles up someplace else

and you just have to be able to adapt and, um, and take advantage of that.

Yeah, of course, it's changed.

You don't earn as much money, but for me it was never about the money.

I honestly say that, you know, if you make great art, the money will happen.

Every artist has their own unique ability to create.

I want everyone making art. I think it's a beautiful thing.

I think, you know, what will be amazing is if that more people can get attracted to this art

and to the art of music and music production that normally wouldn't have.

That's the key to success and the key to satisfying work.

Because eventually people will be able to make money in this industry, it's inevitable.

And it's a lot more fun, because we don't have some A&R guy breathing down our neck

and telling us it needs more shaker or cowbell or what have you.

[Danny] What I wanna do is make records that family, and friends,

and a handful of other people like to listen to.

Anything we get back from that, feels really good.

[Brian] The future of the music business as it relates to the idea of people

who make their living creating music,

I think is bright.

I actually think that how it's going right now, it's pretty beautiful.

[Mark] There's a lot of promise.

I think this is probably the best time there is to be in the record business.

[Steve Higdon] There's a lot more acceptance of a broad range of cool stuff now.

People are affording great music tools, they are making great music.

Music definitely is something that is capable of making every single person on Earth react.

Music is so tied to emotion and it's so personal.

It's all I know.

What makes your arm hair stand up when something sends a shiver down your spine?

[Matt Ross-Spang] Transcends language, it transcends age,

it transcends sex, race, everything.

It just, you know, uh, it's just amazing.

[Mark] I really enjoy tracking records with musicians.

I love the creativity of that, and discovering sounds,

and taking a song, an idea, a vision, a dream, and making it perceptible to other people.

We're fixing it in some way that it will, um, that it can travel through space and time,

and touch other people, and make something that will hopefully outlast us,

and maybe continue to change the world in the future.

Making and creating great things, that's what it is, that's what it's about for me.

And that satisfies me.

And if I can make money doing that, then great.

I will continue to do that until I'm dead.

[rock music playing]