How To Get Ahead In The Studio Business
Firstly, I need to apologise for the click bait-y headline, but this really is more than an attempt at eyeballs and ‘attention engineering’, I promise! We all know that everyone’s route to success in the studio world is different, but here are a few tactics that I’ve used (and I’ve seen other people use) to get ahead. Definitely ‘tried and tested’, although I’ll stop short of ‘guaranteed’ for legal reasons.
Be Thorough
The first thing to note is the surprising lack of transferrable skills between the jobs of assistant, engineer and producer. There are a few things that you carry with you, but knowing the ins and outs of the studio mic cupboard won’t teach you how to mix, and being a good mixer won’t teach you how to get a great performance from a fragile singer having a bad day. One thing that is definitely transferrable though, is being thorough.
This advice was given to me early on and I’ve always found it to be useful. Whatever task you are doing, approach it with the mind-set of being thorough and you will do it with professionalism, and do it well. These things get noticed, and when you are getting noticed then you are much more likely to find yourself moving ahead. Early in my own career I found myself moving from a small studio where I was an assistant who was starting to get engineering gigs to a big studio where I was at the back of a long queue of experienced assistants. So, I got to work doing the tasks that I was given really well. If all I was doing was getting drinks, I would note and remember people’s orders so when they turned up next time their preferred style of coffee would be waiting for them. I also got really good at making hot chocolate and iced coffee (depending on the season). Slowly this attention to detail gets noticed, and when it’s time to trust someone with a more important task, you are the one who is trusted.
This transfers to engineering and production too. The engineer who always delivers a great recording is likely to be asked to try a mix when the Big Budget engineer can’t do it. And the mixer who goes the extra mile to really deliver the dynamic of a track might be asked to produce the next record. It all comes down to your enthusiasm to get the task done as well as is possible. When that shines through, it becomes infectious and attracts bigger and better things.
I wonder where this guy is from…
Keep Learning
Almost everyone working in a studio is doing a technically driven job, so it should go without saying that you never stop learning – both learning your craft and learning the new technologies associated with it. Really getting on the forefront of new technologies can be a big help in moving forward as well. If you are the person who knows how to make X work when no-one else does, then you can be very quickly in demand. This is normally a small window of time as the rest of the community catches up, but it can be enough to push you forward if you’re also demonstrating everything in the ‘Be Thorough’ paragraph above, as well as the paragraph below…
Be A “Cool Hang”
Apologies are again in order (for the use of that phrase) but that’s how it was explained to me, it sums it up well, and I’m guessing you know what I mean. Studio sessions are long hours, often many days in a row, and it can get quite intense. Bear in mind that people hire the best person for a job that they enjoy working with, then it should be clear that making the effort to be a really nice person to hang around with is critical to your career. This gets into the area of ‘vibe’ – something undefined that we are all supposed to understand – but I’ll give a few examples of what works. 1/ Consider everything from the artist’s point of view. It’s inevitably stressful for an artist to be finally recording and/or mixing something that they have been working on for a very long time and those stresses will play out in different ways depending on the person. Start with an assumption that that’s what is happening. 2/ ‘Diva’ attitudes are born from insecurity. It’s the job of everyone in the studio to make the artist feel secure and comfortable, so if you’re getting some of this attitude then think what you can do to make the artist feel more confident and supported. 3/ Kill with kindness. Never take it personally, because it really isn’t – and just keep doing your job with enthusiasm. Eventually the tension decreases, and life gets much easier for everyone.
And it’s really that word ‘enthusiasm’ that’s the big one here. If you can make sure you are permanently injecting that into your work, then all of the above advice should fall into place without a great deal of extra thought. Best of luck!