Steve Levine - Getting Started In The Music Industry

Welcome to the Sound On Sound people and music industry podcast channel. In this episode, we sent recent graduate Felipe Gutierrez along to Steve Levine's Liverpool studio to talk to him about careers in the industry. Steve, thank you so much for having us here today at your studio. We've been talking about all sorts of things, but now we're going to start talking about life as a producer and engineer straight out of university, your early years, and The question we want to start out with is do you think it's necessary to have a college degree or university degree in music technology or production in order to make a successful career in the music industry as a producer or engineer? Well these days I think it's absolutely crucial because the world has changed so much. When I started as a T boy, in fact that was the term then, even before you progressed to what became T pop, assistant engineer and then fully senior engineer. The issue in those days was Virtually every record company had a studio. And there were also a large number of independent studios. So getting a job as a sort of an apprentice was relatively easy. The problem we have today is there's so few studios. There's very few commercial studios and there's even less private studios that have a commercial bend. So, for those few jobs that are available, I think it's absolutely essential that you have a good education and a good foundation in The sound technology courses that are available because the person that will be giving you the time doesn't have time for you to mess up. Whereas in the olden days, that was very much the process. For example, when myself and Simon Humphrey first worked with groups like The Clash, that was because we were the junior engineers. And CBS had a policy of allowing the junior engineers who were transitioning to Senior engineers to use their demo facilities in studio three. So it meant that doing demos for the record company, if things went wrong, it didn't matter. They were demos. So we learned our craft really, really well. You don't have that today. And in fact, when I do my master classes for some of the Lipper students, it's very much teaching that method. So for example, I'll have the students in my studio here. I'll have a I'll bring one of those bands in the studio, and then I'll have the lip of students as if they're my tape ops. So we'd go through the session. Anything that they want to ask, we can focus on. So I feel very confident that all my students would leave me and be more than capable of working with any producer to a very fine level. So that's why I think it's absolutely crucial that you have a good education. Which is a really hands on approach as well, you know, that you're getting from Lippa. That's the case with these courses. The sound technology courses are very hands on, whether it's in a university or whether they have a third party studio they work in. The students are learning as if they're in a commercial world. So that's the difference. Whereas in my day, you could learn in a commercial studio. Those facilities are just not available. Do you think there's something that maybe That was really important about that process of being the t boy and knowing that hard work Yes, working with clients is important. And I think that's something you don't get at university You may have a great technical knowledge But it's also very very important that you work with people because part of the your CV of what you're good at Yes, you need to know where to put the microphone how to record properly make sure your levels are good But you also need to work with people and you need to remember that Most of the artists that you might work with are often delicate people. Some are very, very shy, surprisingly, even though they perform. A lot of them are very shy. So to create the studio environment where they feel the most creative is really, really important. And that's something that only experience gives you. So if you're at university, try and work with as many local bands as you can, just so you get that interaction, because that is really important. There's no point in being a great technician, but you're an automaton. Which also brings me to the point of, you know, in the past 20 years, technology for producing and recording music has become so much cheaper that so many people have been able to set up their home studios, which in a way has taken away from going out into town and finding bands to record with to a model of a producer that's locked up in his or her room and they're just making music by themselves. Do you think that this has made a bit of a detriment? to the collaborative aspect of music making? Well, there's two things in that. I think collaboration is really important on any level, whether it's the classic relationship between the assistant engineer, the senior engineer, and the producer. That is a really fabulous relationship. If you look back through history, how many of those great relationships are between The producer and the engineer often for life, then moving slightly to the side. How many of the great relationships between the record producer and certain artists have lasted their whole career? That is one thing that's really, really important. You don't get that from having a thousand plugins. That's a way of working. However, reversing that to, to the way you phrase the question is that. The technology can sort of cut through some of it and mean you can get pretty good results without having too much of the background. The negative with that is, it appears to be easier than it actually is. And yet, the fundamental things that we all learn at the very beginning are still incredibly Placing the microphone in the right spot is still one of the greatest ways of recording. But it's fair to say that there are things that make, certainly my job as a producer, so much easier. There are things that I can do now that I wished I could have done X years ago. And there are certainly tricks that you can learn using the equipment that's available today. With the knowledge I learnt many, many years ago. I think the fact that you can create music with pads versus a traditional keyboard is incredibly important because it's opening up. Lyric writing, creativity, and songwriting to a generation who may not have been lucky enough to have learnt an instrument. But, have really great creative ideas. So I don't see that as a negative. All great songwriting is all great songwriting. I don't care where it comes from. You can have all the technology in the world, as we often say. All the gear. You need a great idea. And you can create a brilliant thing if you've got a bit more equipment, but it's still down to having a great idea. On that note, when you go to university, you have access to, you know, all this amazing gear, right? Which I think is one of the great things about going there, is you get to learn what Good, high quality stuff sounds like what it's meant to sound like, right? But at the same time, you leave university and then you realize all of a sudden, of course, I had access to tens of thousands of pounds and dollars worth of equipment, and now I'm left with this. And I thought to myself, so many of my favorite records were Recorded to a four track or an eight track recorder and used with such such very few resources But still great engineers were able of getting great sounds Do you think that that approach of of getting first great ideas before thinking about great gear? No, I think that every generation uses the tools that they have to the best that they have. And it's very interesting for me as a record producer when I work with artists from different generations who are used to working with different formats of work. So, for example, very recently I did a session which I used. Torag Studios, which is an 8 track vintage studio. And it was a younger guitarist. But what was interesting about that was that they wanted to record onto tape. But they forget that with tape come other problems. Such as, Oh, Steve, I really love that take. Can I just punch the guitar in? Yes, you can punch the guitar in, but I can't punch out because the head gap is too big, because they're used to a laptop where you can punch out like that. Conversely, I will have to name drop a little bit here. When I was working with Brian Wilson with the Beach Boys, who grew up with the technology you've just described, four track and then eight track, when he records his lead vocal, He's absolutely so used to listening to the line before I'm punching in, and listening to the other part when he double tracks or harmonizes. That's the only way he can work, and it is the best way for him to work. Whereas, a modern artist might just do, say, three random takes and comp them together. He couldn't work in that way, because he needs to hear a visual comp. And an audio comp as he's going through. I had some students recently where they were discussing the kind of guitar sound they were wanting to create on the record. And essentially it was like a, an Isley Brothers fuzzy sound. Now, we know roughly what that was. It's not an AP7 like people said because that had actually come out later. But essentially it's a, a fuzz of some description. In his case, probably a maestro that was available. And a phaser of some description. Now. So I went through the, that was the sound that they wanted on their record. They described it to me, and they sort of, and I said, what, you mean like this? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the sound. So I said, well, how, talk me through the process of how you did it, and why you're unhappy with your sound. Turns out, the poor guitarist played DI into the laptop, and they put the effects on later. And I went, but, what you're now describing is, is actually performance, the poor guitarist wasn't stimulated by the sound. Let me show you. So we set it all up with the fuzz, the phaser, and all the rest of it, and literally first take. And I went, oh my god, that's so brilliant. Now what they were liking was of course my wonderful sound, but actually what they were really liking was the performance. And it's very interesting, you mentioned earlier about having choices of microphones. You can have an 87, you can have a cheap mic, or anything in between. If you've got a rubbish performance, it doesn't matter whether it's a 47 or 87, or a esoteric C12, performance is king. Getting the great performance, and I think that people can, when they work alone, and in isolation, can forget how important performance is. And when they listen to a record and they say, wow, I love the sound of that record, they're actually liking both the Oral sound but also the performance And in so many cases when people play me records and go, I love that drum sound It's an okay drum sound but it's the performance that the drummer's made again with sound technology students It's very easy to get hung up on the technology and forget about them Absolutely. I, I remember being caught up in my teenage years when I was starting to play, you know, I was like, ah, I want to sound like John Frusciante or like Jimi Hendrix or like Mike Stern or John Schofield. And I was just looking into their gears, looking through the darkest of forums and trying to find what they used. And I remember I, um, and I went to, to a summer program in Boston and, and one of the teachers gave me a lesson that I never forgot. That he said, I told him, oh, you know, I just want that funky sound, James Brown, Mile Rogers kind of thing. I just don't know what settings to put my amp to. And he laughed and he said it doesn't matter what you put your amp to if the tone is in your hands, you know And sometimes I think that that we tend to forget that the performance is such an important part But as we don't see it, right we think it's all down to the mics Yeah, and not only is performance the king the performance It's really, really crucial, believe it or not, in electronic music, in terms of how you program the synth, where the clocks are, where the clocks lie on the timeline. These things can make an enormous difference. There still is an element of feel that can be either intentionally superimposed on the performance, or unintentionally. So, we've talked about all these things, and I just remembered, I just got an MPG, Music Producers Guild email, um, with a survey. About working for free. Should we work for free or for very poorly paid work? When should we? When should we not? Well, here's the thing. If you're working on a commercial session for a commercial producer, then absolutely not. If, on the other hand, the producer says, I'm just doing some sound sampling, or I'm just setting up for a session next week, do you want to come by, say hi, have a cup of tea, and chat? I did that when we did the Vapours album. A friend of mine that works at BBC North West sent me an email and said, Steve, I know this is a bit of an imposition, but as a young kid, exactly as you've described, could he just come down over the weekend and just sit in on the session and watch the session. I said, well, funnily enough, I'm actually in the Vapours album. That's a great opportunity. He can come down, he can sit in the room, he can make a cup of tea if he wants, and that's it. And I bought him lunch. But, you know, that was, there was no expectation of payment either side. He didn't do anything other than witness the session, and I think he took away a lot. Had I said to him, Or some, some other person come down and can do this, this, and this, and this. That's a commercial arrangement and they should be paid. And I think that, of course, there should be a sliding scale. Students should also remember, if they're good, they deserve to be paid. This is the thing for, because Throughout university, a lot of the opportunities that would come up would be free opportunities, so unpaid, or they would pay, you know, they would cover your travel. They shouldn't be free, but they should be different opportunities. So, for example, last week I did a demo for a friend of mine. This is a demo for a song that he's pitching to an artist. This will never be commercially released. And I said to my musicians, look, there's a couple of days of work, it's only a demo. What do you want? So they cut him a deal that they're all happy with. So you can have different rates for what you're doing, but I think that free shouldn't be allowed if you're contributing to the session. And I think, as my advice to students, don't do it. There's plenty of other opportunities. Just saying, just literally say no. I think it's important to keep a flexible mind that each project is different because sometimes you'll meet the people that Yes, but you're also describing what would be the next stage of someone's career. You need a flexible mind and if you're a freelance person, there's no point in being embarrassed about asking for money because that's, that's what you're doing. Here's an interesting thing that has happened with the modern world. Most bands today, whether they're a band, in the case of say Space or a solo artist, because they're effectively doing it themselves, they are Having that conversation. So they say, Steve, our budget is this, we have that for recording, that for mastering, that for vinyl, that for CD, that for key rings and stickers, what do you think? And you go, I take a commercial decision and go, well that's it, that's fine, that's the deal. And I think that many, many bands and artists now have to have that conversation. So it's a much more open conversation. It's not like, oh, speak to my manager and discuss it. It's, I've got ten pounds, is that acceptable? And if you go Actually, that is acceptable, or no, I'd really prefer 12, or 10's okay. But I need this as well or whatever the which is the other thing as well. There's other ways you can negotiate Yes, I think it's only fair now that a producer especially when a producer is working Developing an artist that I think that you look at an equity share in The intellectual property. Now whether that's an intellectual share of the, well certainly an intellectual share of the sound recording rights, that goes without saying. And then depending on your contribution to the song, there should be an agreed percentage. And again, you should agree these well ahead of it being released. And I have that, that actually is almost my condition of work now. If I'm going to work with somebody new, I say these are my terms. I mean, I had an example of a band I didn't work with. I won't say their names. I'm quite happy to gift somebody a day here to run through their songs, so I can decide if I want to work with them. So I set them up live in this room, and they run through their set list, and I can hear everything. Because I love hearing things in this room at a reasonable level, you know, not so loud, but I can see I can see what the tempo of the band is in terms of who's the leader, who's the subservient. That's really important as a producer. You've got to find out, you know, how does it all work. That doesn't change, I tell you. That doesn't change whether you're the Beatles or Culture Club, the Beach Boys, or any of these bands. Everything is the same. So we run through the songs, and it's an interesting mix of sounds. There's some acoustic instruments, a couple of electronic keyboards. There's one song in particular that's very, very strong. So I also like, as a producer, I'm thinking of sounds. Tell me the story of the song. So they start describing the song. And the singer said, Well, I went to this guy's house, and he played me some beats, and then I came up with the, I mean, hang on a minute, That's a co write. No, no, no, no, no. He just played me some stuff, and I can't, you know, they're my words and my melody. I said, no, no, no, but you went to his house, and he played you the, you know, a, That's a co write. No it isn't. I said, well it is. That's absolutely clear. And after the session left, I spoke to the manager and I said, I'm really sorry, but there seems to be quite a fundamental problem here of who thinks who wrote that song. I said, because for me I can't work on a project if there's a massive skeleton in the closet that's going to come out. My advice to the younger generation is you've got to clear up the business side as well. If you sit with a band and you contribute to that song, you are absolutely entitled to a percentage share of the writing. There's plenty of contracts available from the Musicians Union, producers around the world. There's all these documents, basic templates. Which also goes to say that I mean, in the UK there's the Musicians Union, you know, but it's, it's important, I think, to get involved with the mechanisms you have at your disposal. Absolutely. And, and those, all of these organizations are there to help. So if you're a songwriter, you've got the Ivers Academy, you've got, obviously, because PRS is a, and PPL a collection, but, but in terms of organizations, if you're an actor, you've got Equity. So there's all these different organizations that really genuinely do help. Magazines like Sound on Sound have You know, Q& A columns, websites, forums. That's one of the great things about the world we're in. Some information is readily available. The correct information is not always readily available. It's a lottery when you get out there. Yes. It is. I think, like, one of the things that happens is Some people might get, you know, caught up in the romantic side of things, you know, of, oh, you know what, let's get together, let's make some music, and they completely forget this, and that's when you get these stories. Look, if the example that I often give is, you fill your shopping trolley up in Sainsbury's, or Tesco's, or Waitrose, or wherever you go, you can't walk out with it full. You have to pay for it, yeah. And it's exactly the same as music. You've made a basket full of great ideas, you can't walk out without paying for it. Some years ago, you were involved in designing the sound for some electric vehicles, is that right? Yes, that's correct. With the evolution of the sound industry, the technological industry, the digital industries, do you think that now sound engineers have a wider scope of possibilities? that maybe, you know, you don't take into account when you're first walking into a degree? Absolutely. I think that the job opportunities are vast now. From sound design, as you described, through to doing the live sound for a band, all the way through, actually, to repairing We mentioned YouTube. You know, the sound on the YouTube is really important. So a good engineer can offer a video director some additional sonic help either by fixing the edits between tracks working out how to get rid of noise background noise all sorts of things and the technology moves on at a rapid rate which brings me to the point that when you just finish university as i did over a year ago now you find yourself in this crossroads and in my my degree which was a music technology degree I learned so much about different things, you know, about sound design, about Foley, about, um, location recording, about, um, studio recording, about mixing, mastering, all these things, such a large scope, and you're left with all these tools and things, and I always found it a bit difficult To know if I should be applying all these things I learned, right? Which I've had the chance, for X and Y reasons, you know. Some of my gigs are location recordings for short films, for commercials, corporate. A lot of other stuff is studio, is recording, production. And, but at the same time I'm thinking, Whoa, am I trying to juggle too many plates at the same time? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Um, Oh, I think it's a very good thing, because You'll end up with enormous amounts of crossover from different projects. Something that I might have done on the game, or some of the sounds that I've created on this game, have forced me to go down a road of, particularly sound effects, and you mentioned Foley, creating things, because obviously I'm working to visual images of this game. And of course, we've got so used to Hollywood super sound, that actually the sound, if I went outside and recorded footsteps, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't look good. So you then have to think, okay, right. With my record producer hat on, how would I manipulate that sound to become this kind of walking on footsteps on steroids? Now, with that in mind, I've used Exactly that, with a record, because there is a construction site outside my studio. And when they were putting the metal frames up, they were banging this rivet gun into the girders. So the rivet gun goes in, and then very soon after that, someone with a massive sledgehammer was banging the rivet in, and because there's not much else around here, the echo pinging across it, and I was having a cup of tea, and I could hear it outside, so I ran a very long cable outside and recorded it. Things like that become, oh, that's interesting. I'll add that into the track. So The more experience you can get with sound design, whether it's doing a film, or a record production, game, or anything, the cross pollinization of ideas are always really valid. Always. Steve, thank you so much for your time. It's been really insightful for us. I really hope for, you know, for you, the listener, it's been as enlightening as it has been for me. And hopefully we can do this sometime again soon. And thank you so much, Sound and Sound, for allowing us this time to do this. My absolute pleasure. Thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. And just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.