I want to quote every post and say "yes, exactly that" but we'd be here forever.

HeavenIsInYrBeard wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 8:17 am I'm confident that I could usually have spotted one of his recordings

Many years ago, my girlfriend picks me up in her car. She's listening to The Wedding Present. I've never heard them. 20 seconds in I say "damn, this sounds really good!" 10 seconds after that I say "this sounds like Steve Albini recorded it." Girlfriend gives me a seriously dubious eyebrow and says "you can listen to something for 30 seconds and know who recorded it?" I replied "I can when it's Steve."

We get to our destination, she pops the cd out, and printed right on it: "Produced by Steve Albini".

Sometime after that, it's a Saturday afternoon and I'm trying to take a nap, but I can't cause my roommate is cranking the tunes in the living room. All I can hear through the wall is the low end of the bass drum but I think "that sure sounds like a bass drum recorded by Steve Albini". Later I ask what he was listening to: "oh that was an outtake from In Utero"

There's lots of records that sound good on a boombox, but lots of those records sound considerably less good when you listen to them under the operating room lights in a mastering room. You don't need me to tell you that Steve's records sound fucking amazing in a mastering room and everywhere else. In my opinion his work stands apart from literally everyone else.

I never met him but he was a huge influence on me as an engineer and as a musician. But far more than that, he was an shining example of How To Be, and I'm so, so thankful to have had him as a role model.

My favorite Shellac song has always been "Ghosts" and that title is making me a little sadder than I already am.

re: archive, some recommendations for the vault of lore:

• Paean to billiards in a skateboarding magazine
  https://killingtechnology.wordpress.com ... liards.jpg
• Paean to record stores and farmers markets
  https://noisyheadspace.files.wordpress. ... 2009.webp
• Paean to studio cat and fellow engineer:
  https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/l7lxcd8p997.png
  

In Memoriam:

Fogbeak wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 10:15 am

prowler wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 6:32 am

sparky wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 11:57 pmA half-composed letter to him lies useless in my head suggesting he compile his writing, all of it, seen and unseen. I wish someone would do this.

yes!

I had the idea of making a Steve Albini Archive website to collect all the knowledge he's shared over the years. Videos, interviews, technical descriptions of recording setups, gear, anecdotes, funny/insightful quotes, etc. All user submitted, anything goes.

Often times, I'll be doing a deep dive on some album that he's recorded, trying to suss out little technical details. There'll be a link to an interview or a video or something, and the link will be from some long-deleted website, the information essentially lost to time.

This forum certainly serves this function, in part, but a lot of fan communities create Wikia pages devoted to collecting as much information as possible on their subject of interest. BoCPages, for the group Boards Of Canada, is a fantastic example of this.

I'm a software developer by trade, and I'd be willing to sink some real time and effort into this if there was enough interest.

Lots of us here are also software engineers. Perhaps we could open source it.

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 11:07 am I want to quote every post and say "yes, exactly that" but we'd be here forever.

HeavenIsInYrBeard wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 8:17 am I'm confident that I could usually have spotted one of his recordings

Many years ago, my girlfriend picks me up in her car. She's listening to The Wedding Present. I've never heard them. 20 seconds in I say "damn, this sounds really good!" 10 seconds after that I say "this sounds like Steve Albini recorded it." Girlfriend gives me a seriously dubious eyebrow and says "you can listen to something for 30 seconds and know who recorded it?" I replied "I can when it's Steve."

The above scenario is exactly how I got to the old PRF and how I became a part of this place. But for me it was the Stooges record The Weirdness.

Shocked, sad and speechless...Steve you were a great motherfucker....thank you for everything you have given to us...

It looks like FM scott is still hosting this amazing early archive made by FM bebio back in 2008:


http://toomanyhelicopters.com/freestuff ... 0Audio.pdf

I've really appreciated reading these posts today and yesterday. I sat down to try to process this loss and wrote this:.

There are two people who have had the most monumental influence on the course of my life and my identity as a musician. The first is my good friend Mike who taught me how to play the guitar and introduced me to an entire world of independent music. The second was a stranger and later, fond acquaintance, Steve Albini. Back in the mid 90s, Mike was touring in a band Ritual Device, who had recently recorded at Albini’s home studio. Mike gave me a cassette with Shellac’s At Action Park on one side and a comp of Scratch Acid on the other. I played that tape in my car a million times. What I heard in Albini’s music was vital. There was an integrity to the sound, nothing added, nothing subtracted. I then came to discover Albini was a common force behind so many of the albums that were, and remain, so important to me. It was an immensely formative time that opened my eyes to a world of musicians who did things completely on their own terms; pushing boundaries, while creating a kind of communal subculture of venues, record stores, and DIY recording sessions

Steve might balk at this, but I think integrity was the super power he had as an engineer. He was uncompromising in his ethics and committed to making excellent recordings that will survive as entries into history. Those principles, in a kind of inverse way, do leave a sonic imprint. I’ve heard people say regarding bands they love, “The album they did with Albini was their best one.” I think they’re hearing is the ingenious way Steve stepped out of the way to let the greatness of the band take the spotlight. It’s the negation of ego, that opening of a space for musicians and instruments to breathe, that I hear as both an integrity of sound and integrity of a person.

In 2012 I recorded my album All the Ghosts with Steve at Electrical. It’s not often that your inspirations live up to your expectations. Steve was an exception. Steve was so incredibly good at his job. We made a 12 song album in 3 days and mixed it all on a 4th. This was how Steve was used to working. The fact that a “famous producer” was willing to work that hard and fast on a random, unknown band is again a testament to Steve’s integrity. In the studio, Steve was both sharp and disarming. He told us some great stories and plenty of jokes. It was one of the most important experiences of my life. I can’t believe he’s gone. I have had so many vivid dreams of making another album with him.

Steve’s legacy will be speaking to us for years to come. I’ll derive some comfort in the fact that I will continue to discover music that Steve helped document and fix into the culture. I’m sure there are many “acquaintances” and strangers like me who probably have a similar story about what an impact Steve had on their creativity, career, and life.

Thank you again Steve, for leaving an indelible mark on me and on a culture I hold dear. And thank you for helping me live out the dream of making an album with you. I know that since it’s on analog tape, I will have it always, and my kids and their kids’ kids will also someday be able to hear it. You know what I mean…

In deepest gratitude, with condolences to all your loved ones,

Steve B.

I still can't believe this is real.

I love hearing everyone's stories about Steve. They are all different and unique but share Steve's kindness and generosity. My interactions with Steve aren't different, and like so many people here, it's impossible to overstate how much he influenced and changed my life. I wouldn't be where I am without him, without this message board, without the friends I made through here. He lived like a damn hell ass king, and he went exactly the way he wanted to with a mountain of unfinished shit left, but fuck, 61 is just way too young.

Gramsci wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 6:12 am BBC has done a tribute.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live: ... are-mobile

That's the live feed for 6 music. You can hear the mix here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zk06

With Mr Albini gone I've only got the sage advice of Glenn Danzig left to guide my decisions.

When we recorded a 7” at Electrical in 2002, Steve gave us an extra day of studio time to do the mixing, we booked only one day and planned on getting it all wrapped up, but he got off to a late start due to the session he recorded the night before going long and by the time he was ready to mix, he said he didn’t trust his ears. So we came back a few weeks later and had a whole day of mixing for free. It meant a lot to us, being in our very early twenties and absolutely not being able to afford it. He was a real mensch.