Photo: Mike Banks @recordproductioncom
Producer, mixer and engineer Cameron Craig joins Kevin Paul to discuss his traditional path into the music industry, share advice for newcomers looking to break in today and to shed light on the work of the Music Producers Guild and its positive impact on the industry.
Show Notes
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:40 - Route Into The Industry
04:22 - Career Progression At Flagstaff Studios
06:56 - Learning As An Assistant
09:52 - The Blurring Of Engineer And Producer Roles
14:06 - Moving To The UK
17:52 - Setting Up As A Freelancer
19:42 - Technology Changing The Industry
25:01 - Working With Inspiring Artists
26:58 - The Music Producers Guild
30:09 - Lobbying For AI Consent
33:54 - Benefits Of Membership
35:46 - The Future Of The MPG
37:44 - Tips For Getting Into The Industry
We’d like to thank Neil Pickles and the management at Pierce Entertainment for letting us record this episode at their studio. https://www.pierce-entertainment.com/
Music Producers Guild
The Music Producers Guild is a not-for-profit organisation that was started by producers, mixers, recording engineers, re-mixers and programmers and is run by volunteers from within the industry. Their aim is to support members in their careers, campaign for the rights of music industry workers, promote diversity within the industry and to celebrate the achievements of members via the annual MPG Awards.
Cameron Craig - Biog
Cameron is a two time Grammy award-winning Producer-Mixer-Engineer. A hugely impressive credit list notably also includes several albums with U.N.K.L.E., along with names like Adele, Annie Lennox, Bjork, Tina Turner, Baxter Dury, Grace Jones, Joe Strummer, Duffy, Amy Winehouse and many more.
His work has encompassed an enormous spectrum of musical styles including indie, dance, film soundtrack and orchestral recording, picking up a Grammy award for 'Album of the Year' for his part in recording Adele's 25 and collecting another Grammy award for 'Best Engineered - Non classical' in 2008 for his contribution to the Suzanne Vega album 'Beauty and Crime' also recording the orchestra on Duffy's Grammy and Brit award-winning 'Rockferry' album.
Other notable accolades are Grammy nominations for Annie Lennox’s Nostalgia album that he mixed, Bjork’s Biophilia album that he recorded a track on, plus a nomination for MPG’s Recording Engineer of the Year 2015.
Having started out in his native Australia he achieved great success with many multi-platinum albums and a nomination for ARIA Engineer of the Year in 1995 to his name. It is then Cameron decided to move to the UK to further his career.
Cameron is an Executive Director of the MPG and sits on the board of UK Music, representing the MPG to the wider music community.
https://www.cameroncraig.info/
Interviewer: Kevin Paul - Biog
Kevin Paul started his career as a DJ but quickly found his passion was sound engineering. His first audio job was at Soho Studios in 1991, moving to Konk Studios six months later, where he worked alongside successful producers and engineers such as Bob Clearmountain, Adam Mosley, Pascal Gabriel and Gil Norton, as well as bands such as The Kinks, Galliano, Terrorvision, UFO and Elastica.
After working on archiving the Depeche Mode back catalogue in 1994, he was offered an engineering role at Mute Records’ in-house studio, which eventually lead to a position as Head Engineer, which gave him access to the entire Mute Records roster. Highlights include mixing Goldfrapp’s 'Felt Mountain', David Bowie’s 'Hours' and Nick Cave’s 'No More Shall We Part'. He also worked in 5:1, mixing Moby’s 'Hotel', Goldfrapp’s 'Black Cherry' and more for DVD.
In 2004 Kevin went freelance and re-mixed the entire Depeche Mode and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogues for SACD/DVD. Since 2008, Kevin Paul has been in charge of mixing and remixing performances at the iTunes Festivals in the UK and Germany. He has mixed over 100 artists to date, including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The XX, Calvin Harris, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Linkin Park, Florence & The Machine, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Jessie J., Norah Jones, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, N.E.R.D., Lykke Li, James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Hot Chip, Paul Weller and many more.
He continues to record, engineer, produce and mix many projects in music and film, runs the mixing and surround mixing modules for the Masters Degree course at UK’s Westminster University, and divides his time between London and Berlin. Recent works include the international-selling new album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and mixing the latest album of Denmark’s 'Dúné' with the first single premiering at the Danish Music Awards, plus the latest iTunes Music Festival.
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