Steve Albini Shows Us His Junk

Engineer Steve Albini (Nirvana, The Pixies, Bush and tons more credits) is often asked for his opinions on the music business and his honest straight-talk approach can sometimes come off as a little jaded and some say even a tad grumpy. Get him around his Electrical Audio studio talking gear however, and he becomes as a completely different guy – excited, enthusiastic, and he even smiles a few times.

In the video Steve shows us some gear that you don’t often see in studios that he makes great use of, like the Neotek consoles, Josephson C700 mic, Real Nice Compressor, and even some broken Pachinko machines. One of the cooler pieces is a 16 string guitar stung will all high E strings!

One of the things I really liked about Steve’s gear philosophy is that if there’s a piece he doesn’t use often he gets rid of it and only keeps the items that he always uses and always work. It’s a pretty good idea to run a studio by. He philosophy on respecting the music and preserving it with an accurate recording is also to be lauded (I wish producers and engineers did more of that today).

Check out the video. It’s pretty cool.