Audio Technology - Issue 12
Going out wide I have just come back from a marlin fishing trip. It's an interesting sport really, you pile a bunch of blokes onto a half million dollar boat, fill it full of a 1,000 litres of marine diesel, grab 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of fishing tackle, 100 bucks worth of beer and head for open sea... or 'out wide' as it known to the men of the sea.

Now, I don't know if you have ever been near a yacht club or maybe driven past a marina at around fish weigh-in time, but what you'll witness is a rowdy gathering of sports fishermen patting each other on the back and retelling the stories of 'the one they landed', how it 'fought up to the last second', that 'last run'... yadda yadda. But, if you look a little closer, beyond the exorbitant display of wealth, what you see is that most of these fishy fellows, (the owners and crews of the vessels themselves) are a very normal working-class type of blokes.

I was a guest on the boat of a building contractor I know and, with rod in hand, I started thinking. I was trying to work out how the hell a guy like me (who is at the top level of the fishing pole in professional audio in Australia), could ever afford to adopt marlin fishing as my chosen hobby. And the answer I came to was a resounding, "no, I can't" - it's not and never will be possible on my current income.

Income... now that's an interesting subject in this business, because nobody will really give you a straight answer about what they earn - there is no precedent to allow anybody to report what people get paid in the music game. But I know anytime I've been a guest lecturer or spoken to people at an audio school, the subject that gets the most wide-eyed looks is always the question of money - how much we really get.

Let's start by explaining a few of my own fish tales. I started in this business in 1985 at Festival Records with no real experience, straight from school. They paid me $106 a week and it was supposed to be a 38 hour week, but I routinely worked 100 hours.

My friend worked at a music store selling guitars, he got $250 per week plus commission, which sometimes bumped his salary up to $400, for a 40 hour week. At 18 years old we were both working in the music business. I was working with Bob Dylan and Jimmy Barnes and my mate was selling people guitar strings. But he could afford a car and a flat and all I could manage was a long run of credit card debts. He now has a $70,000 car and a beautiful house in the mountains (and I bet he is saving up for a marlin boat).

When I turned 21 (by then I was a well known engineer), they raised my rate to around $35k per year and that's where it stayed until I started my own business. And what's it like being in business for yourself? It can be a grim hand-to-mouth existence at times, but rest assured as soon as there is any serious money in my account I don't cash in and buy marlin poles (like those guys who work for their weekend marine diesel). Instead, just like the rest of the fools in the audio fishing fleet, I spend my profits on some infernal machine so I can do tomorrow's job just a little better - and it's always just that little bit...

When I see what I've just written in black and white, it seems kind of short-sighted and dumb, because if I continue in this fashion I will never, ever, have any real savings. I will never be a rich marlin fishing man.

What's my choices? Perhaps I could get a staff job again, and not have to invest any of my own money back into gear - just take from the business instead of investing back into future. But the way I figure it, right now nobody tells me what to do, and I never want to work for somebody who doesn't understand what music means to musicians ever again. Either you're part of the solution or part of the problem as far as I'm concerned. I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is, and, as I see it, I'm not part of the problem.

So let's get real personal. I know just about everybody in the music biz and I do not know a single audio person that consistently earns $150k per year - they simply do not exist in Australia. There may or may not be two or three guys that earn $100k+. There are a few more staff positions in the $50k to $70k range, a few more again in the $35k to $50k range, but the majority of audio people work in the $0 to $25k range. That means me, you and everybody you know in this business falls into this category, regardless of the outward appearance of wealth. It means we're all struggling to join the dots together, battling to get the bait on the line. What makes this so frightening is a trip through the Saturday job classifieds. They often pay 25 to 35 year old people $75k to $150k per year to do a variety of seemingly unqualified non-professional tasks. Jobs like: group supervisor, team leader, personal assistant... hmmm.

To illustrate this further: if I put 10 people on an internship in a major Australian studio and put 10 other people on an internship in, say, Grace Bros or Harvey Norman, I guarantee you that if you check those retailers in 15 years, half of them will be at least department managers earning $70k to $120k per year. Go to the studio boffins and maybe two will still be on staff in the $30k to $45k range and the others will be freelance trying to make an income big enough to even pay tax on.

My point is that the traditional role of the sound engineer in Australia just doesn't adhere to any income scheme, there's no 'depth-sounder chart' - studio owners are in the same boat, as are producers. I mean, if you put all the (truly) full-time professional music producers in Australia on a marlin fishing boat, umm, there wouldn't even be enough of them to drink all the beer! It's not a case of being good or bad at your job, it’s just that, on average, there is simply no money on the technical side of this business. But look at all of us all hanging around waiting for 'the big hook up'.

This is not meant to be a whinge, it is meant to be a dose of reality, especially for those bait fish who are caught in audio school dragnet.

For some reason the line starts around the corner for people who want to do a course to get into this biz. Yes, I am well aware that new technologies are always creating a new source of audio careers in diverse and unthought-of fields, (where money might be made in the future). I am also aware that there is consistent paid work in advertising, multimedia installation fields, government institutions, museums, night clubs and theme parks etc. There are lots of staff jobs and there are lots of people trying to keep those jobs. But if you're a music audio dweeb and you want to go marlin fishing (and you figure that you want to be the captain and not the guest crew), well, best put your head down and rewrite all the rules, because you're likely to the only one to have landed the 'big one'. The notion of sound engineers making records for big money is completely floored - broken, busted and nada. That's the message here - no one is driving Ferraris is this business.

Personally I have a meager yet consistent income. And that's the saving grace for me - I am always in demand. I get money every week to cover my lot, and, looking at the sort of gear in my studio, I'm sure I spend more then most audio dweebs make just staying in business each week. I'm at the top end - it's hard to get here and even harder to stay there.

"You sound pissed off Rick, why not pack it in?" - you might ask. And sure, I figure I'm a smart guy, I could do most things that I set my mind to, but I choose to make records because I'm a 'lifer', I love it. And that's what the whole thing comes down to - I'm not working for the weekend. In fact, I love my work so much that I don't have to ferret my money away so I can buy a damn marlin boat at huge expense, just so on a few select weeks of the year I can go out and enjoy life while I slave in the salt mine the rest of the time. I figure it's a privilege to get paid to make records, because most people do it for free. The only thing I landed marlin fishing was a huge 150kg reality check. So think about it. Are you having a good time on the record you're working on? I hope so. If not, it's time you got out and made room for some other fool with fishy dreams.

They say only fools and marlin go 'out wide' in six foot seas. I think I'm gonna stay 'in close', yep, stay close mates with the captain who already owns a boat...

Na, I don't want a marlin boat... Sure, I don't want a marlin boat... Hell, who needs a marlin boat...?

Rick O'Neil runs Turtlerock Productions in Sydney, he should know better then to go fishing for anything that won't fit on a plate.

Back to article index