Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Etter.
Hi Ben, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory
I was uprooted pretty early in life and grew up between Europe and the U.S., living and touring in bands on both sides of the Atlantic through my twenties. Somehow, I ended up in Atlanta to work on an album in 2o11 at Matthew J. Goldman’s Glow In The Dark studios and just kept coming back to this weird and inspiring city. It was through my work as an artist in the studio that I discovered my passion for record production and I was lucky to learn a lot from the producers and engineers around me in the beginning. When I finally settled in Atlanta in 2013, I continued this journey from the other side of the glass. First as an intern in different studios around town, eventually working my way up from assistant to chief engineer at producer Ben Allen’s Maze Studios in Reynoldstown. Today I’m working as an independent record engineer, producer and mixer for artists from all over the globe, primarily out of my private studio in East Atlanta, with Maze Studios as my home base for tracking.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s been a smooth road in the sense that there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than making music with people who are as passionate about it as I am. It’s a tough industry, with grueling hours often worked for pennies on the dollar without guarantees or job security. I think you have to be a little bit insane to choose this career and I’m privileged to have found a path for myself in the industry. Of course, the pandemic has been the most serious obstacle I’ve faced thus far, but, unlike most of the business community, independent creators have largely stuck together, helping each other out where we can. I used the initial lockdown-lull to adjust to the changing conditions, and I’ve been as busy as ever with predominantly remote mixing and production work since.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m an Indie producer who has worn most hats you can wear in a studio. I cut my teeth recording international artists at Maze Studios with Ben Allen. My first record there was with Belle and Sebastian, and I’ve since gotten to record and mix artists like Erasure, Cut Copy, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, Washed Out, Cate Le Bon and Hazel English over the years. These days I find myself in mixing and production roles more often than not, most recently co-producing and mixing Deerhunter’s latest album, “Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?”. With most work moving remote lately, I’ve also been investing a lot into my private mixing and production studio in East Atlanta. It’s this small but highly creative space, bursting at the seams with instruments, amps, pedals, tape machines and other odd devices that allow me to color sounds in a way that feels organic and unpredictable.
I’m never focused on making the most “correct” sounding piece of music and you won’t hear me talk much about fancy gear, either. I want to capture an artist’s true identity above all else – and leave plenty of room for happy accidents, It was a somewhat challenging transition to go and fit a large studio workflow into a much smaller, ergonomic room in my house, but it’s uncovered this whole new creative approach for me that also allows me to be a lot more adaptable to varying artist budgets. It’s been incredibly liberating to be able to just say “yes” to almost any project that excites me – label backing or not. This year has also helped me connect with clients from new places all around the world. I now often find myself working on inspiring material in different languages by artists from multiple continents all in the same week.
How do you think about luck?
I look at it as a set of probabilities for each person to reach outcomes in life. A lot of it has to do with the situation you were born into, economically and socially, the education you are able to receive and more. You also need talent and a creative vision that attracts those around you. Just working hard is not really enough these days and I am very conscious of the fact that I had a good starting point to go out and pursue my passion as a career and take risks necessary to do it. I am also truly grateful to all the mentors who have helped me get to this point. That being said, the probability of making a living as a music creator is pretty slim to begin with; you can improve those odds, of course, by being active in as many places as you can be and putting in the time, by being useful to folks you admire in the industry and learning from them in return and being generous in sharing that knowledge with others who want to do the same as you progress. In my mind, there is definitely a “pay it forward” aspect to true success in the music industry.
Contact Info:
- Email: etter.ben@gmail.com
- Website: www.benetter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebenator/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/audiobetter/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/etterben
Image Credits
Image 1: Brad Carter Image 2: Ben Etter (Pictured: Bradford Cox of Deerhunter with his dog Faulkner) Image 3: Ben Etter Image 4: Ben Etter Image 5: Ben Etter
