Steve Albini, the legendary record producer, has died of a heart attack. He was 61 years old.
In addition to fronting underground rock acts SHELLAC and BIG BLACK, Albini produced albums by NIRVANA, PIXIES, PJ Harvey and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. He was an aggressive critic of musicians and others who he felt were in it for the money or popularity rather than the music and he famously refused to take royalties from the recordings he produced for other artists.
In 2004, Albini estimated that he had engineered the recording of around 1,500 albums. According to >Mix With The Masters, he continued to work almost entirely in the analog domain, being known for recording “live in the studio” as much as possible. He also placed particular emphasis on the selection and use of microphones in achieving a desired sound, and to best capture the ambience.
“A lot of people making records don’t have a grasp of the process,” he once told Billboard. “They do it thinking that it’s some abstract art form that doesn’t need to be comprehended on a technical procedural level. [In those cases] you’ll end up with a record that isn’t formally completed, but that’s finished when the bell rings.”