When I was asked to write this article I thought about the moves in my career that, in hindsight, were the stepping stones that enabled me to progress. I quickly realised that this information was no good to anyone for two reasons. Firstly, you won’t find yourself in exactly the same positions as I did, and secondly, the decisions I made were successful in hindsight - which doesn’t mean you or even I would see them coming if they happened again.

So, I thought what might be much more useful would be to write the principles that I have always applied to my work, as these have been part of my decision-making throughout my career, and so may be more useful to you in navigating through yours. 

1: Enthusiasm

I tried as much as possible to approach every task I was given with a sense of enthusiasm. I am human, and sometimes I didn’t achieve this (which I’m sure any of the studio managers I worked under will confirm) but it was certainly my aim with all the jobs that came my way, no matter how mundane. As an example, I started my career in a 2-room studio in Birmingham (DEP International - now closed) where I was hired as a runner/ assistant, and within a few months was engineering the demo sessions that came in.

After a couple of years I moved to a much bigger, 5-room studio in London (Metropolis - still going) and found myself at the bottom of the pile in terms of assistants. It was over two years before I got any engineering work, but I knew this would be the case (small fish, big pond) so I set about trying to be great at the tasks I was given. When my role was no more elaborate than tea-boy I became known for being able to make the best hot chocolate in the building, and my ability to quietly complete anything that was asked of me led one client to nick-name me The ‘Jeeves’ of Metropolis. To be clear, none of these tasks were what I wanted to be doing, nor where I wanted my career to go, but I was building up a reputation as someone that got jobs done, and got them done well.  

2: Put yourself in a position to score

Very early on in my career I was given this analogy and it’s stuck with me since. In every football/soccer team there’s a main goal scorer. Now that player may only spend 2 minutes on the ball in a game (at most), but the reason why the great ones make a difference in those couple of minutes is because they spend the other 88 minutes putting themselves in a position to score. Most of their time doing that is wasted as the passes from the midfield aren’t good enough, or the opposition’s defence is doing it’s job - but they don’t know which passes are going to be good or not until they’ve happened, so they assume every one will be the perfect set-up and they’re prepared to score every time. 

To put that in the context of studio work, most sessions you do, while fun and rewarding, won’t be career changing. But if you work on the basis that every single of them could be and assume the whole world will hear the work you’re doing that day, then you put everything you have into every session. The end result is that when those great opportunities come along, you’re ready for them, and you help propel the success of the project forward. 

3: Don’t make the same mistake twice

I’ve always had an interest in how things work, which I guess explains why I was drawn to the engineering and studio side of the music industry. One of the habits that has served me well is always wanting to know why things have gone wrong. Studios are complicated places with a lot of different technologies being used simultaneously, so inevitably things break down from time to time. It’s not unusual for things that appear broken to spring back into life as well. This has always troubled me - if something has failed once then it can fail again, and until I know why it has happened, I can’t relax. This attitude served me well, as I would always get to the bottom of the issue eventually and that meant nothing went wrong twice on my watch. You can’t stop failures and mistakes from happening - that’s life - but you can (and should) prevent the same problem happening twice.

4: Practice. Practice. Practice. 

Working full-time in studios is an extremely full-time job. Often politely described by studio managers as a ‘lifestyle choice’ (ie “we won’t give you time to do anything else in your life while you are employed here”). The benefit of this level of commitment while you are learning the ropes is that you learn a lot in a short space of time. A normal working day was 12-15 hours, and that would be at least 5 days a week, although 6 or 7 days a week was fairly normal too. Looking back, I’m amazed I had the stamina to do that (I certainly don’t anymore!). I would also put more hours in voluntarily if I felt I needed to.

If I had a weekend off it was quite normal for me to find a band and ask them if they wanted to use some downtime in the studio with me to record a track or two. This allowed me to push my engineering and production skills while I was only assisting on sessions. So when my lucky breaks came, I was up to speed and ready to go. Those people I know that did the most of this had the most success. It’s not complicated and there’s no ‘one secret trick’ to it. It’s practice, and putting in more effort than your competition. 

I should also point out that I’m no genius - I didn’t come up with any of this stuff myself. All I did was apply the best advice that I was given by people who were more successful than me. And perhaps that should be Principle #5.

More Recording Resources From Dom Morley

Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.

“I just completed a mix with the help of Dom Morley & The Mix Consultancy. The mix we turned over was qualitatively better than the one I would have gone with on my own.

It's been said that "a mix is never done, it's just abandoned", but the truth is, you *really* do feel a sense of completion and closure having worked with Dom because you know in your heart that you did everything you possibly could to get the best result possible for the client.

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From engineering tips to production advice, EQ and compression basics to mix specifics, we’ll give you the information and guidance that you need to take your mixes to the next level. Find out more here

In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;

• Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
  Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.

• Mixing 101

  This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!