An Interview with Multi-Platinum Record Producer Steve Migliore, aka Mr. Mig

Earlier this month, I chatted via Googletalk with music producer, songwriter, remixer, and entrepreneur, Steve “Mr. Mig” Migliore, CEO of Migtight Productions.

Mig has remixed, engineered, and/or produced for Akon, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Diddy, Backstreet Boys, John Legend, Lucas Prata, Taylor Swift, Usher, and Wyclef among others.

Mig is an expert with Apple’s Logic music production software, and has a popular YouTube channel where he helps viewers get started with Logic.  After posting a dozen or so tutorial videos, he quickly amassed nearly 2,000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views.  In fact, it was on YouTube, while I was searching for audio mastering tips, that I watched one of his tutorials and ultimately connected with Mig.

Besides educating music-makers online and doing remixes for today’s most well-known artists, Mig just opened AUDIOMAXX Studios, a full-service music and video production house located in Cherry Hill, NJ.

The following are highlights from our talk on music, work, and life.

Jerry Jean: Today, I often look for music production tips online.  How did you learn how to work the software and ultimately do what you do?

Mr. Mig: Well, everything that I’ve done in music I’ve essentially taught myself.  I read everything – the manuals, the magazines, etc.  I experimented for years.  I have some protégés that work under me and I encourage them to take advantage of what I teach them, because nobody was there to teach me when I was starting out.  Really, a lot of trial and error.

J: You found out that your remix of Leann Rimes’ How Do I Live became a #1 Billboard hit while you were still working at a food court at age 24.  Can you talk about that, and describe your music making in your days prior to that hit?

Mig: I started getting serious with music production just out of high school.  I had a JV 1000 in my bedroom, and was constantly listening to the hottest records that were out.  I loved deciphering them, and would analyze and pull them apart and remake them.  I figured if I understood the common elements that went into all those records, I would have a better grasp as to what people liked about those records.  Even when I was a kid, composition was a natural curiosity for me.  When I was around 9 and my brother drove me somewhere, I remember instinctively listening to the hi-hats on the record that was blaring from his car radio.

Anyway, after high school my close friend Michael and I started a small studio business in a spare room attached to the back of his parent’s house.  We were producing a good number of local artists through a local talent agency in Philly.  We’d charge something like 25 bucks an hour, and I actually found some great artists.

During that time, a friend of mine introduced me to a high profile music attorney, Brad Rubens, who was instrumental in the careers of Rodney Jerkins, The Roots and Scott Storch.  He liked my work, and helped guide me to the labels and promoters.  He got me opportunities from labels to remix artists like Vanessa Williams, Backstreet Boys and many others.  To my disappointment, my remixes weren’t getting chosen because the labels were afraid to use someone new at the time.  However, they liked what I was doing and kept giving me things to play with.

Eventually, everything aligned.  About three years after I met Brad, I was working at that food court, and I received a call that my remix of How Do I Live was #1 on KTU.  The station’s phone lines lit up with 60 requests to play the remix again in less than a minute.  The following week, the remix went to #1 on Billboard and they did a small article on me.  My world flipped.  I quit my job so I could sharpen my skills in the studio to prepare, hopefully, for more mixes.  I ended up getting 5 more records that month from that same label and others.  One of them was my remix for Brian McKnight’s Anytime, which broke records as the first remix to replace and remove the original hit from the radio.

J: How did you come up with the name “Mr. Mig?”

Mig: It was last minute.  I had to have a name because a record was coming out.  “Mr. Mig” wasn’t far from who I was.  My last name is Migliore, and many people found it difficult to pronounce correctly.  People were already calling me Mig.  My high school wrestling coaches really started it, and the name caught on with my friends.  Now, everyone including family calls me Mig, but I think they just enjoy messing with me!

J: How was your grasp of the audio engineering at this time?

Mig: I didn’t have any formal grasp of engineering.  In the home studio I mentioned, I used a Mackie 24/8 board, an ADAT machine, and an Akai s 2800 sampler.  To create an acapella, I would need over 20 floppy disks.  Each disk could only hold 5-10 seconds of samples.  I was learning a lot.

To this day, I mix over 90 percent of my work by myself.  I learned to trust my ear and engineer by necessity, to get things the way my mind was imagining it.  I can’t tell you how many times in the past I’ve done a record where the label paid a ton of money for a big studio mix with well known engineers, and at the end of the day the label says, “we like the demo mix that Mig did better.”  That’s a nice pat on the back for doing things yourself with primitive gear.  The truth is, sometimes the producer’s vision can’t be interpreted by a third party the same way.

J: Are you using mostly software or hardware these days?

Mig: I would definitely say more software.  I have all the major software workstations: Protools, Logic, Ableton, Cubase, etc.  It is important to be familiar with everything.  But today, I use virtually no hardware except for the microphones and preamps.  I’ve used Logic by itself for easily 99 percent of my records, and have used Pro Tools and Cubase here and there just to experiment.  I’ve used the software right out of the box, with a combination of stock and 3rd party plug-ins.  People are surprised, but I always say, “it’s not the gear it’s your ear.”  As corny as it may sound, it’s the truth.  I can also go into another studio and just use the gear that they have to achieve the sound that I want.  Your talent and career should not be dependent on any piece of hardware or software.

J: What are your thoughts on the continual volume increases in the industry, where pop music has just gotten louder, or more crushed, at the expense of dynamic range?

Mig: The 70s, 80s, and 90s all have their sound.  The millennium also has its sound, which is digital and heavily processed and overmastered.  As a result, records are much louder now with less dynamic range.  You have to be aware of what’s happening in the industry and roll with the times.  I’m ok with it.  It’s what it is.  A lot of the people who fight it are not really working anymore.  As a producer or other music professional, you can’t say, “well, I don’t like overmastered and loud records so I’m not going to do it.  I’m going to hand in a record that’s not like that because I don’t like that sound.”  If you do, guess what?  You won’t get any play. You are up against others that follow the protocol of what people are used to hearing.  It’s not personal, it’s business.

J: What kind of artists do you prefer to work with?

Mig: Some artists have a producer’s head, like Justin Timberlake.  He knows how to get the song from A to Z, with or without the producer.  I really like working with artists who have a vision and don’t just come into the studio and sit there all day waiting for you to figure out who they are, and what they should sound like.  After all, they are called “artists,” so they should know how to create their art.  The producer is there to guide them and to help them achieve that vision.  At least that’s how I see it.

J: What’s your view on artist management for a relatively new artist?

Mig: For the new artist, management should be one of the last things on the to-do list.  When there really is something to manage, then you get a manager.  A lot of  “managers” sign artists early on, and end up controlling the artist until there is no artist left in the person.

J: Can an artist do it alone these days by leveraging YouTube, MySpace, ReverbNation, etc?

Mig: Well, to properly promote a pop record it takes lots of capital.  You are up against the Lady Gagas and Beyonces.  The labels are spending an enormous amount of money to make sure you know who their artists are.  If you want your song to get on mainstream pop radio and get major radio plays, you really have to be able to afford the same types of promotion channels the labels use.  The labels are spending more money on the marketing and promotion than on production these days.

Social networking is a great way to get thousands of new fans that you might not get otherwise.  If you have a record that catches on, then there’s the chance of it going viral.  There have been many internet success stories of artists making it big after a label or producer hears their music online.  There are artists on MySpace that I’ve never heard of, but who have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of plays on their music player.  That’s insane.

J: Let’s talk  income.  How much can one make as a remixer?

Mig: If you have success at remixing, it can be a steady business, sometimes more so than producing.  Although there are typically no royalties for remixers, the pay is real, not just an advance that may have to be paid back (as often is the case with a producer). There is no industry standard rate for remixing, but I can tell you it is no where near what it was 10 years ago when pirating was not as huge of an issue as it is today.  There was a brief, crazy time when guys were making upwards of 50-80k to remix just one project.  That would include the radio edit, an extended version, and maybe a dub / instrumental.   It is nowhere near there now.  Every kid with a laptop is a competitor.

That being said, an established remixer can still make a substantial living.  Because I have spent so much time establishing relationships in this business early on, I am fortunate to do an average of 5 to 10 records a month, and that’s besides my other production and songwriting work.

J: What is your typical work schedule like?

Mig: When I was starting out, I drove myself nuts and would work 2-3 days nonstop on a record with no sleep.  When I was doing Brian McKnight’s Anytime, I remember taking 30 passes to get the final mix right for radio.  I would be running around the board grabbing faders. There was no automation back then unless you had a million dollar mixing console.  Today, I can go through a few records in a day, automate them, and save templates.  They didn’t have all of that good stuff back then.

I may work from 8 or 9 in the morning, and finish between 6-9 PM.  Lately, however, I’ve been grinding until 2 or 3 am again.  I’m not the typical stay-up-late at night musician if I don’t absolutely need to nail a deadline.  I try to keep a normal business schedule.  You have to take time as a human being.   I’m in my 30s now and have a wife and young son.  Working is great, but what are you doing it for if you aren’t seeing your family?

Granted, sometimes taking breaks is not by choice.  The summer time and winter holidays are typically a bit slower for the music business because execs take a break and the year’s books come to a close.  I still manage to get involved with some project somewhere, and work with indie artists as well.  If the business slows down, I also take advantage of that time to write songs or brush up on new techniques and software so that when the labels are back running, I’m ready with a new arsenal of ideas, sounds, etc.

J: Tell me about your newest venture, AUDIOMAXX Studios.

Mig: AUDIOMAXX is really a multimedia powerhouse.  There’s nothing we don’t do if it pertains to the music industry.  The company is named after my son Maxx and spearheaded by my wife, Diana Delgado, once a VP at a major financial institution.  The studio itself is about 3000 sq. ft. and houses several synergistic companies that all work together hand in hand.  There’s so much going on there.  We have a video production company and a music TV show that airs weekly on all the satellite TV networks and Comcast, called Who?Mag TV, led by CEO Rob Schwartz.  We have a music distribution company,  an entertainment marketing company, and more.  It’s not just a place to come and book recording hours.  Also, a close friend of mine, DJ/Producer Mike Rizzo and I are working on developing some very exciting projects through AUDIOMAXX.  Mike is extremely successful at what he does, so together I see great things happening.

We can help guide and A&R an artist or band’s project from start to release.   The synergy of the people involved is what is driving the excitement in this operation.  Through collaborations with these entities, we’ve come up with many new exciting ways to help launch new artists.  This really creates the perfect storm for our clients.

J: How has social networking benefited your business?

Mig: I have been contacted by all kinds of musicians, media companies, etc.   My new websites are being designed by a great web designer and musician, Jason Renai, who contacted me after seeing my Logic videos on YouTube.  I have definitely enjoyed some of the benefits of social networking, and I believe you will get noticed if you really put yourself out there.  Just make sure you are offering something of benefit to others.  Millions of people are searching for you if you have what they want.

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As it goes, Mig has in turn watched my own YouTube music videos, and has expressed interest in having me play on some of his projects.  I’d certainly call that a benefit of social networking.

To learn more about Mr. Mig, please visit his website.