How would you define your main role on most of the projects you work on at the moment?
I’m primarily a mastering engineer, and I see my role as being the final quality control checkpoint for music before it hits streaming platforms and other distribution channels. It’s great fun listening closely to the tiny details of a track and seeing how I can nudge the artist’s song over the finish line.
I love pretty much every genre of music imaginable, so being a Mastering Engineer is a fun job if you have a very wide, eclectic music taste and love subtle elements of a tune that other folks might not pick up on.
There’s something really fun about just adding a touch of EQ, limiting or compression that I find really rewarding, especially when the artist hears the final result!
Recently, I’ve also really got into learning post-production on Nuendo 13, which I’ve started to really enjoy. An engineer friend of mine Trevor Gibson suggested I explore the post-production world and I’ve been going down a rabbit hole ever since. I’d love to start working on film and TV projects in the near future.
I’ve also been a musician (mainly guitar) for 30+ years and have written hundreds of songs with bands I’ve been in. So, I’ve started a brand new Discord community with my producer friend Mike Lawetto, we’ve called it ‘PMFC Songwriters and Producers’. The aim is to get folks excited about the creative songwriting process.
I’ve also started writing music again after a 4 year break and have been writing some lo-fi electronica music for fun! I’m massively inspired by artists like Nine Inch Nails, M83 and The Postal Service.
Please tell us a bit about your musical background. How did you get started in the music industry? What or who inspired you to follow this path?
From a musician standpoint my Grandad and Dad were huge influences on me. My Dad was a drummer and Grandad a keyboard player. My Grandad had a brilliant music room I used to spend hours in above their garage which had analogue synths, an acoustic guitar, a record player and a bunch of vinyl records. It was a wonderful, inspiring room to try out instruments and get creative! I used to take this space for granted as a kid but looking back, having access to a Korg Micro Preset M-500 was insanely cool!
This led me to going to music tech college a few years later in Nottingham, around 2000. I studied performance, music tech, popular music and music theory. I was more interested in recording my own music back in the early 2000s rather than mixing or mastering.
After leaving college in 2002, there wasn’t really any music jobs available in Nottingham. So over the span of two decades, I wound up working in finance, internet marketing and insurance (I worked out with a friend a few weeks ago, when working in banking over my career, I’ve interviewed face-to-face over 15000 people!). I also qualified as a Mortgage Adviser.
This corporate foundation later became the basis how I ran and created professional audio engineer community Produce, Mix, Fix and Conquer.
During this time, I still played in an alternative rock band and loved booking days off to go and record in local studios in Nottingham.
Around 2012 a friend of ours mixed our album but we didn’t like the results so my guitarist and I flipped a coin who would mix and who would master. I wound up mastering! I bought the latest version of Cubase and invested in Izotope Ozone.
It was pure guess work to begin with but eventually after reading 100s of blogs, dozens of books and an insane amount of practice, I got confident enough to start offering my mastering services to bands for free.
My main influences over recent years when it comes to Mastering is Bob Katz, Ian Shepherd and Jonathan Wyner. I love Mastering Engineers who celebrate dynamics and take a huge amount of care when it comes to not only the sound but the technical theory behind choices made as well. I really like Ian Shepherd’s podcast on Spotify.
Eventually in 2019, this led me to bands and artists paying me to master their music. In 2021 I opened up Rich Steve Beck Mastering full time in Manchester Northern Quarter.
Are there any highlights from your work that you are particularly proud of?
Absolutely! Mastering Emilia Quinn’s ‘Firecracker’ EP and seeing it hit number 60 in the UK iTunes album chart and top 3 in the country chart was a massive highlight. I was especially proud of a song off this EP called ‘Drunk’, which Warren Huart reviewed in front of over 100 other audio engineers live on Produce Like a Pro.
A couple of years ago, I also got to work with a client that led me to master original mixes by Mike Exeter (Black Sabbath) and Tim Palmer (U2, Pearl Jam, David Bowie).
I especially enjoyed mastering Tim’s mix of Luke Raddon Jackson’s track ‘Afraid of Your Love’ because Tim co-produced the track. He also played guitars and keys on the song, which for me was a huge deal to be involved with Tim’s work because I’m a huge fan of his work on Pearl Jam’s album ‘Ten’.
What’s one tip you can share with other MPG members that could help their workflow?
Keep things simple with your workflow and less is usually more! Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and ask for help, especially when starting out.
I’m very fortunate to have 100s of plugins sat on my studio computer from every brand you can think of like Fabfilter and IK Multimedia, etc. However, it’s very easy to throw everything and the kitchen sink at a project.
It’s insanely cliche, but less is more. Especially when mastering. Choose your favourite EQ, compressor, limiter and maybe a clipper (depending on the track) and that’s it when it comes to mastering.
Also, if you’re a mix engineer; don’t go nuts on delay, reverb and saturation. Be careful with your choices to serve the song!
What’s one tip you would like an MPG member to share with you?
I would love to hang out in a few professional producers studios and learn about their creative process. It fascinates me how they can turn an artist’s rough idea into something massively inspiring.
Also, I plan to network with anyone who does post-production to see their creative process when working on video games, TV and film.
Very excited to hang with folks from MPG in the near future and learn from the best of the best!
Do you have any words of wisdom for people wanting to get into a similar music production role to yours?
Look up your favourite bands and find out who the Mastering Engineer was on the album or EP. Then work with a band for cheap or free who are a similar style of music. A/B your master against the pro reference track you love and see how close you can get your master sonically to the pros!
DM the pros as well, the worst that could happen is they could tell you to go away! 9 times out of 10 audio engineers are a friendly bunch who love to support. So bite the bullet and reach out!
Focus on building relationships and community. Technical skills are important, but this industry runs on connections and trust. That’s why I started Produce Mix Fix and Conquer – having a network of 4,000 audio professionals to bounce ideas off and learn from.
It’s very easy to get caught up on forums about who is and isn’t technically correct about a topic like dithering for example. Drop your ego and be a forever student! Folks will love that and want to support your journey. Then in a few years someone will come knocking at your door asking for support! Always remember, kindness is everything in this industry and create a legacy folks will remember you for!
For mastering and audio blogs: https://www.notjustaplugin.com
Follow Rich on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richstevebeck_mastering
To join PMFC Pro Mixing and Mastering Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/producemixfixandconquer
To watch over 30 interviews with famous audio engineers, producers and artists: https://www.youtube.com/@PMFCGlobalTV
To join our brand new songwriter Discord group: https://discord.gg/WEBPYPQp
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