I was on a podcast last week with my buddy Lij Shaw.

He's starting a new podcast called Recording Studio Rockstars that will launch in a couple months and I was lucky enough to be invited on.

One of the questions he asked me was:

Can you share an inspirational quote for making music, recording, your business, or life in general?

What I shared with him him was a quote I will attribute to Steve Albini, although it was so long ago I cannot be 100% sure. But the quote stands strong regardless of who said it, whether it's Nirvana's producer or your grandma.

And it's this:

Read, read as much as you can.

I have the lucky fortune of working in an industry that has some awesome books to read. It's not like the dry law journals my lawyer friends need to read for their continued learning.

No, it's awesome books on how producers made records, George Martin's autobiography and Michael Beinhorn's awesome new book Unlocking Creativity (highly recommended).

Here's a picture of my bookshelf. It's probably missing a few books I've lent out but it's a nice library:​

As much as I love reading about making music I also love to know what's going on with Batman these days.

Reading as much as you can doesn't actually mean only reading things directly related to your field. I've often been reading something not even remotely related to music that directly inspires an idea for a song title or a blog post. 

That's what so great about your subconscious brain. If you keep it engaged it actually keeps working behind the scenes!

So read, read as much as you can. That's the best advice I've ever been given and one I'll happily pass along to you.

Now if you need something to read to improve your production skills, check out the Recording & Mixing Strategies books here:

www.audio-issues.com/strategies