I speak for myself on this:
Do you have to at least appreciate the music you are working on when you take a job?
I would say at most. Lately the environment in my life has become a stock brokers nightmare in terms of trying to negotiate talents to record. You never want to overshoot your own abilities when you look for work. So if an engineer has the gear and the experience to back up his words, then you're dealing with a stock brokers nightmare.
However, talent and relationships go a long way in the engineering business. Sometimes more than experience and how much money you've invested under the hood of your studio car.
Occasionally, in that rare case that I find a band that I *gotta* have, I'll fight to swing them my way. As an engineer with commercial intentions, you're always building credentials off of the best talent you can find.
I would say at least is when you want to keep your skills sharpened. Which is why a grammy engineer down here by the name of Juan "Pericles" Cova is where he is. He just got involved with thousands of recordings in the analog days that got him places. And Im sure he didn't like all of them.
But I think the characteristics of a true engineer is constant curiosity for the sound matched to the music. Of course, you need the music knowledge to execute desicions effectively.
Other times, there is music you are excited to learn and take the challenge for. Which is why sometimes I find myself excited to mix for artists that I would never be caught dead listening to.
No, but logically it helps. Again, when you are up against an engineer that loves all walks of life, how do you compete with that? I was always lucky that I love everything in music. All styles of it. So naturally, when you love something, you're inclined to appreciate and learn from it.
But then you have your top engineers that are strictly work. The go to guy. He might not love it, but he understands it, the end check is going to be real good, so it's all business from that point on.
If you pay me 10 grand to mix one song for Willam Hung, then I'll be on that plane to California first thing tommorow morning.
If you like and know the material is really good, good stuff, does it make your job easier or harder?
Both.
When you're dealing as a first timer, you're actually dealing as the first emissary to the artist. Because if that album does well, all other sounds will have to follow in lue of the first. The sound that you helped define. However, you can imagine how incredibily hard it is to create the first sound for a band.
When you are comming around for a round two on a specific artist, you already know what to turn to and what they like. However, the pressure to outdo the last album is embedded in that session. Whether it's brought up or not.
When you work with a good band, you know they will grow. After a while you tend to pick out the ones with a future and the ones without one. You have to be able to grow with them. If not, they may simply be asking for the moon the next time they come back and you can't deliver.
Because by that point they have a larger fan base to live up to, bigger opportunities to obtain, bigger ego, better sense of self and bigger responsibilties to fill.
Much more might be expected from you, or you might simply be asked to "do whatever you did, again". So the bar is always raised in some way with every continued session.