Armin Steiner (born 15 January 1934; age 90) is a music score engineer, mixer, and recordist who worked on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and the third and fourth seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation including the episode "Deja Q". For "Deja Q", Steiner mixed together the sounds of 35 orchestra instruments at the master control board at the 20th Century Fox Scoring Stage. [1]
Steiner is the son of the Hungarian-born American National Chess Champion Herman Steiner.
Steiner started in the music business business at the age of fifteen working at the Electrovox Recording Studio, before branching out on his own – creating Steiner Recording Studio, Sound Recorders, and Sound Labs – recording dozens of pop music artists, and engineering more than 100 Gold and Platinum albums with major artists from the 1960s on including Glen Campbell, Neil Diamond, Fifth Dimension, Dolly Parton, Johnny Rivers, Hall & Oates, Helen Reddy, and Barbra Streisand.
He originally started as violinist and turned into scoring engineer, mixer and recordist. In this position, working for 20th Century Fox, he recorded soundtracks of films such as Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), Revenge of the Nerds (1984, with Danny Rogers, James Cromwell, Steve Blalock, Terry James, Yolanda Toussieng, Michael Friedman, Joseph A. Unsinn, Brad Dechter, Corey Michael Eubanks, Bernie Casey), Cocoon (1985), Silverado (1985), Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Spaceballs (1987), Die Hard (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Home Alone (1990), A League of Their Own (1992), Under Siege (1992), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Tank Girl (1995), The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Finding Nemo (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), WALL-E (2008), and Wreck-It Ralph (2012), and television series including Dynasty, Beauty and the Beast, Space: Above and Beyond, King of the Hill, and Terra Nova. [2]
Steiner received two Grammy Awards in the category Best Engineered Recording, Non Classical: in 1972 for Moods and in 1991 for Unforgettable: With Love.
Steiner received credit for working on the following Star Trek soundtracks:
- 1988 Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume One
- 1991 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume Two
- 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume Three
- 1993 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – "Emissary"
- 1998 Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume Four