studio life

[Uncle Ron]

There is nothing quite like being in a studio putting the finishing touch on a track that 2 hours later will be played in front of a
couple thousand people. Being a writer and Dj allows me to
test out my tracks on a regular basis. Seeing people dancing
to my music gives me an unbelievable high.

Will I make money from my music? Who knows? Who cares ?
I can not even comprehend life without making music.

It's not just the music. It's the people you meet who share in your passion.

I'm always curious about other musicians or producers
and engineers thoughts and experiences. Not with the
technical end of things but life in the studio. People you
meet , funny and sad things that have happened. What
kind of sacrifices have you made do get the equipment
you have.

I've spent half my life in clubs and bars. Sometimes in the middle
of the action and many times sitting by myself watching
from the sidelines.

Everyone has a story to tell , from walking many miles
for a fucking midi cable to writing a track just to bang a chick.
What drives you to keep writing tracks?

Let's here some good stuff. This could be entertaining.



:cool:

[ODARELLMC]

uncle ron, i think your topic is a very good idea and i to look foward to seeing some interesting postings on this topic, but i think you should retitle this subject to get more responses, because it is a very good topic for discussion. while i have nothing to say now, i'm going to keep my eye posted so i can put my two cents in.

[conceptDIGITAL]

I once did a project over Christmas for a friend who wanted me to record an original country project for close friend of his family. The guy came up from Texas to do the recording, stayed a few days, I recorded, mixed, and mastered the project to two track, and that was it.

A few months later the guy died unexpectedly (he was in his thirties), but we had captured his musical legacy before it was too late.

[Geeheeb]

Well, I've never wrote a song to bang a chick, but I did almost get beat up for an ADAT once. I'm really excited by music and sound (to the point that I'll take a student-wage job doing stereo recordings just for the experience).

I went on a tour last summer with my old metal band, Somber, and that changed my life forever. I'm still learning lessons from it months later. I learned a lot when I recorded our CD too, like about how its possible to "over-master" something, hahaha! I've met so many nice people from touring, esp some of the people who have been doing music for years, because you can't really be an asshole and still do it for so long.

[UPCHUCK]

Hi, happy holidays. I kind of lucked into something that is a lot of fun and is helping me to establish a rep with a lot of the local musicians around here in the SW FL area. I offered to record free direct to CD demo discs for all the folks who come to a Sunday night jam session. The result is a lot of happy musicians who will give me a shot at doing some serious work down the road. What makes it so good is that the house band owns the club and they are so tight, that they make everyone else sound great. Can anyone help me locate a manual for a studio master 16x8x16 mix down board (the older one)? Thanks

[JMAC]

I have a hard time figuring out which is more enjoyable six hours in a studio or 4 hours on stage?

They both have their charms for me. I enjoy the excitement of the crowd and the energy that is generated from the live performance, but I get a similar feeling when I've nailed the sound on a track or created that feel perfectly in the studio.

I believe both experiances for me is what is called "Flow" by psychologists. Look up the book some interesting stuff in there.

Basically it talks about finding that thing in life that when you are performing it time, space, and reality disappear because you are so focused on what you are doing. You are totally engaged in the moment that you don't think about being hungry, having to go to work, your woman or anything. Athletes say they experiance this in big games. I usually experiance it during the final mixdown. I'll look at my watch and say "damn, has it really been 4 hours?". Those are wonderful times and I always feel somewhat tired, but energized by the moment.

Oh, and opening up for Billy Squire back in the 80's in front of about 20,000 people was cool too.

Enjoy your life, you only get one!!

[wrave]

I guess it goes back a ways but several years ago I moved to Detroit for music. Motown was in the process of vacating the motor city and moving to the left coast. A great buncha guys I worked with had the opportunity to go into the studio up there and the studio we ended up recording in was owned by Holland, Dozier and Holland. Walking into an HDH studio at 4:00 AM after a night on-stage, you could almost hear the ghosts wailin' man.

[Brooks]

one story that comes to mind was back in high school; my band wanted to play our school's prom, so we picked some songs that were less hard rock/more commercial than our usual setlist of rush and priest (this was '84), and headed into a local 8 track studio. we recorded a few 80's cheese covers aimed at the tastes of the student run prom board; "message is you" - gary myrick, "big log" - robert plant, and "take me to the river" - talking heads. we were jazzed on how close our versions sounded to the originals - so close, in fact, that a board member accused us of taping the originals and handing it in as our demo (even though we didn't have any keyboards on any of those tunes)...

[xeetstreet]

The only reason why I write music is to get the ladies.

[MichaelS]

Well, I'll save the story about almost getting
arrested with the members of "Head East" for another
time...but I have a studio story none the less.

The last band I played in I made the major mistake of
having my wife (now ex) in. It was easier to have
her there than listen to the whining after I got
home...she wasn't a bad vocalist either, just a bit
too "pretty".

Anyway, after things went to pot, I got disgusted and
woke up one day and sold everything I had except for
an old MXR chorus...I'd have sold it too if it hadn't
been hiding under my cable bag...anyway, I went back
to school because I was tired of welding and hacking
up oysters every morning. I told the wifey poo to
take a hike too. Major life change hading my way...

About 8 years later from out of the blue the music
bug bit me again. I missed playing, but I didn't
miss the arguments between band members, the lugging
equipment around, the rip off club owners etc. so I
decided I'd buy a strat, a half stack and a small 4
track. Yeah right.

I bought the Strat, bought the half stack and bought
a Tascam somethingorother recorder and a digital
delay. I was ready to lay down some tracks. Oh but
wait...I need a mic...a GOOD mic. Well, they're only
1200 or so...hm...don't I need 2 though...yeah...2
should do just fine.
3 months later I decided I needed a drum machine, and
then better cables, a small stereo board and another
mic stand and suddenly 4 tracks was ludicrous...what
was I thinking! It went on and on till about a year
later I found myself sitting in my livingroom with
recording equipment sitting on furniture. Right then
I made a decision. The furniture was in the way and
had to go. I mean who needs a couch and love seat
and chairs, not to mention a kitchen table and
chairs...all I needed was a stool!!! Sooooo, I
opened up the front door of my house (I live WAY out
in the country) and started tossing out the couch,
followed by the love seat, the kitchen table (What
kitchen, that's a drum booth as soon as I build the
walls!) the toaster oven (it caught on fire once so I
figured it could go too). After about 2 or 3 hours I
had quite the respectable pile-o-trash in the front
yard, and my house was bigger inside than I had ever
seen it.

As I was staring at it I remembered I also had about
5 gallons of pre-mix gas for my sailboat that was
going bad, so i went in the shed and got it. I stood
beside the pile of what used to be my furniture and
after staring at it for a few minutes began dumping
gas all over it. I emptied the WHOLE 5 gallons of
gas on it. My thinking was "Well the gas is old and
bad so I need to dump all of it on there or it may
not burn" Yeah right.

I poured a few drops of the supposed "bad gas"on a
stick and flicked my bic and set the stick on fire.
I had enough presence of mind to stand back away from
the pile of stuff and that's propbably what saved my
life!

I took the burning stick and threw it at the pile of
furniture. I remember clearly to this day the slow
arc the twirling stick made as it spun its way toward
the pile of furniture. I see it even now in my minds
eye as it drops closer and closer to the
pile...spinning end over end. And then the strangest
thing happened, the stick which was about 2' long
landed on the pile and stuck there standing straight
up...wedged somehow in the springs underneath the
couch. I stood there staring at it not being able to
understand why it didn't catch fire. Then it hit
me...that bad gas. It was so bad it wouldn't even
burn...hell it was probably drinkable by this time.
Then suddenly just as I was about to take a step
towards the pile and retrieve my stick it went up.
It just didn't catch fire...oooh no...it exploded big
time. The force of the blast knocked me flat on my
butt, which was a good thing because pieces of
furniture were being propelled thru the air with the
greatest of ease. A couch cushion straight out of
hell with fire streaming behind it flew over my head
dropping small pieces of burning foam padding along
the way and HIT THE HOUSE...whump!

I was still sitting on the ground but I had turned
around to watch the cushion on its trajectory to my
house when another cushion, this one too on fire, and
proud of it, landed in the yard about 10' from me,
and when it hit it threw some of the burning foam on
my arm..not much, just a few drops but it was enough
to wake me up from the bad bad nightmare i was taking
part in. I jumped up, got the garden hose and doused
the cushion that had hit the house and also the
cushion that landed beside me.

Whew, finally everything was under control, well
almost. Seems i had not bothered to look whereI was
piling the furniture and piled it a bit too close to
a HUGE gumball tree in my front yard, or maybe
subconsiously I *did* know where I was piling it (I
hated that tree), but the outcome was: Oh cheese and
rice my freekin TREE is on fire, my freekin tree IS
ON FIRE!. Sure enough folks green trees DO burn,
especially when helped along with 5 gallons of "bad
gas"

I guess I looked like some kind of madman what with
sweat streaming down my face, scurrying around with a
garden hose trying to put out a fire Trashcan Man
would have been proud of, not to mention the tree....

After about 3-4 minutes I had everything under
control and had even picked up the cushions and
placed them back on the burn pile. The fire was
impressive, going at LEAST 50' into the night sky. I
had been watching it for about 15 minutes when I saw
a car turn on my road about 1/4 mile away from my
house. Seems a deputy sheriff saw the flames from
hiway 107 (3 miles away from my house!) and thought a
house was on fire so he called the local fire
dapartment while he was enroute. When I told him
what I was doing "Just burning all my furniture
officer" he looked at me like I was crazy and said
"You're burning your furniture?" I said that's what I
was doing and he asked my why I didn't just donate it
to goodwill I told him that wasn't NEARLY as fun. I
said it only to lighten the moment, but I think he
missed the joke... As we stood staring at each
other, him wondering what he could arrest me for and
I wondering if he was going to arrest me for
something, we both heard the far off sound of the
fire trucks which arrived just about 2 minutes later.

They were kinda upset I wouldn't let 'em put out the
fire and the general consencus of all the officials
concerned was I was "crazier than a spit house rat"
but since it was MY furniture and MY land what could
they do? Nuttin!

Welp, that's the story. I now have one bedroom and
one bathroom that haven't been taken over by the
studio...and that's where I live. When you're in the
drum booth you can almost smell the bacon and eggs
from when it used to be a kitchen, and the vocal
booth...well, I usually tell everyone the toilet
that's in there is just a conversation piece. It no
longer works!

[mraudiommn]

We were right in the middle of a crunch of Production for a music series WFUM in Flint Produces (called "AfterHours" [www.wfum.org/afterhours]). We were all set to shoot "The Process", a local Reggae styled band, and they bring in all this gear...lights, smoke...all this stuff. Cool! Then, the Producer decides to do a bit of drama to play off the smoke and their lights...so they dim the lights...roll tape....spew in the smoke....band starts playing....bring up the lights...the smoke starts to clear....and "what the F&%$ is that??" comes over the ICOM. The lead singer is all decked out in some really strange garb and A SKELETON HEAD MASK ON...saluting into the camera! Good band, nice guys, very professional...but kinda odd....and a bit spooky!

[MichaelS]

That story is true! To this day I still laugh about it! Needless to say I'm not married...it's just me and the3 Rottweilers. Every time I go to mow the grass and grab the gas can to fill up the mower, the dogs get this weird look in their eyes...

[shawn guess]

jesus man, thats nuts. sounds like you need to be making your money as a writer.

[wrave]

MichaelS, great story! I didn't see early on in the story that you had a "country-fied" residence and so all the way through, as I was reading, I am thinking, "What must this guy's neighbors be thinking?!?!"

I am almost to the point where I am ready to buy a few acres outside of town and have the privacy and quiet to do more with my music. Now if I just had the money...and courage!

Good luck...