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[Devin Knutson]

I was pretty much toast right from the beginning as well.

From age 2 to 5, my parents both toured in a big band.  Dad on bass, mom on trumpet/cornet, me sitting on the stage at my mother's feet, pretending to play her triangle mute as if it were a horn.  I'm told I stole the show more than once.

At age 8 or 9, my grandmother requested a tape of me playing the piano, so my mother bought two 1/4" Realistic microphones that I could plug into the cassette deck.

It occurred to me that I could record the piano upstairs, take the tape and the cassette deck down to my room (where my first drumset was, which I'd had for about 3 months), play the tape on my stereo, point one mic at the speakers and the other at the drums, and record myself playing drums with myself playing piano.

My head exploded at that point, and I was never quite the same again.

[Tidewater]

WOW! Like opening up a vault of forgotten memories here! Thanks Devin!

I forgot about the Radio Shack cassette deck recordings. I got a guitar for my 5th birthday. Mamma sang bass, daddy sang tenor.

Me and little brother? We were very confused.

[Kendrix]

I got my first two track "High Fidelity" portable tape machine when I was  around 11.  I still have it.

My Dad was a music lover (Sinatra and the Big Bands).
When he was young he did some singing.  
He got into the leading edge of the high fidelity &  stereo technology revolutions big time.
We always had one of the best rigs in town.  
It included a two track reel to reel...

Also, I was born with big ears.



 

[jonathan jetter]

played piano starting at age 4.  hated it, according to my mom.

started again at age 8.  stuck with it.  guitar at age 12.  had a rock band at age 15.  got into jazz and classical and theory and such.  went to school for classical composition.

halfway through my junior year i realized 2 things.  1-  i had no clue how to make a living at the composing thing.  2-  my producer/engineer friends were having WAY more fun.

starting working with microphones at age 20.  started freelancing my senior year.  through a very fortunate set of circumstances (going to school with a ton of really badass musicians) was able to support myself as a freelancer by the time i finished college.

now 5 years later i have an adjunct teaching gig and i run a small studio in manhattan.  and somehow have lucked into making a living at this whole thing.  been very, very lucky and am very, very grateful.

jon

[Silvertone]

When I was 14 I got pulled into my brothers band as a bass player... I had been playing drums since 8.  My brother and his band mates were all 10+ years older than me, professional players. I was playing the NY, NJ, New England Circuit for the next 6 years before starting to tour nationally (another 6 years). My first gig was in front of three thousand people, my next was in front of fifteen thousand!

Friends of mine were working at McDonalds at the time earning 80.00 a week and I was earning about 1200.00 a week at that time... it was great times with lots of fun and we played 6 nights a week. I met a lot of famous people both "on their way up" and "on their way down".  Toured with a lot of great bands and am friends to this day with many of these people.

The drugs were heavy back then and you did lots of them... lost two roadies (good friends) to drugs. The girls were pretty loose... well if you were one of the musicians anyway. My dad would call my brother Frank "super-fly" as he could never seem to keep it in his pants. Food poisoning was every other month or so... someone would be hauled off to the hospital.  We were  harassed by dirty cops (they'd take all our dope) and once even had an asshole drunk bar owner take his 357 magnum and put it in my face when we were trying to get paid... that was pretty scary... Oh and had the air brakes fail on the buss more than once on some steep Vermont hill only to have to plow though snow banks and peoples front lawns to keep from getting killed... fun times!

Of course this was in the day before "home entertainment" had been invented and the drinking age was still 18... every college town was a blast back then... It really was the "heyday" of the business IMHO.

[Secular_Tool]

I did the can on the string, the crystal radio, I had a little electronics set with a telegraph you could stretch about 50 feet. It was cool but who could learn Morse code? Not me. I started taking things apart and not being able to put them back together about this time.

My dad had a Fender Tremolux with a cheap little guitar my mother bought for him when they were seniors in high school (1957). He never played it by the time I noticed it but it was in my brother and my closet. I would bring it out and make the reverb tank explode often and be amazed.

I had a number of uncles who played professionally--John who was a bass player for Leon MCauliffe and Johnny Lee Wills and others in  who Bob left behind when he went Hollywood. He used to strap his doghouse on top of his volkswagen bug until the day left the bug and bass parked on the railroad track.The sheriff showed up at my great grandparent's house the next morning to notify them of his death only to have him walk into the kitchen cussing that all the noise woke him up. He sobered up and moved to Seattle to work for Boeing before I was born or I'd have learned something from him besides the stories.

My favorite uncle played folk in clubs around Tulsa like the "Dust Bowl" in the '60s. He gave me my first guitar and showed me G, C, and D. He also had a two track reel deck with "sound on sound" capabilities which sparked my fascination with recording.

In a few years, I traded my Dad's Tremolux for a totally wasted Ampeg v-4b rig with a giant 2x15 cab. I never understood why the output was almost nil because then needed new tubes. I was afraid to take it apart and traded it for a Peavey TNT 100 which I still have, still works, and never sounded as good as the tremolos or the v-4b could have with new tubes.

From there, it was a billion bad garage bands, a few decent college bands, some ad hoc recordings with rented gear and a variety of rehearsal spaces, a development deal with Geffen which lasted way too long but got me into real studios, a million nights on the road without enough gas money to get to the next gig, etc, etc, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Now I'm happy to still have fingers to play and press record on DAW in my humble corner of the den crammed full of guitars and gear my wife wishes I'd move to the attic.

I'm still "beginning."
I can't complain.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i listened to the radio obsessively as a little kid. at first i thought the bands were actually in the radio station studios, playing the songs live on air. i would hear the same song back to back on different stations and wonder how the band got across town so fast.

[jimlongo]

My Dad had a Dictaphone tape recorder in his office in the late 50's.  From the earliest age I can remember we would be at the office on Sundays and he would record us reciting children's poems (Mary had a little lamb).  The fascination with hearing ourselves on playback (and of course multiple retakes) is still etched in my mind.

[plughead]

I started music lessons very early (4 yrs old) and kept going for 10 yrs. By the time I was an early teen, I had started chumming with another musician who had some mics and a couple of cassette decks, and we wrote and recorded tunes about our a-hole teachers, jocks and the like. We progressed into 1/2 track recording and then overdubbing on the other track. We took the Realistic cassette deck around to record rainstorms, thunder, lightening, traffic (very 'light' traffic in a small whitebread town) and our sisters' dipshit conversations with their friends.

Needless to say, he went on to continue in sound recording, and I to complete a degree in music. It wasn't till nearly a decade later that I returned to my roots and got on the other side of the glass with sound recording.

Now I'm back to gigging and recording is less and less. Seems to be the pattern of life for me!

[CHANCE]

It's interesting to note how many of us started with music as our foundation. I know quite a few good engineers who don't have a knowledge of music and it blows my mind how they continue to be successful in this biz. To me,having some BG in music is invaluable when communicating with musicians in studio.

[JAMES A. GRIFFIN]

Where did a 16 year old brother get cash for a pair of A7's and a Crown amp?  that would have been a lot of lawns to cut back then.

[littlehat]

Tidewater wrote on Sat, 31 October 2009 17:44

The first time an A&R guy ever had sex consentually with me, but without my full knowledge.

HA!



Mama was a music teacher.
Dad owned a studio on Music Row.

[leonardo valvassori]

Playing a piano in the basement and recording it into a portable cassette recorder when I was around 9.

Then came the cello.
Then came the bass.

My first paid session was at 17 playing cello on a jingle.
I was intrigued by what was going on behind the glass.
The engineer on that first session hired me to play bass in his band.
I have been in studios, one way or another since then.

I still find microphones and recording some what magical.

[Waltz Mastering]

JAMES A. GRIFFIN wrote on Mon, 02 November 2009 10:29

Where did a 16 year old brother get cash for a pair of A7's and a Crown amp?  that would have been a lot of lawns to cut back then.

You know what they say. "Were there's a will there's a way"

Look what a 16 year old has today (can be a little over the top)

He's was/is heavily into audio and a big influence and today designs/invents gear used in  studios.

[BrianS]

My dad was in a country band with Del Reeves when they were in the Air Force. Del went to Nashville and dad came to Ohio. He bought me my first guitar when I was five, that was 46 years ago. He had a Wolensak and let me play with that.

My family traveled around singing gospel music. We made our first record in 1967. I started hooking up the pa when I was about 12. During high school a friend had a Sony sound on sound machine. Later in high school a friend bought a 4 track Dokorder. Never could get that thing to work.

After high school I hooked up with friends who had an 80-8, model 5, a bunch of Beyer mics and a 414EB. I still have the 414. Been recording ever since.