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Author Topic: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?  (Read 32660 times)

compasspnt

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HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« on: March 15, 2005, 10:09:49 AM »

It would be interesting to hear some good stories about how those of us in this messy business actually got here...where and how we learned the "crafts" of production and engineering, and perhaps just why we were crazy enough to forsake the real world in favour of insanity.  Also, did anyone actually go to one of the recording schools, or just learn on the job from mentors?

All of this I believe would be helpful to those trying to break into music recording.

Briefly, for me, it started with going to bed as a very young child with a transistor radio glued to my ear, and listening to Elvis and other early rock late into the night.  My grandfather and father both had radio shows, and therefore both always had tape recorders around, so I was naturally fascinated by those Wollensak machines.   I would go with my Dad occasionally to the radio control room as he broadcast, and I fell in love with the idea of communicating with unseen people through speech or music.  As I progressed to a young teen, got a guitar, hung out with other guys who had instruments (El Paso, TX), formed bands, etc., we naturally turned these tape recorders into home studios to record our great music.  This eventually led to recording in a studio (early Ardent in Memphis as mentioned in other threads, blah...blah...)  I started hanging around the studio a lot, and was mentored by John Fry, owner of Ardent, and a great, solid, by-the-book engineer.  Enough of my stuff, though...

I will say that I believe the number one requisite for staying power in this business isn't really technical ability (that of course helps a LOT), or musical knowledge (that can assist a bit, too), but is actually the power to keep on going, hour after hour, day after day, without griping or giving up.  I've had a lot of guys hang around over the years, wanting to "intern," but have found few who can take it after just a short while.  Those of you doing this professionally today obviously can "take it."  What advice can we give to those wanting to become "one of us?"
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stevieeastend

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2005, 10:34:35 AM »

Well, I think it is the passion for music and talent.
The things you are very talented at (more than the others), you will sooner or later be doing for life. I personally play four instruments and always wanted to know what makes a great record really great. I think this is one of the most important factors: To have the ambition to make a record as great as possible and really wanting to take care of every little aspect.
And when talent comes to passion you normally can make a living out of it. There is nothing I can do for days and days, weeks and weeks, years and years without being in need of a break. I had clients from day one I started  the studio, before I worked part time and played live for years.

I do not need a lot of money to be happy with my life. To do what I really love is the greatest gift in the world for me besides being healthy. I know what it means to do something which is kind of a compromise. And I always remember all the jobs I have done before when I am in the middle of heart sinking arranging session... I love this MESS Smile

wwittman

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2005, 10:47:13 AM »

I'll tell my longer story later, when i can sit down and make it seem linear and logical!

But I am reminded of another story..

Record Plant NYC had a kid that Roy Cicala had hired to be a general helper (that means cleaning up, running errands, etc.. a dogsbody).
This guy had actually been washing Roy's car and things like that before he even brought him to the studio... he had a job at the GM factory before that. So not any audio experience or expressed interest at all.

Well one day one of the main assistants said to him " Hey Steve, want to sit in and watch my session with ________ (a big name artiste)?"

"Well thanks but I am supposed to go to the movies with my friend"

The guy looked at him for a moment and then said " Do you want to go to the movies, or see a session with _________!!??"

That was enough to decide him.
How many people would KILL to see the session?
And he stayed and did.
And he went on to become one of their best assistants and then a fine engineer today.

I guess my point was that I never felt put upon... I always WANTED to be there in the middle of it making records. Or even watching other people make records!

And as I said in antoher thread... it's what *I* would look for today in an intern.. someone who's happy to be there and to learn.
No previous knowledge required or even desired.

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Lee Flier

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2005, 10:48:26 AM »

Well, I am not a full time pro engineer anymore and I came into it from a slightly different perspective as some of you.  Namely, I'm a musician first and foremost, and as a musician and songwriter I've always heard certain "sonic landscapes" in my head that to my mind were integral to the process of communicating the song.  And I learned pretty quickly, when I started going to recording studios, that the engineer really had the power to either make that "world" happen or totally fuck it up.  I became really frustrated with my inability to communicate what I wanted to engineers, and I also suspected some of the ones I worked with weren't very good because I'd worked with a couple of good ones.  Mind you this was all happening when I was 15-16 years old.

In retrospect, what I did was probably totally crazy, and I don't know how I pulled it off.  What I did was walk through the door at some of the biggest studios in L.A. (I was pretty fortunate to have grown up in L.A. during the 70's and early 80's), track down some of my favorite engineers and producers and ask them if I could sit in on a session with them, just to learn.  This had to be something that zillions of kids tried to do, I guess.  And I don't know why but most of the guys I asked let me do it.  Maybe because I never asked (at first) to actually have my hands on anything or be a formal "intern."  I just wanted to watch. Very Happy  And I wanted to watch as many different people as possible.  I didn't get in the way.  It was enough just to be there and soak it all in.

So by the time I actually started interning I had a pretty good idea how a lot of great folks worked, from the creative and workflow side, and I think that gave me an invaluable leg up.  And of course made me some good connections too.

In the end I only made my entire living from engineering for a few years - long enough to develop the skills I needed for my specific artistic goals.  The whole business of having to take any client that walked in the door in order to pay the bills, was not something that agreed with my temperament.  I have pretty specific tastes and usually, what's popular and has a budget doesn't agree with those tastes. Very Happy  So nowadays I only take on projects that I truly enjoy, and spend as much time as I want on them.  Now that I'm in the band that I basically always wanted to be in, that takes most of my time and energy.  But I do love the long hours and the craziness of the job! Whether it's playing, writing, or engineering - or just listening and being a fan (which is a very underrated pursuit) - I love being obsessed with music.  That's what got me into this mess. Very Happy

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2005, 10:56:37 AM »

Oh crap...here it goes..I hope no one takes offense to my writings below..but honestly..this is how it all started..

When my Brother came back from Viet Nam in 1969..I was a budding Trombone beginner with a love for good high fidelity. Me and my Dad went to "town" each Saturday for the barber shop, the hobby shop and then the hi fi store. We were groupies of them all and it was quite a great day..Saturdays were. It would start with Westerns on the TV and we would "head out" around 11AM. We lived on a long dirt road then (now it is a 4 lane)and "Pop" let me hone my skills actually driving the car at age 10 upwards of 45 mph...until we got to the "road".

The hi fi shop. The equipment of the late 60's (Altec speakers, JBL, Bozak, Klipsch, Scott, Harmon Kardon, McIntosh)and plenty of music. The Hi Fi Shop (FTC Brewer Company) was also an FM Stereo radio station. 94.1 Still on the air..but no hi fi shop.

Skipping some, My Brother brought back a "system" from Viet Nam that was Japanese. Sonics speakers, Sansui Receiver (called a tuner-amp then), Teac R2R. This was when I discovered "popular music" Dad played Slim Witman and Old western recordings, Hank Snow...you know.."the good shit" He loved Motown as well...closest thing to POP in the house. No Elvis, No Beatles. Just this week (he loves the Floyd) I asked why he did not pursue the British invasion..his answer: "their is only one time I like the sound of a female screming"  (dirty ole man hehehe) We had (already)in the house, all valve equipment and we built our speakers from lansing components. POP had to balance between his hobby and hi fi..his being Model Airplanes, Radio control. The only hobby in the barber shop was the local town gossip (Mayor, City Councilmen all there in and out)and the occasional Playboy and Esquire mag..laying around. Not off limits to 10 year olds back then (mind you)

I was hooked on Loudspeaker building. We could build far better systems than we could afford to buy and it escalated into a full time passion for me in the early 70's. Each of them had their good points and some not so good.

It Dawned on me, about 73..it was the recordings and mixdowns that played the largest role in authentic musical transfer and not simply "the loudspeakers" although they do show various displays of the art...all of a sudden, I not only wanted to pursue the recording arts, I was thrown into it. Our High School Symphony was to have a session and the recordist was sick. We were able to obtain his gear and I ran it. this was nov. 73 and since then...loudspeaker design and consulting and live recording have been in the picture. I teamed up with several local studios in 74 and it has been a solid situation. I still play bone and bass and the music is what is important to me.

After High school and the first 2 years of College, I simply had more calling to engineer than anything that would come along. Studios back then had Lathes and we could do most of the entire gambit "in house". Digital really ramped up the involvement and here I am today. I still get calls to do loudspeaker design and consulting as time goes by.


There you go...A book in less than 5000 words.

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Otitis Media

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2005, 11:26:18 AM »

My story is very uninteresting.  I had been interested in all manner of electronics (though not really good at it) and mechanical (very good at it) things from a very early age.  While in High school, I designed and built a few speaker systems and bought some nice hifi gear which I have to this day.  Went to school for film way back in the old days of 1995.  Ran production sound on a lot of films.  Also learned to shoot film, edit on Avid, use AfterEffects and Photoshop, light, etc.  Did audio post on a bunch of films.  My sound work was apparently better than what had been done in a while.  I was just careful - didn't do anything special.  

Got coughed out into the pro world in 1999, just in time for the job market in Boston for the film/video industry to start to tank.  Did some freelance audio post engineering with an old Pro Tools NuBus rig and on a PT24Mix at night at a high-end video house.  

Landed a gig mixing post and doing production audio for a local advertising branch of a cable company.  Was _the_ sound guy in the department for 2 years and really honed my chops.  Learned how to make my mixes stand up next to other stuff we were broadcasting.  Got laid off.

Started my own audio/video/film production business - did mainly video (but of course mixed everything!) for a couple of years.  Some freelance firsting and assisting up at Granite Rocks in NH on music stuff.  

Got hired as an Avid editor Sept. 2004, and here I am - still have all my audio gear - mobile digital 8 track, PTLE w/Behringer control sfc.  anyone got some stuff they wanna send my way? Razz

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Dan Roth
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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2005, 11:29:33 AM »

Dan, you will make it in large ways. I can feel it. The Humble Man will get just rewards. Hit me in PM, curious about your loudspeaker adventures. Spring is coming and the saw is to be used a few more times.

I use Vegas 5 lately. It is OK but I miss my old JVC Linear outfit.

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JGreenslade

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2005, 01:31:49 PM »

I think my sig line says it all really...

An abridged version:

Got my first hi-fi mag aged 8, and dreamt of a studio of my own from that point. Built amps and experimented with mains-voltage powered devices from when my age was in double figures. Studied guitar on-and-off from early teens, still can't play very well. Started DJ-ing in the mid-'80s, and progressed to engineering in the late '80s, early '90s. Whilst engineering it occurred that the people I was engineering for often had less musical ability than myself, and decided to release own compositions / collaborations (with aid of proper players you understand, I write empirically with sequencer - once something happens the real guys come in) which were surprisingly well received.

Carried on AE-ing and producing / remixing into the late '90s, at which point, after a series of experiments with "managers" and one or two majors / media BS contracts etc I decided to finally realise long-held hardware ambitions. Since getting into the hardware biz I've had little time for my own work, and haven't had a release out under my own title for around 2 yrs now... The irony is that I have met some incredible players / singers (no Auto-tune on these cats) to work with, but hardware rent-paying duties get in the way...

Plan is to take on one or two people in coming months to handle the daily chores on the hardware front, and then I can get back in the studio more or less full-time - fingers crossed!

Justin
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Gordon Rice

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2005, 01:36:11 PM »

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 15 March 2005 10:09


I will say that I believe the number one requisite for staying power in this business isn't really technical ability (that of course helps a LOT), or musical knowledge (that can assist a bit, too), but is actually the power to keep on going, hour after hour, day after day, without griping or giving up.  I've had a lot of guys hang around over the years, wanting to "intern," but have found few who can take it after just a short while.  Those of you doing this professionally today obviously can "take it."


Hey--

Well said, Terry.  During my first couple of years as an assistant, I watched several people (all of them ten years younger than I was at the time) spin out and leave the business because they didn't feel that working 50-60 hours a week for next to nothing was "worth it."  Apparently, they didn't notice that I was perfectly willing to not only do whatever was asked of me without complaining, but to pick up their slack as well--I may not have been making much per hour, but I was more than happy to make it up in volume.

The closest I ever came to complaining was the time I pointed out to my studio manager that I'd worked at least four hours and an average of nine-and-a-half *every single day* for the past thirty-five, was scheduled for five more days just like it, and "might I please have a day off to celebrate my wedding anniversary?"  He gave me two, bless his heart.

How I ended up there and subsequently here:

I too had a transistor radio glued to my head from an early age; I wish I still had the tube AM/FM radio that my Dad rehabbed and installed in my room in 1967.  Music was always pretty much the most important thing in the world to me--given that there are a couple of professional singers on my mother's side of my family and quite a lot of very dedicated amateur musicians on my father's, it doesn't really seem like I had much choice in the matter.

My father, a computer programmer by trade and a radio/electronics hobbyist, taught me clarinet and saxophone from the time I was eight or so; by the time I was sixteen I'd also taken up guitar and drums.  By that time I'd also had my first encounters with assorted Wollensaks and then-newfangled cassette recorders in addition to the rudimentary PA systems available to high-school garage bands in the mid-70's--every time something went wrong with a piece of audio gear or a new piece appeared, I'd enter the room and notice that everyone was staring at me.  What they didn't understand was that I didn't know any more than they did, I was just willing to mess with the stuff long enough to make it more or less work.

DETOUR (slightly) to college, where I finished an English major and nearly finished a music theory & composition major.  Never did complete a degree, though . . ..  Realizing that I'd gained whatever I was going to gain from my time at Rutgers, I dropped out and, thinking "here's something that interests me," went to recording school in Ohio.  Had fun, did well, got home in April and suddenly realized that I was getting married the next month and I'd probably better do something about finding a job.

DETOUR completely for several years:  Happy married life, supported by a job in small-corporate hell.  For much of this time, I played bass in a succession of local bands.  Somehow, it always fell to me to cobble together PA systems for shows and recording rigs so that we could make demos to get gigs (once again, "How come you're all staring at me instead of doing something with all that gear?").

Fast-forward to 1993:  Two working bands (I was either rehearsing or gigging 6 or 7 nights/week) and an 8-to-5 straight job just got to be a bit much, so I got rid of the job.  Around the same time, the chief tech here at Sigma took an interest in one of the bands I was playing in.  We had been able to cut a few tracks on the sly in an 8-track facility; he offered to transfer those to 2-inch, do some overdubs and mix.  At one point during the overdubbing process, he had to leave the control room for some reason (I'm not sure about this, but it just might have involved the fader PSU in the big room catching fire); when it became apparent that he was going to be MIA for a little while and that my singer was anxious to get the overdubs done, I sat down at the remote and did the punches.  When he got back and discovered that I actually had some vague idea what I was doing in a recording studio (and was also unemployed at the time), management was alerted.

An internship began almost immediately; turned out that Chief Engineer also liked me on a personal level in addition to being impressed with my willingness to work.  Five weeks (and a freelance gig helping rewire one of the rooms here)later, I worked my first session as a paid assistant:  Mixing Bobby Rydell's remakes of his own hits, many of which were recorded in that room the first time.

A lot of blind luck followed; on two occasions (both of them, truthfully, before I was really ready) clients brought in outside engineers, then came back without them and asked for me to cut the sessions--that kind of made my reputation.  Manager once referred to me as his "ace in the hole"--whenever another staff member had a blowup with a client, he knew that he could put me on the session and everything would be fine.  Slowly but surely I found myself doing less and less assisting and more and more engineering (which paid double what assisting did); there were, however, more than one or two weeks in which I hit overtime on both sides of the line.

Eventually, Chief Engineer moved on.  At that point, I became the Chief here myself.  Now I've managed to survive two changes of ownership and am currently presiding over a studio that's under renovation--hopefully I'll have a room in which to practice my art by the middle of next month.  Meanwhile, I'm covering this desk and looking around for freelance work to supplement this income.

Seems to me to be a pretty typical story . . ..

One other thing:  Last October, I was working, by myself for that moment, on a mix for an album project and suddenly felt the urge to laugh:  Here I was, actually managing to survive by doing something I absolutely love to do!

This will probably sound strange to some, but that moment alone (and I might add that it wasn't the first moment of its kind and I don't imagine it'll be the last) made all the hard, lonely hours and the lost marriage worth it.

--gmr
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Brian Kehew

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2005, 03:43:18 PM »

I am from a musical family - no one "pro" just enthusiasts. I took apart stereos when young to see how they worked. Eventually I began playing piano and guitar and wanted to study electronics and computers. Synthesizers of the 1970's were a passion for me, but I couldn't afford even one. So I saved ALL the catalogs!

Went to college for recording at Cal State Dominguez Hills. I had looked t UCLA and Berkely and this place was MUCH better. It's a 4-years school, you take elctronics and even siht-singing and music dictation to make you well-rounded in all things musical. Of course, there is recording, but the first semester alone is ALL theory, no studio work. You don't even get to touch the board until the second year. You begin with only live 2tr. sessions, then 8-tr, finally 16 and 24.

Eventually, if you're accomplished, you get to book sessions at any time and work as much as you please ON YOUR OWN. Fantastic learning tool - a 24-track studio at your disposal. I spent night after night trying mix options and reverb/FX programming.

Used the studio to "get" artists (small and big) to come for free demos. Nothign did well, but other people heard it and asked me to work to their records. Etc etc. I became free-lance, and was happy to avoid the "second engineer" internship - most places rejected my applications, as I was overqualified by then.

Finally, during a session for a local guy, the producer was also the main producer for Warner Bros and Rhino reissues. He saw that I was VERY traditional and worked FAST, but with good results. He asked me to mix some Doobies for their box set - (Massenberg's tapes indeed, fantastic work) and it came out well. We've been doing it ever since - they've been bringing me tapes ever since (Thank God it's such a big company with excellent artists). We listen through multitracks and mix anything that has never gotten a mixdown. These and any original 2-tracks get submitted for approval - most are rejected for whatever reasons. So, the "perfect job" came in for me - totally by accident. Arguably, I am good at it, as they keep coming back; and I keep the prices LOW so they don't even think of trying anyone else.
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j.hall

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2005, 04:09:50 PM »

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 15 March 2005 09:09

It would be interesting to hear some good stories about how those of us in this messy business actually got here...


i was four months old and my mother set my car seat (me in it) on the countertop of the local McDonalds.  my sister, wanting to see what was going on, used my feet (hanging off the edge of the car seat and countertop) as her "handle" in order to pull herself up.  what seemed like a good idea ended up with me getting flipped off the countertop and smacking that cold brown brick McDonalds floor with my head.

the trauma i suffered from that head injury is the only thing i can possibly come up with as to why i wanted to work in the music biz.

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J.J. Blair

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2005, 05:34:27 PM »

I took the brown acid.  

My advice: Stay away from the brown acid.  It's a real bummer.

And then, I was 5 or 6 and used to jump around with a tennis racket pretending to play guitar to "Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting" and "China Grove".  And then when I was six I bought Rubber Soul.  And my dad got me a guitar when I was eight.  When I was eleven and onward, everybody at school made fun of me and I had no friends, so I spent lots of time playing the guitar and doing acid.

My dad was a hi-fi freak (I still have his JBL Olympus speakers and use them as my overheads) and we had a reel to reel that I always messed with as a really young kid, playing stuff backwards, recording with a microphone, splicing, etc.  I bought a Tascam 4 track in high school and would record myself and a drum machine doiing Traffic songs, etc.  Before I had the Tascam, I would overdub by recording back and forth from two tape decks, playing or singing along with the previously recorded stuff, which just seemed obvious to me.  

When I got out of highschool, I interned at an ad agency so that I could go to lots of recording sessions, which I did.  None of the studios in Chicago wanted an 18 year old intern.  Then I pretended to go to college for a year and studied recording while I was there, and did lots of acid and played lots of guitar.  I learned mainly the theoretical things that guys cutting their teeath on protools aren't learning, like mic selection, mic placement, phasing, etc. etc.  We couldn't just fix shit the way somebody who records something badly can now.

I stopped doing acid, moved to LA, played in bands,  wound up buying this god forsaken rehearsal facility that I still own thirteen years later, which has graced me with more contacts in the music world than I know what to do with.  Played on a handful of smaller recording sessions, spent much time in the studio with other friends who were making their records, picked my friend Alan Hirshberg's (who was a working engtineer) brain all the time, let Jon Brion live on my couch for a year and absorbed as much info as I could from him, bought a 3M56 and an A&H console, and slowly let the beast grow from there to the room I have now.  I decided I hate being in bands, but I loved recording and producing and was very naturally good at it.  I recorded as many of my friends as I could so that I could learn from trial and terror, and I watched a lot of guys who really knew what the hell they were doing when they were either using my room or when I was visiting somebody else's.  And anything that I would see that was different or that somebody would tell me about that I never tried, I would try.  I would also spend downtime trying  things to see if they worked, which is why I do some things that nobody else does.  The ability to do this is one of the benefits of having your own room.  

The reason I still do it is because I love it and I'm good at it.  It's like second nature to me.  And fortunately, people are willing to pay me to do it.  Most importantly, I love being around musicians and recording types.  I can't deal with normal people.  I need to be able to talk about music and gear or I start to go nuts, which is why I love PSW so much!
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Greg Dixon

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2005, 06:01:37 PM »

The way I got into this mess, was fairly insane in hindsight. I've been obsessed with music since I was born. Dad was a lecturer in engineering and played in a Trad Jazz band a couple of nights a week. There were always lots of musical instruments around, as well as cassette and 1/4" tape recorders. So I played with all of those. I have always been fascinated with microphones. I have memories of Dad's band rehearsing at home, when I was only slightly taller than the snare drum. Elvis died when I was 9 and I got my first real exposure to Rock and Roll. Between all those music specials and watching the Beatles cartoons before school, I started playing guitar and wanting to be a rock star.

I finally met some like minded musicians in music class, in my second year of high school and so started my first band at 13. I was fortunate to have always played with some very good band members and have two very good music teachers at school. I also, was the guy that would set up and trouble shoot the PA, whenever we played. It was just a very natural thing and I don't think I really thought about it that much. There was a really good industry magazine here in Australia, that I learnt a lot from. Through the school, we had opportunities to perform at the 12,000 seat Sydney Entertainment Centre about 5-6 times and appear on a popular 'soap', where we were recorded with the best mobile truck in the country. With all these shows there was lots of 'hanging around', where I got to pick the brains of some of the top sound guys in the country. There was also a guy, a couple of years behind me at school, who's parents had a lot of money and had bought him a Fostex 1'4" 8 track, a Tascam desk and some good dynamic mics, which we got to use quite a bit, back when we didn't even know anyone with a 4 track.

After school I played in a band for 4 years and did lots of shocking casual jobs to survive. I learnt more from recording a few demos in commercial studios. I'd always thought that being a studio only guy, would be boring and wanted to be a performer.

Around the time my band broke up, I ended up doing  sound for a friends band and recording another friend of mine. I wasn't keen to do either and did them under protest. Of course I loved it and found all these other people asking if I was a professional. So when the band dissolved and I was wondering what to do next, I had all these people telling me I should open a studio. So I did.

My grandparents had invested some money for me in the mid '80s and with the high interest rates, it had tripled in value. Fortunately, we were in the middle of a recession and I was able to buy all the gear from a studio, for less than half of what they had been trying to sell it for a year earlier. I added to that and spent a year recording friends, to make sure that I really knew what I was doing before I charged anyone for a session. I borrowed a lot of money and my parents let me soundproof  what had always been the 'music' room and excavate further under the house for the control room and I went from there.

I always had a natural affinity with mics and mic technique came very naturaly, but being untrained, it took me quite a while to learn about when and how to use compression and to a lesser extent reverb. I was also quite a purist at that time and hated the late '80s reverb and compression overkill, so was happy to avoid most of that anyway, which of course, put me ahead of the pack for the 'dry' '90s production trends. Razz
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compasspnt

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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2005, 06:13:59 PM »

I don't know about everybody else, but I find all of these stories fascinating!  I hope any new guys wanting to get into this business are reading all of this!  Everything here added together is a virtual compendium of knowledge about the workings of the recording side of the music industry, good and bad, sacrifices and rewards.

By the way, I don't think I've yet seen a single person who went to one of the dedicated "Recording Schools!"
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Re: HOW Did You Get Yourself Into This MESS?
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2005, 06:18:33 PM »

Quote:

By the way, I don't think I've yet seen a single person who went to one of the dedicated "Recording Schools!"


Hell no....but in 1989, I was invited to teach at one of them...and I did as long as I could take it.

I love to teach...but not under someones inexperienced layout.

I found the "book worms" could not hear or mix, those who could not understand the books, mixed pretty damned good.

I am happy I did it though. made many friends and built MANY studios for them. Good vibes overall.

Where the hell did Mike Davis go??
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