Hey everyone. Good to see the board is back!
I finished school and a temporarty internship (it was known going in that it was temporary, but it was a great learning situation) a while back and now Im finidng myself with out a gig. I was just wondering how you guys found your first gigs in a studio? I went to the local studios and talked with them but they dont need anyone at the current time. Ive considered getting some gear and going at it myself but the local scene isnt that hot and im not sure that it requires another person going at it from that angle...
Any advice would be greatly welcome!
How did you start out?
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cgarges
- zen recordist
- Posts: 10890
- Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2003 1:26 am
- Location: Charlotte, NC
- Contact:
Ever since high school, I've really enjoyed tinkering with four-tracks and taking advantage of any kind of recording situation I could get into.
I went to a school with a terrific recording program, but I went as a jazz performance major. I hung out with engineering students and observed and asked questions (sort of like an internship now that I think about it, except there was generally more beer involoved), but I didn't learn how to solder or check phase relationships.
In my "professional recording career," I talked my way into a job as an assistant, although it was really much more like a barely paid internship at first. I learned quickly and started developing a good reputation among clients. So much so that specific people started to want to work with me. When a good opportunity came up for the chief engineer to get out for a while, I was the logical choice to take over.
Still after about two years, I realized that I wasn't learning anything by myself. So I contacted some bigger studios to see if I could intern during my off-hours from the other, more project studio-type facility. Some saw it as a conflict of interest, but one studio in particular didn't mind me hanging out. When the studio I was working for shut down, I hung out more at the larger facility. As luck would have it, they had a position available for me within a couple months and I worked there for two years. Granted, it was ultimately a TERRIBLE job (that's another story), but I learned a whole lot about working with really great gear and about how to get things done on a time line. My engineering at that point took HUGE steps forward, thanks to what I learned from the other engineers there. It's a lot like being in a band with people who are much better players than you. They'll make you sound good, but at the same time, your playing will improve LOTS! If you're always the only guy in the band with his shit together, then all you're likely to get is frustrated.
In any case, while I was working at the big studio, I had some opportunities to go do some work at a few other rooms in this area. Same deal--hung out with other engineers, learned their techniques, learned the rooms, got in good with them and the studio managers. Then, I eventually had it with my job and quit. But because I had built up a good client base and a good releationship with so many people at other studios around here, it was easy for me to continue working as a freelance engineer. That's been the case for about four years.
This summer, one of the owners of a studio in which I've done some work over the past five years passed away. His widow and silent partner in the studio asked me to complete some stuff he was working on and during the process, asked me about what it would take to keep the studio open. After discussing a few things and finding out what would work best for everyone, we decided to involk a "trial period" with me running things. So far, it's been great. I like the studio a lot and was familiar-enough with it to work efficiently. Everyone's been very helpful and appreciative and the sessions out there have all been a lot of fun. What could have been a very dark and depressing situation for everyone has actually brought some light to the scene. My friend had his heart and soul in that studio and I think he would be pleased to see so many people still enjoying it. Between the studio's good reputation and the number of client's I've built up over the past nine years or so, it's been really busy. And everyone's been happy with the studio.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
I went to a school with a terrific recording program, but I went as a jazz performance major. I hung out with engineering students and observed and asked questions (sort of like an internship now that I think about it, except there was generally more beer involoved), but I didn't learn how to solder or check phase relationships.
In my "professional recording career," I talked my way into a job as an assistant, although it was really much more like a barely paid internship at first. I learned quickly and started developing a good reputation among clients. So much so that specific people started to want to work with me. When a good opportunity came up for the chief engineer to get out for a while, I was the logical choice to take over.
Still after about two years, I realized that I wasn't learning anything by myself. So I contacted some bigger studios to see if I could intern during my off-hours from the other, more project studio-type facility. Some saw it as a conflict of interest, but one studio in particular didn't mind me hanging out. When the studio I was working for shut down, I hung out more at the larger facility. As luck would have it, they had a position available for me within a couple months and I worked there for two years. Granted, it was ultimately a TERRIBLE job (that's another story), but I learned a whole lot about working with really great gear and about how to get things done on a time line. My engineering at that point took HUGE steps forward, thanks to what I learned from the other engineers there. It's a lot like being in a band with people who are much better players than you. They'll make you sound good, but at the same time, your playing will improve LOTS! If you're always the only guy in the band with his shit together, then all you're likely to get is frustrated.
In any case, while I was working at the big studio, I had some opportunities to go do some work at a few other rooms in this area. Same deal--hung out with other engineers, learned their techniques, learned the rooms, got in good with them and the studio managers. Then, I eventually had it with my job and quit. But because I had built up a good client base and a good releationship with so many people at other studios around here, it was easy for me to continue working as a freelance engineer. That's been the case for about four years.
This summer, one of the owners of a studio in which I've done some work over the past five years passed away. His widow and silent partner in the studio asked me to complete some stuff he was working on and during the process, asked me about what it would take to keep the studio open. After discussing a few things and finding out what would work best for everyone, we decided to involk a "trial period" with me running things. So far, it's been great. I like the studio a lot and was familiar-enough with it to work efficiently. Everyone's been very helpful and appreciative and the sessions out there have all been a lot of fun. What could have been a very dark and depressing situation for everyone has actually brought some light to the scene. My friend had his heart and soul in that studio and I think he would be pleased to see so many people still enjoying it. Between the studio's good reputation and the number of client's I've built up over the past nine years or so, it's been really busy. And everyone's been happy with the studio.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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joelpatterson
- carpal tunnel
- Posts: 1732
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 5:20 pm
- Location: Albany, New York
I was living a "normal" life doing construction and tinkering around the edges with creative stuff. Then I hit 30 years, and the ghost of Christmas Past showed up at my door. "Geez, real creative life you got here," he said, running his cracked and dusty fingers over my table saw, "wow, a sliding T-bevel! I knew a kid with your name, he was 17, he had these wild ideas about what he was going to do with his life. I wonder what ever happened to him?"
So I built a barn behind our house, and dedicated the top floor as a "recording studio." That dictated that the chickens would have to be downstairs. Got an ADAT, a Tascam mixer, DAT machine, and started hanging out at open mics and talking to people, persuading them that they needed a demo and I was the guy to do it. One bluegrass band even wanted squawking chickens at the end of a tune. So I strung a mic, an E-100, down the stairs and poked it into the chicken pen. The chickens looked at me like, "Yeah, so? " I had to chase them around to get them to squawk.
Built another place in '95, and that's the studio I work out of today. I do alot of live concerts also. And printing up CD artwork. I guess you'd say I found a niche.
"Ive considered getting some gear and going at it myself but the local scene isnt that hot and im not sure that it requires another person going at it from that angle... "
This is the story of my life, Spark, but fortunately I never stopped to consider how sensible what I was doing was. Some of the worst advice I got was from well-meaning friends who said, "You know, you can keep your day job and do your recording at night." Something about that was just so hollow... do you want to go to a doctor who works by day in a hardware store but really likes doctoring and does it at night? Do you want a lawyer who really digs the law but he supports himself doing landscaping? No, you want someone who is in it heart and soul and depends on making you and every other customer happy.
So I built a barn behind our house, and dedicated the top floor as a "recording studio." That dictated that the chickens would have to be downstairs. Got an ADAT, a Tascam mixer, DAT machine, and started hanging out at open mics and talking to people, persuading them that they needed a demo and I was the guy to do it. One bluegrass band even wanted squawking chickens at the end of a tune. So I strung a mic, an E-100, down the stairs and poked it into the chicken pen. The chickens looked at me like, "Yeah, so? " I had to chase them around to get them to squawk.
Built another place in '95, and that's the studio I work out of today. I do alot of live concerts also. And printing up CD artwork. I guess you'd say I found a niche.
"Ive considered getting some gear and going at it myself but the local scene isnt that hot and im not sure that it requires another person going at it from that angle... "
This is the story of my life, Spark, but fortunately I never stopped to consider how sensible what I was doing was. Some of the worst advice I got was from well-meaning friends who said, "You know, you can keep your day job and do your recording at night." Something about that was just so hollow... do you want to go to a doctor who works by day in a hardware store but really likes doctoring and does it at night? Do you want a lawyer who really digs the law but he supports himself doing landscaping? No, you want someone who is in it heart and soul and depends on making you and every other customer happy.
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Rob Tavaglione
- studio intern
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:56 am
- Location: Charlotte NC
- Contact:
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Spark
- suffering 'studio suck'
- Posts: 415
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:19 pm
- Location: Ontario, Canada
- Contact:
Your message really struck a note with me Joel. Its almost my situation to a tee (ie. 30, left a crappy job, I was that kid that always wanted to do something creative with bands/ recording gear)
Thanks to all three of you for replying and giving me some food for thought! I really do appreciate it.
Any other stories?
Thanks to all three of you for replying and giving me some food for thought! I really do appreciate it.
Any other stories?
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Red Rockets Glare
- tinnitus
- Posts: 1132
- Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 8:36 am
- Location: Los Angeles
- Contact:
I was stealing matching boomboxes out of my older brothers rooms at the age of ten and making cassette overdub bouncing masterpieces, so I guess I could've seen it coming.
I used to drag an eight track portastudio and a 57 around with me everywhere I went and begged everyone I knew to let me record them.
I remember sitting in my SF apartment at about the age of 20 and realizing that if I pointed the 57 towards the beveled corner of the cieling and played my acoustic towards it that it sounded AWESOME. I think I've been pretty addicted to getting cool sounds since then.
I always encouraged the bands I've been in to record at mid-sized analog studios and asked as many questions as the engineer, Pete Dirado, could bear. I leared a lot from him and the other guys at DDG recording out in the San Fernando Valley, but my real education didn't begin until I bought a 1/2 inch 8 track and make a few test recordings on it with a borrowed mixer and mics.
The fidelity on that machine STILL blows me away. It is seriously more present and punchy sounding that most of the 2" 24 tracks I've worked on.
I started my own band about 5 years back and decided to make a home-brewed recording project using all the tips and tricks I had learned in those mid-sized studios and my new favorite magazine, TapeOp and set out to consult some of the kind folks here about what kind og gear I'd need to make a quality recording.
I recorded it in friends front-rooms, bathrooms, and rehearsal spaces. It was a lot of fun and a steep learning experience.
I put the record out and it made my band pretty well known on a local level.
I spent WAY too long on our second record, which involved me getting into digital recording and having to re-learn how to make a record sound good. It took about three years of recording, scrapping everything, trying the drums in a differnt spot, trying EVERYTHING I could think of to get things to sound good until I finally got it right.
I think I was getting sharper ears and better equipment and those two things were helping me to hear mistakes and flaws a lot easier.
During those three years making my bands 2nd record I built a studio, and started letting bands trickle in to make records with me at the helm. There was only one bad experience and two years into it I'm booking into January and rasing my rates.
I've even been asked to help design a very serious studio downtown that intends to be a premire commercial facility by the end of the year.
I've tried really hard to learn everything I can during all of this and always keep an open mind about ideas that others have.
I wish I could've gone to audio school, but I think many of the technical aspects of what i do can be learned from a book with enough motivation. I look things up constantly as they become an issue.
I hope one day to make a record that I can look back on and smile about in my deaf old age.
I used to drag an eight track portastudio and a 57 around with me everywhere I went and begged everyone I knew to let me record them.
I remember sitting in my SF apartment at about the age of 20 and realizing that if I pointed the 57 towards the beveled corner of the cieling and played my acoustic towards it that it sounded AWESOME. I think I've been pretty addicted to getting cool sounds since then.
I always encouraged the bands I've been in to record at mid-sized analog studios and asked as many questions as the engineer, Pete Dirado, could bear. I leared a lot from him and the other guys at DDG recording out in the San Fernando Valley, but my real education didn't begin until I bought a 1/2 inch 8 track and make a few test recordings on it with a borrowed mixer and mics.
The fidelity on that machine STILL blows me away. It is seriously more present and punchy sounding that most of the 2" 24 tracks I've worked on.
I started my own band about 5 years back and decided to make a home-brewed recording project using all the tips and tricks I had learned in those mid-sized studios and my new favorite magazine, TapeOp and set out to consult some of the kind folks here about what kind og gear I'd need to make a quality recording.
I recorded it in friends front-rooms, bathrooms, and rehearsal spaces. It was a lot of fun and a steep learning experience.
I put the record out and it made my band pretty well known on a local level.
I spent WAY too long on our second record, which involved me getting into digital recording and having to re-learn how to make a record sound good. It took about three years of recording, scrapping everything, trying the drums in a differnt spot, trying EVERYTHING I could think of to get things to sound good until I finally got it right.
I think I was getting sharper ears and better equipment and those two things were helping me to hear mistakes and flaws a lot easier.
During those three years making my bands 2nd record I built a studio, and started letting bands trickle in to make records with me at the helm. There was only one bad experience and two years into it I'm booking into January and rasing my rates.
I've even been asked to help design a very serious studio downtown that intends to be a premire commercial facility by the end of the year.
I've tried really hard to learn everything I can during all of this and always keep an open mind about ideas that others have.
I wish I could've gone to audio school, but I think many of the technical aspects of what i do can be learned from a book with enough motivation. I look things up constantly as they become an issue.
I hope one day to make a record that I can look back on and smile about in my deaf old age.
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Fletcher
- steve albini likes it
- Posts: 395
- Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 7:38 am
- Location: M?nchen
- Contact:
The day before my 13th birthday a friend of mine's band needed someone to help schlepp gear and watch the 6 channel "Kustom" PA head... I made $20- that day... the guys in the band made $17.50... I thought this roadie thing might be a pretty good racket. FF a few years... I was a guitar player in a band that was signed to a major, had no money and a smack habit... the band broke up, my first bout with jail... got off dope, moved from NYC to Boston ["change the people, places and things if you want to stay clean"], got into college... got some gigs working for local bands and a gig at a radio station.
The radio thing kinda worked out so it was back to NY to do 'radio production' [like cutting ad spots for car dealers and other pedestrian bullshit]... had a weekend "on-air" shift, and mixed a couple of local "Long Island" bands... one got noticed, signed and did an opening slot on a real tour... I made some friends.
That run ended, called around, found a gig as a guitar tech... which lead to a gig as a monitor engineer... which led to a gig doing FOH... which led to a gig doing FOH for a bigger band... somehow managed to graduate from college then went out of the road for the next few years [where I did any gig I could find from drum tech to production managment; stage manager; monitors; keyboard tech; merch guy; you name it].
One night I had a mic stand flung at my head while I was doing monitors... I said "fuck this", found a bus driver and got a ride to the airport... bought a ticket on the first plane I could get a seat, landed in Cincinnati and proceeded to get drunk for the next 3 or 4 days.
It was then that it dawned on me that I hadn't been seeing a lot of old people on the road [now they're all like my age, but back then the most was like 10 years older than me]... so I decided to go "indoors".
I got a gig as a piss boy in one of the top New England studios for $2/hr. [minimum wage was $3.15 at the time]... but I had a bunch of green saved up from the touring thing so I was OK... and I was working all the time so I didn't really have a chance to spend any of it. For the next couple of years I worked like 100+ hr.s a week trying to learn the craft. This was still in the days of the "house engineer" and this studio had 2 and a half full time engineers for a one room facility... in other words if I wanted to work "in the chair" I had to hustle my own gigs... which was kinda hard to do when I was seconding 100 hr.s a week... so, I quit and went "free lance".
I got a gig here and a gig there... then a couple more, then some better ones and the next thing I knew I had an outboard rack, half a dozen studios where I worked pretty often and a full calendar.
Sitting around in a bar one night with a couple of other engineers it turned out that we were all getting squeezed on everything from day rates to rental budgets so we decided that if we tried to manage each other then we could have a hired asshole to do the negotiating part instead of having the "artisit/engineer relationship" taxed by the negotiating process. This was called "Mercenary Audio" as we were all mercenaries.
In the fall of '88 for some reason I couldn't buy a gig for a couple/three months and cash reserves were pretty much nothing. One morning on her way out the door my wife said that I needed to figure something out as we were down to our last $50- and she didn't get paid for another week... so I started calling a bunch of NY studios trying to hawk a pair of LA-3A's... and inadvertantly started a "brokerage house" which turned into a full time pimp thing. I still engineer... so it's not like I'm a full time weasel... and I reckon if you have to be a weasel there are a lot worse things you could end up pimping than fairly cool audio hardware.
Looking at things now... I'm home most nights, I get to hang out with my kids a bunch... and I don't get my body clock turned around so I'm waking up at 4 in the afternoon any more... shit could be worse... a lot worse.
The radio thing kinda worked out so it was back to NY to do 'radio production' [like cutting ad spots for car dealers and other pedestrian bullshit]... had a weekend "on-air" shift, and mixed a couple of local "Long Island" bands... one got noticed, signed and did an opening slot on a real tour... I made some friends.
That run ended, called around, found a gig as a guitar tech... which lead to a gig as a monitor engineer... which led to a gig doing FOH... which led to a gig doing FOH for a bigger band... somehow managed to graduate from college then went out of the road for the next few years [where I did any gig I could find from drum tech to production managment; stage manager; monitors; keyboard tech; merch guy; you name it].
One night I had a mic stand flung at my head while I was doing monitors... I said "fuck this", found a bus driver and got a ride to the airport... bought a ticket on the first plane I could get a seat, landed in Cincinnati and proceeded to get drunk for the next 3 or 4 days.
It was then that it dawned on me that I hadn't been seeing a lot of old people on the road [now they're all like my age, but back then the most was like 10 years older than me]... so I decided to go "indoors".
I got a gig as a piss boy in one of the top New England studios for $2/hr. [minimum wage was $3.15 at the time]... but I had a bunch of green saved up from the touring thing so I was OK... and I was working all the time so I didn't really have a chance to spend any of it. For the next couple of years I worked like 100+ hr.s a week trying to learn the craft. This was still in the days of the "house engineer" and this studio had 2 and a half full time engineers for a one room facility... in other words if I wanted to work "in the chair" I had to hustle my own gigs... which was kinda hard to do when I was seconding 100 hr.s a week... so, I quit and went "free lance".
I got a gig here and a gig there... then a couple more, then some better ones and the next thing I knew I had an outboard rack, half a dozen studios where I worked pretty often and a full calendar.
Sitting around in a bar one night with a couple of other engineers it turned out that we were all getting squeezed on everything from day rates to rental budgets so we decided that if we tried to manage each other then we could have a hired asshole to do the negotiating part instead of having the "artisit/engineer relationship" taxed by the negotiating process. This was called "Mercenary Audio" as we were all mercenaries.
In the fall of '88 for some reason I couldn't buy a gig for a couple/three months and cash reserves were pretty much nothing. One morning on her way out the door my wife said that I needed to figure something out as we were down to our last $50- and she didn't get paid for another week... so I started calling a bunch of NY studios trying to hawk a pair of LA-3A's... and inadvertantly started a "brokerage house" which turned into a full time pimp thing. I still engineer... so it's not like I'm a full time weasel... and I reckon if you have to be a weasel there are a lot worse things you could end up pimping than fairly cool audio hardware.
Looking at things now... I'm home most nights, I get to hang out with my kids a bunch... and I don't get my body clock turned around so I'm waking up at 4 in the afternoon any more... shit could be worse... a lot worse.
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joelpatterson
- carpal tunnel
- Posts: 1732
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 5:20 pm
- Location: Albany, New York
Like most of you here, I started out as a musician. I gave myself until 30 years old to do something. Thirty came and went. I was doing quite a lot of session work in the South Florida area. On a whim, I asked one of the studio owners if I could hang and learn the art of recording. I worked for him for about 3 years, but couldn't stand the hours. While I was working there, I went to tech school. Being in Ft. Lauderdale, I got a job at MCI. I stayed with the company through the Sony years and recently quit because Sony started sucking real bad.
Now I work at an aerospace company in LA, but at night I play technician at a local pro audio repair shop. On weekends I'm busy writing and recording my son's band.
CA
Now I work at an aerospace company in LA, but at night I play technician at a local pro audio repair shop. On weekends I'm busy writing and recording my son's band.
CA
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ryanlikestorock
- gettin' sounds
- Posts: 136
- Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:58 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
I grew up with a step-dad who played in touring bands and had bar rock bands jamming in my living room while I was trying to sleep. Our coffee table was a bass cab on its side. My uncle owned (and still owns) the local music instrument store in my hometown and when I started playing guitar, he showed me how he was using his VCR to record a local cover band. I was determined to make a recording with my little brother and used every recording technique I knew. The result was by far the worst sounding recording known to man. Seriously- the equipment from the 1800s sounded better than this, I'm sure.
When I was 15, our little 3-piece rock band won $300 at a talent contest so we bought a 4-track (Porta03) and an old Yamaha mono mixer with spring reverb. We borrowed bad mics from our drummer's mom who was a music teacher and rented the rest from the uncle.
I recorded all the bands at my school and pushed myself to read all the books about home studios and talked with my uncle a lot about mic placement, bouncing tracks, very basic EQ, hitting the tape hard, etc etc. The demo recordings got better and better. I'd rent 8-tracks and ADATs every once in a while to try something new.
I finally started using a computer for audio in 2000, but only for fixing existing recordings - basically a very simple form of mastering. Then, local bands started asking me to help them do the same for them. This turned me onto mastering as a main focus, even before I had any real professional recording experience. Next thing I knew, I was spending money on audio gear and mastering an album every few weeks for someone who knew someone who recommended me. At $30/album, crappy punk bands had nothing to lose. Pretty funny, but it got me fresh material to practice on and the bands didn't seem to mind the "help".
Now I'm working at a really nice mastering facility and running a small recording studio in downtown Toronto. I'm doing live sound for a couple internationally-known acts for a few months a year just to keep learning. Audio is audio and I find the more I know about one medium, the better I seem to get at the rest. By no means do I think of myself as a professional anything but I do make a decent living working on recordings and I have for two years now.
Somewhere in there I ran a record label for a couple years and worked as a marketing guy for an evil CD manufacturing company for a year - all in the name of keeping busy and figuring it all out.
When I was 15, our little 3-piece rock band won $300 at a talent contest so we bought a 4-track (Porta03) and an old Yamaha mono mixer with spring reverb. We borrowed bad mics from our drummer's mom who was a music teacher and rented the rest from the uncle.
I recorded all the bands at my school and pushed myself to read all the books about home studios and talked with my uncle a lot about mic placement, bouncing tracks, very basic EQ, hitting the tape hard, etc etc. The demo recordings got better and better. I'd rent 8-tracks and ADATs every once in a while to try something new.
I finally started using a computer for audio in 2000, but only for fixing existing recordings - basically a very simple form of mastering. Then, local bands started asking me to help them do the same for them. This turned me onto mastering as a main focus, even before I had any real professional recording experience. Next thing I knew, I was spending money on audio gear and mastering an album every few weeks for someone who knew someone who recommended me. At $30/album, crappy punk bands had nothing to lose. Pretty funny, but it got me fresh material to practice on and the bands didn't seem to mind the "help".
Now I'm working at a really nice mastering facility and running a small recording studio in downtown Toronto. I'm doing live sound for a couple internationally-known acts for a few months a year just to keep learning. Audio is audio and I find the more I know about one medium, the better I seem to get at the rest. By no means do I think of myself as a professional anything but I do make a decent living working on recordings and I have for two years now.
Somewhere in there I ran a record label for a couple years and worked as a marketing guy for an evil CD manufacturing company for a year - all in the name of keeping busy and figuring it all out.
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joel hamilton
- zen recordist
- Posts: 8876
- Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 12:10 pm
- Location: NYC/Brooklyn
- Contact:
My dad played drums. They always had all the instruments in our basement, set up. I would mess around with them a LOT before the guys would come over, careful not to change any of the setings cause i would be in big trouble... I was about 7 years old. I shocked myself really bad one day on the fender twin, turning it on in socks on a cement floor, leaning on the metal thingies that the amp part hangs from. Shocked the SHIT out of myself. I think that is when I decided i wanted to use these cool, "dangerous" mysterious things all my life. I wound up playing drums, then upright bass in the school band, then moved to guitar in the late 80's. Still played drums and bass though. Anyway... My mom got me some weird little tube reel to reel deck one day at a yard sale, because I told her i wanted to be able to record some of my dads records (I could only listen under supervision with my dads hi-fi stuff and records, as i was 8 !!!).
So she gets me this thing, and one day i realised that you could have one "stereo program" or two "mono programs" on one reel of tape.... Hmmm... There were obviously separate record arming for each track, what i called "left and right" but they called "program 1 and program 2" on the little recorder. HOLY CRAP!. i recorded myself playing drums, with some little shit mic i had, then had to figure out how to hear what i had just done...hmm.... I didnt have, or even think of headphones at that point, as this was pre-walkman, pre normal to have headphones everywhere in my life (i was 8!!! just to reiterate) so I just moved the shitty hifi speakers I had near my little guitar amp thing i had, and rocked out to MYSELF!!! That lead to me realising that the "sound physically lived in a specific place on the tape" and so i started cutting stuff like crazy. like making edits on beatles songs i had recorded off my dad's records, or then.... the pivotal moment for me when i was about 10 or 11..... Rcording my little sister reading something i had written, then splicing for days to re-arrange the words to make her say things like "i smell like donkey" or "I smell like poop" or I really owe joel money." stupidest EVER, but i learned SO much about that. I even wrote with magic marker on the back of the tape what word was what so i could start chunking them together. Using scotch tape to splice with scisors! No razor blades for the 5th grader.... No splice block... Just totally ghetto by hand style. That changed my life. For real. the idea that things could be MANIPULATED after recording them was HUGE. that lead to four track craziness, mixing to my trusty little RTR there. I finally decided to "mod" my little tube RTR.... the end of thee tube RTR. I am amazed i didnt kill myself poking around in that thing.
Beyond that i wound up with cessette four track stuff.... I was totally recording my dad's band when i was like 15 or 16. Recording my own punk bands around then too. I am finally, at 35, 20 years after that.... I am finally pretty good at being 15.
So she gets me this thing, and one day i realised that you could have one "stereo program" or two "mono programs" on one reel of tape.... Hmmm... There were obviously separate record arming for each track, what i called "left and right" but they called "program 1 and program 2" on the little recorder. HOLY CRAP!. i recorded myself playing drums, with some little shit mic i had, then had to figure out how to hear what i had just done...hmm.... I didnt have, or even think of headphones at that point, as this was pre-walkman, pre normal to have headphones everywhere in my life (i was 8!!! just to reiterate) so I just moved the shitty hifi speakers I had near my little guitar amp thing i had, and rocked out to MYSELF!!! That lead to me realising that the "sound physically lived in a specific place on the tape" and so i started cutting stuff like crazy. like making edits on beatles songs i had recorded off my dad's records, or then.... the pivotal moment for me when i was about 10 or 11..... Rcording my little sister reading something i had written, then splicing for days to re-arrange the words to make her say things like "i smell like donkey" or "I smell like poop" or I really owe joel money." stupidest EVER, but i learned SO much about that. I even wrote with magic marker on the back of the tape what word was what so i could start chunking them together. Using scotch tape to splice with scisors! No razor blades for the 5th grader.... No splice block... Just totally ghetto by hand style. That changed my life. For real. the idea that things could be MANIPULATED after recording them was HUGE. that lead to four track craziness, mixing to my trusty little RTR there. I finally decided to "mod" my little tube RTR.... the end of thee tube RTR. I am amazed i didnt kill myself poking around in that thing.
Beyond that i wound up with cessette four track stuff.... I was totally recording my dad's band when i was like 15 or 16. Recording my own punk bands around then too. I am finally, at 35, 20 years after that.... I am finally pretty good at being 15.
Last edited by joel hamilton on Sat Dec 10, 2005 6:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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chris harris
- speech impediment
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Brian
- resurrected
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I started by snipping cassettes together of other peoples commercially released songs to make "new songs" at age 6. Stole my big bros guitar, he wasn't playing it, and taught myself how to play. Got into a band. Played a lot. Needed PA so we built one and rented it out. We had a big board so I learned how to engineer from someone who knew how. Recorded everything the band did, bouncing from one machine through the board adding emphasis into the other machine with some live tracks. Worked better than the local 24 track MCI room. Moved to NYC at 18 and got an internship at a great studio.Tape library, bathroom, tech area, safety copies, ran wire, mics, patched console in many different bizzarre combinations, and got to assist. Put up the safeties of Billy Joel, Richie Havens, Bruce Springsteen, and others and mixed them to cassette and left them for the manager. Still played and recorded with some bands freelance. Managed a studio, always interning when a new technology came around. Never had a card. I do mostly live stuff. Opened a studio in Memphis, getting some great clients. I try to push the ones with promise.
Harumph!
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NewAndImprov
- re-cappin' neve
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This is such a cool thread! I love the image of a kid splicing reel-to-reel with scissors and scotch tape!
Growing up on a farm in Eastern Oregon, my mom forced all of us kids to take piano lessons from first grade on. My sister became a semi-famous classical organist, my brother is a really good folk guitarist. I was kind of an underachiever on piano until I got into high school and joined the jazz band. Had a really cool band director that turned me onto Miles, Mahavishnu, Weather Report, etc. Went to college and renounced my fusion roots for the then-happening punk scene, started playing bass, then heard the Minutemen and realized you could have chops and still be punk. Heard Ornette Coleman and Prime Time at their peak, and it blew my mind completely. Gigged for years in a variety of bands, always looking to more experimental stuff.
Whenever any of my bands were in the studio, I tried to pay a lot of attention to what the engineer was doing. Special thanks to Drew Canulette of Dogfish Studio in Portland for being patient and answering all my annoying questions the several times I recorded at his place. A local drummer had an 8-track Tascam and some mics, we merged our equipment and spent about 5 years recording the best and worst of the local alt-rock scene. Bought a Macintosh, discovered Deck, started a label. Spent a few years as a professional computer programmer until that job got outsourced, now I'm back to being a starving musician.
Currently gigging with an avant-jazz/funk band that tours the Jamband circuit, and recording selected projects at my home studio. Am currently booked with gigs and recording stuff until next summer, but one of these days I need to find a real job...
Growing up on a farm in Eastern Oregon, my mom forced all of us kids to take piano lessons from first grade on. My sister became a semi-famous classical organist, my brother is a really good folk guitarist. I was kind of an underachiever on piano until I got into high school and joined the jazz band. Had a really cool band director that turned me onto Miles, Mahavishnu, Weather Report, etc. Went to college and renounced my fusion roots for the then-happening punk scene, started playing bass, then heard the Minutemen and realized you could have chops and still be punk. Heard Ornette Coleman and Prime Time at their peak, and it blew my mind completely. Gigged for years in a variety of bands, always looking to more experimental stuff.
Whenever any of my bands were in the studio, I tried to pay a lot of attention to what the engineer was doing. Special thanks to Drew Canulette of Dogfish Studio in Portland for being patient and answering all my annoying questions the several times I recorded at his place. A local drummer had an 8-track Tascam and some mics, we merged our equipment and spent about 5 years recording the best and worst of the local alt-rock scene. Bought a Macintosh, discovered Deck, started a label. Spent a few years as a professional computer programmer until that job got outsourced, now I'm back to being a starving musician.
Currently gigging with an avant-jazz/funk band that tours the Jamband circuit, and recording selected projects at my home studio. Am currently booked with gigs and recording stuff until next summer, but one of these days I need to find a real job...
I've been in bands for about a decade now. After farting around with it all for 2 years or so, me and some buddies decided we had enough "solid material" to record it and play shows. By this time we'd also developed the DIY/Punk Rock/Dischord complex so this turned into "we should record OURSELVES!!!"
Graduated from cassette 4-track to reel-to-reel 4-track, to 8-track, so on and so forth.
Developed disgusting obsession with microphones and preamps, inside and out. Gave me a reason to keep recording.
I record half-tape/half-computer now. I have tons of really good microphones and preamps. I'm happy.
Graduated from cassette 4-track to reel-to-reel 4-track, to 8-track, so on and so forth.
Developed disgusting obsession with microphones and preamps, inside and out. Gave me a reason to keep recording.
I record half-tape/half-computer now. I have tons of really good microphones and preamps. I'm happy.
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