How do you guys with small/home studios promote them?

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:37 am

I've been working my way forward in the world of audio engineering and have developed a fair degree of experience and a nice studio space...to a point where I'm looking to make my studio 'semi-public'. I'm not doing this for a living as it's primarily something I enjoy and look upon as an artistic/creative fulfillment. That being said, it would be nice to book the studio here and there and bring in a little extra income doing something I simply love to do. Who knows, maybe in time it would even become something more than "just a hobby".

I've been thinking about how to approach it and I realize that it most likely boils down to word-of-mouth referrals from folks I know and have already worked with, which is also a good thing as it would tend to focus it within a 'friends-of-friends' kind of circle where one isn't dealing with the unknown factor of complete strangers (yet another issue of course).

Anyway...haven't seen a thread with this specific topic and thought a few folks out there might have some insight on 'spreading the word'.

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:10 am

you're spot on with the word-of-mouth thing.

i ran an ad in yellow pages one year... huge waste of money for me. I got probably 25 calls the whole year. and almost all of them were either:

1. "producers" wanting to "sell beats"
2. people wanting vinyl records burned to cdr.

kayagum · Post by **kayagum** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:58 am

Simple- I don't. That way, I can control which projects I take on. And even that doesn't guarantee a fun or successful project.

xonlocust · Post by **xonlocust** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:36 am

almost all of the stuff i do is word of mouth/friends of friends/referrals. i'm not aggressive at all about it at all. a lot of the better things have actually come sorta out of the blue just because somehow i was known around the scene or something, i didn't do anything to really seek them out other than being involved in a big picture kinda way. they'd seen me at shows or vice-versa.

JASIII · Post by **JASIII** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:39 am

I don't have much more to add, except that I'm in the same position basically, and I also play in local bands, so I try to make as many friends as I can in the local scene and offer CHEEEEP first time rates. When I first started I was using tape and only made my first few clients pay for the tape. Now I've set an hourly and daily rate, which are still pretty low compared to the $ I've spent on gear. I accept that I've just got an "expensive hobby", though so I'm ok with it.

8th_note · Post by **8th_note** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:37 pm

I'm pretty much like the other posters in this thread. Most all of my projects have come by a combination of word of mouth and going to shows of bands I've already recorded. Often the bands know each other and I'll be talking to one of my previous clients (Band X) and he or she will say, "Hey, Band Y is talking about doing a CD, let me introduce you to them." I'll start talking to somebody from Band Y and they'll say, "Oh, you recorded Band X's CD? That sounds really good - we want to talk to you."

I'm going to expand on this thought a little further by saying that I can't imagine doing recording if I didn't enjoy going out to see local bands. Some of the musicians I've recorded have become good personal friends of my wife and I and it's rewarding to see their reaction when we go out to see them play. They genuinely see this as a sign of support and they appreciate it. There's a couple of guys in town who offer a similar kind of recording service to mine and I've never seen either of them at a show. Never. I don't get it.

Kevin Kitchel · Post by **Kevin Kitchel** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:43 pm

The Temple Club just closed! We're fucked!

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:49 pm

8th_note wrote:I'm going to expand on this thought a little further by saying that I can't imagine doing recording if I didn't enjoy going out to see local bands. Some of the musicians I've recorded have become good personal friends of my wife and I and it's rewarding to see their reaction when we go out to see them play. They genuinely see this as a sign of support and they appreciate it. There's a couple of guys in town who offer a similar kind of recording service to mine and I've never seen either of them at a show. Never. I don't get it.

totally!

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:32 pm

JASIII wrote:I don't have much more to add, except that I'm in the same position basically, and I also play in local bands, so I try to make as many friends as I can in the local scene and offer CHEEEEP first time rates. When I first started I was using tape and only made my first few clients pay for the tape. Now I've set an hourly and daily rate, which are still pretty low compared to the $ I've spent on gear. I accept that I've just got an "expensive hobby", though so I'm ok with it.

yep. I"m cheap as fuck, but only record the bands/people i like to be around. word of mouth keeps me toooo busy. I have to say "sorry, i'm booked" a lot mostly because i have a day job and a band that takes time and my studio is in a house shared with my other bandmates. Can't have people making a lot of noise late into the night during the week.

Someday i'd like to not have to share my space with so many so i could do guitar overdubs late at night or mix at a reasonable level.

roommate/bandmate gets annoyed with the solo'd kick drum really loud with the control room under his bedroom.

Yeah word of mouth will bring in a lot of work if you're in a city with a healthy music scene. I wish i had more time/energy/hours in the day where i could do more!

workshed · Post by **workshed** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:24 pm

I'm in a small town, so for me, Google Local has been the shit. I've gotten some reponses from the web based on that. Mostly nothing too exciting, but a little extra money to put towards more gear. The stuff I really like to work on is generally word of mouth/referral.

Spark · Post by **Spark** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:06 am

Anyone have any luck with finding clients through Myspace?

MASSIVE Mastering · Post by **MASSIVE Mastering** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 2:01 pm

Former clients have a tendency to find my MySpace page, but I can't think of one client that ever mentioned "I found you on MySpace."

I get some "I heard (some disc)" or "I've seen your posts (on forums)" or "I ran into (a band)" and such more than anything else.

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:38 am

Kevin Kitchel wrote:The Temple Club just closed! We're fucked!

You know...I had mixed feelings about that one. As a Lansing resident, I'm sure you're well aware of the quagmire the local music scene is bogged down in, so it's really bad to see one of the few local music venues go down. That being said, I don't think the folks involved had the vision and ambition (or funds?) to capitalize on the venue and make it something really cool. Not to mention that the sound in there was sooooOOOOO bad...possibly the worst I've ever encountered (or at least one of the worst). I did kind of like the more initimate downstairs space though. Conceptually, it's bad to see it go, but I'm not sure how much effect it will really have as I don't think it offered much in the first place. Then again, maybe I'm just too cyncial and jaded... I do think the place was a nice space, and had great potential. Who knows...maybe the right person will step in and make it happen.

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:21 am

And thanks everyone for the input on this...

asylumdigital · Post by **asylumdigital** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:12 pm

Mainly word of mouth. MySpace (to my knowledge) hasn't really gained me any business....

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How do you guys with small/home studios promote them?

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