Post
by rwc » Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:13 pm
When I was 18 I started as an intern at Progressive Music.
There were over 20 rooms, only one live room. All of these people were teachers/musicians/producers, many with little recording setups.
I was always technically inclined, but never with repairing or troubleshooting audio gear. These rooms were all dirt cheap - $750/mo in midtown manhattan in a nice commercial building. A lot of the tenants had broken stuff. Sometimes, I fixed it. Sometimes the problems were stupid, but being musicians and not tech nerds, they couldn't find the solution.
I found a resistor hidden in an $1000 event monitor that is not touching the PCB perfectly and made it work for a huge place on the 3rd floor with people who hung on the 7th floor. I'd fix a bad amp in a tannoy system 800a we borrowed from a tenant, or fix a bad 4047 mic for the owner's partner.
Everytime these people brought friends in, when they passed me, they would do the polite thing and introduce me. But I wasn't getting introduced as Louis, I was getting introduced as "zis fucking genius who feexez everything" by the albanian guitar player.
When you do something that someone else can't, you become the genius. Even if you have no clue what you're doing, the other person will go ZOMG and be very appreciative. Whenever they're showing their friend around they'll tell people as they pass me "and this guy's a fucking genius he fixed my ***** he's the fucking man."
Which is TOTALLY UNTRUE! Yes, I fixed ****, but I'm not a genius, nor the man. Not enough to record with me opposed to one of the billion other people.
But people thought I was. so while there were a ton of studios, I was the only one who was a "genius." Yes, I was 19 and learning as I went, but no one cared. If the stuff sounded good afterwards, all the better, because then I'm a genius who has proven good recordings!
When the place shut down and moved, I lost all my clients. The owner moved to another place in midtown with a much better live room with an amazing drum kit and a ton of cool amps, but I have no business. Even at $40/hr for the whole thing.
Out of curiousity, I tried advertising on craigslist, with pictures and gearlists of all the cool shit we have now that I wished I had to work with in 2007. I got NOT ONE RESPONSE. But before, I had business, and I was working in a semi shithole.
advertszing doesn't work, and to an extent, even word of mouth doesn't work. text isn't as strong as words, and words aren't as strong as people. seeing people do what they do in the environment they do it in, at the top of their game, builds trust. working with people before recording with them builds trust.when someone saw me recording someone, they get curious. or if they see me while I'm opening a galleon krueger bass head, and see that I fix it, I suddenly have some sort of credibility that I wouldn't have even if the guy waiting in the lobby downstairs said "yeah so and so on the 7th floor is great."
It's like the difference between candid shots and posing. Trying to look good always makes people look like shit, but when someone takes a picture of them doing something, they seem to look better. I've posted ads and tried to drum up business all I can with 0 luck, yet when I'm with the right people and do the right things, sessions fall into my lap.
This is the only reason I can fathom that I had more work in a cheap studio in a great area than I do in an amazing studio in the same area.
being around and doing good work while being around is what gets one work. now I have to find myself some more work.