12/09/2020
This is my studio. Yes, it is small. Yes, it is humble. But I post this for a very important reason.
When I first started seriously recording bands in 2012, I couldn’t help but feel under qualified to be asking for work. Over the years, I became more confident in my skills as a producer and engineer but there was always this sense of dread I had when I brought people down to my parent’s basement and the people I was working with realized I was effectively a bedroom studio.
For years, I chased “that new piece of gear” that would make me look more professional. The vocal booth with the glass window. The automated faders on an outboard control surface. The outboard gear to make it look like I was already successful. The sad part about this was that I felt the need to convince my clients that I was worthy of their music and their money for the work I was providing. I felt that if I was in their shoes, I would be slightly underwhelmed with my recording experience solely because it didn’t look the way I thought it should.
After buying the gear and selling all of the flashy gear, I realized that I don’t need any of that stuff to make my clients happy. I don’t need that to make a killer product. I can create tracks that my clients would be incredibly happy with without spending $1000+ a song at some ‘bigger’, more well-known studio. I have worked on so many more ‘hush hush’ projects that I don’t publicly post than the ones I do. I have worked with bands from 6+ hour drives away, even bands from Japan and India.
You don’t need $50,000 worth of outboard gear to make quality products. What you need is experience, knowledge, and a good ear (and I mean obviously some good gear, I’m not going to discredit that completely). I have all three (four). And that good ear isn’t just for finding garbage frequencies either - it’s for listening to my clients’ needs and desires to that I can best serve them and I can best serve the music.
With that, I’d like to say that I’m very proud of my “bedroom studio” that I have in my home office. I love the aesthetic and I love the beautiful audio that comes through these speakers. Cheers to the underdogs and the weekend warriors.
