Getting Back Into The Music Business…
I’ve been in the music business as a recording engineer for more that 25 years. I’ve been signed to a major label as well as an independent label, I’ve done live sound for bands in clubs from Boston to Austin. I’ve owned a professional recording studio that started as a 4 track room, then to 8, 16, and 24 track machines, all the way up to expanded Protools HD systems. Around 2001, I started to phase myself out of music because of the shrinking budgets, the proliferation of small home studios, and (from my perspective) lack of talent in the regional market. My studio and staff started to cater to more corporate, commercial, and broadcast clients. Things got busy, and we started to shy away from music clients because the other work was Monday through Friday and usually during the day. Weekends off? What’s that???
By 2003, I closed the commercial studio, sold off a big chunk of studio gear (Neve 51 console, Studer 24 track & 2 track machines) and really ramped up the corporate, commercial, and broadcast work. We were working on some big network television programs, national commercials, and high profile events for Fortune 100 companies. Ten years later, one of our biggest clients sold out to a major television network. We lost our contract to supply audio engineers to the network and everybody had to become a “contract employees” in order to work for the network. So, my staff asked me what we should do. I told them to take the opportunity to pay their dues in the broadcast world as employees of the network. I lost 4 staff audio engineers on Jan. 1st 2013, almost 10 years to the date when I decided to get out of the music business…
One of the bands that came through my studio in the 90’s was a band called Arrowhead. I don’t really remember anything too specific about the sessions, but they were mixing a CD at my place on adat machines. We had a good audio console, lots of outboard gear, and a Protools system for editing the final masters. The guitarist in the band was Eric Lichter. I ended up reconnecting with Eric a few years ago. He had a small studio in the next town over from where I lived called Dirt Floor. Now remember I used to have a recording studio that had a $10,000 Lexicon reverb unit, so when I went over to meet up with him, I thought the place was held together with gaffer’s tape, and wire ties! He played me some of the stuff he was working on and I thought it sounded really good for the gear he was working with. It seemed the limitations of the equipment made him work harder to get great sounds from such a small amount of gear. I kept in touch with him and even donated some things to the studio to help him out.
This past summer, Eric contacted me. He said he was looking to move his studio and wanted to pick my brain about setting up a new facility. I said that I would be happy to help. He also asked if I could master some of the projects that he was working on. Again, I said that I’d be happy to help. Remember that phrase, “happy to help”. We got together to discuss a few things about the new studio and he played me an album that he was finishing that he wanted me to master. I noticed that the production was good, but looking at the speakers that he was mixing on, I knew that it would be more “corrective” mastering than “creative” mastering. I could feel myself getting sucked back into the music business.
When I closed my commercial studio in 2003, I sold off a lot of gear, but I also kept a lot. I moved my studio into a room above my garage at my house. I had some of the outboard mic preamps, compressors, and vintage mics. I sold a few things over the years on eBay, but I was pretty lazy when it came to taking pictures, writing descriptions, packaging, UPS and FEDEX labels, etc. so I wound up keeping a lot of gear. Since I was going to be working on Eric’s mastering projects, I thought I could help him out by “donating” some more gear to his operation. This would help Eric make better sounding records, and make my job of mastering a little easier since I wouldn’t have to do so much sonic correction. We’ll the next thing you know, every time I met up with Eric at the studio over the summer, I would drop off a piece of gear or a microphone and say “Try this!” He would tell me how great the gear sounded. It was like giving candy to a baby! He was hooked on all of these great pieces of audio gear that were coming his way.
Eric found the new site for Dirt Floor Recording Studio just a few miles away from the old studio. A client of his, Skip Leon, helped put the deal together and is now the studio manager and owner of the building that the studio is in. It’s a charming house that has been converted into a studio in the middle of a State Forest! Big Pink in Connecticut!!! I ended up interfacing all of Eric’s equipment and all of the legacy equipment from my old studio in the new place. My Protools HD system is now in it’s own room for mastering and I am currently the Chief Engineer at Dirt Floor Recording Studio. I still have a lot of corporate, commercial, and broadcast clients that I have to take care of as part of my “day job”, but the sound that I really like to hear is the music business calling my name again…