Well I suppose turnabout is fair play so here goes my story. I finally got all my stuff set up in my living room and I have started to record 2 songs I wrote in 1999/2000. My situation is I have recently returned to my home town after living and doing music in the SF bay Area for 20+ years. I am in the process of reconnecting with all my old friends that are still alive and living in the area. I'm also trying to make some new contacts with working musicians and other important people in the local music scene. Although I have retired, my intention is to try to occupy myself and maybe make some extra cash. I am not interested in working on anything that I don't really like / love. I had my share of working with people and situations just so I could keep the doors of my studio open. Now I only want to focus on working in situations I enjoy. The 2 songs I recorded are just to demo my new set up to the people I have convinced to drop by and check it out. .......... Fats

I started in 96 as an assistant sound engineer in a commercial studio, after being a touring guitar player with a band for 3 years.. than i became free-lancer now working in 3 commercial studios.. i do it for a living but i love the job more then i love the money. I mainly record pop-rock bands and hip hop and rnb artists. I get paid about 6 USD per hour in a country where average monthly income is around 80 USD. Dont laugh, we're not 3rd world country and recently got invited to join NATO, hahaha We also got local MTV station.. weird.. dont you think?
Cheers
Cris

Cristi,
That is great... The pay sounds very good for your country. Hiere in the US the pay scale is similar, $6 to $10 per hour in most cases but it costs $1500 to $2000 to live. Don't move..... Fats

Thanx for the advice man.. i wasnt planning to move but might go to NY to learn the tricks from a real sound engineer (next year) I'm sure there's a lot more to learn and i'm hungry for knowledge :)

:( As I read many posts with similar stories, other people with similar desires, I felt I should be brutally honest and share my experiences with all of you... The music scene now is very different from the golden days (I figure late 60's through the 70's)... Sad and long story;

I've been playing piano since the age of ten, I was one of those kids that walked right past the kids playing in my aunt's house to the piano in the corner, and stayed there until I was pried off... Took private lessons, majored in music composition, the whole shebang, really thought I was born for a "successful" career in music, then, somehow, suddenly, things got bungled.... Darn, I hate when that happens ! 1-The 70's: While in high school I played with many bands, became pretty well known in the inner musician's circle as a hot shot pianist and keyboard player, so I got around a lot. Played with a few cats that are now recording artists, met other major cats like Keith Emerson and Ramsey Lewis... Oh, I forgot to mention my first live keyboard was actually something called a "Stylophone" which was about the size of a mouse pad, had a printed metal keyboard, and this pen stylus to make tones !! Eventually I graduated to a Farfisa Combo organ, a Wurtlizer electric piano, and a weird looking Korg synth that had tabs like a pipe organ ! all that running through a Yamaha version of a Leslie speaker (it had one of those strange rectangular, flat white speakers), and this weird ass amp and speaker (Unicord ??)... I remember dragging my poor dad to the music stores, geeze... :cool:

But! we needed money to survive because our manager was already paying for the recording and studio time, and since we had to eat, we started playing in local clubs (Daytona Beach), but people loved us so life was good... We had a big empty 3 bedroom house just for rehearsals, but things were getting out of hand with the band members bringing groupies to the "shack" and the place became more of a "Bordello", not much rehearsing going on... :c: We continued playing clubs for money while our manager "supposedly" was funding our recording time and peddling our record contract. So one day we go into the studio to lay some tracks and the engineer tells us our manager had not been paying for our studio time and he can't let us record, PLUS he can't even release the masters of what we had so far until he got paid... So this, plus some of the band guys acting like dogs in heat all the time, was the last straw for me and our guitar player/singer. Eventually we broke up the band and went our separate ways. The guitar player/singer went on to win big on "Star Search" and is now a singer for a well known vocal group... I went back to college on a music scholarship(with two children now) to finish my music degree, thinking maybe that would get me back in business, I just wanted to stay away from bands for a while...

My wife worked while I pursued my degree taking up to 21 college credits per semester, but money was running out and I noticed too many cats with Master's degrees in music with no jobs or working as an elementary shool teacher. I was getting cold feet so I eventually changed my major to "Computer Science", something that was not yet a big thing, only hard core geeks were getting into that. It happens that my synth programming skills gave me great insight into using computers and I was pretty good at it, so I finished college and got some decent jobs as a programmer, and was still able to do music part-time, I even gave a few piano recitals and decent concerts, but pretty much had to relegate my music career to a part-time venture..... Wow, I know I left out a lot!!

What I do see today is that colleges are putting out a lot more musicians than in my time, recording equipment is so cheap anyone can get decent results with minimal $$$, so more amateurs are looking for work or music deals. The music business is concentrating more on manufacturing stars like Brittney and 'Nsync, etc... The funny thing is that in the 70's we had three times the album sales we have today, although there is ten times the buying potential now. The difference was that the guys back then had to build a real following by being super tight, playing live everywhere, and proving they were good performers, THEN they went for the contract. Now the kids want to do the recording deal without really proving themselves as "real" performers with a following... Many of you out there also want to offer studio services, and I am seeing more and more people getting into this. As a result, prices have dropped in regular studios to the point a big, well equipped studio here in town is charging only $15 an hour for rehearsal time, in my experience we never paid less than $60 and that was dirt cheap !! The plus side is that artists no longer need a record company to produce and even sell a CD, and that is sooo cool !!! The Internet is also giving artists new venues, but it sure is getting crowded fast out there.... Unfortunately, many artists do not really hone their skills... When I was playing, my drummer read music, could play keys and bass, even some of my neighbors could play an instrument fairly well ! You had to read sight music well and have tremendous chops back then, but now with all the sequencers and Electronica drone tunes going on, that part of musicianship seems to be lacking.

Ah, to answer "What are you recording and why are you recording it?": I have been very busy recording all of my originals (200+), just in case I slip on a banana peel, I also record my live Blues band I play in clubs with(which BTW a moderator here Bill Roberts, has helped me with) and plan to post all my stuff on MP3.com and maybe sell a few CDs to friends and family, and maybe even a few new fans..... I also write music for some video games, although I don't make much money doing it, but it is still fun and I get to use my recording equipment and convince my wife I need all these toys ! That and working as a programmer is my life in a nutshell, I'm 44 now, my children are 23, 20, and 16, and I would like to leave all that cool music I wrote documented somehere before I croak.... Have to stop now, I'm falling asleep, but hopefully maybe someone gets my point and sees that in the words of John Lennon: "Life is what happens while we are busy planning it" !! -Peace

started playing guitar at age 12, and came up with some cool stuff (atleast to me it was cool)
but after a day couldnt remember what I had came up with the day before, so I started with a tape recorder and then graduated to a 4-track to record my ground breaking riffs hehe. many moons later, I am now in a local cover band doing really well (not well enough to quite my daily engineering job but oh well). Starting to write some of our own stuff and trying to record it our self (the 4 track wasnt cutting it). So after a couple of months of reading this awesome website I went out and purchased my first DAW with all the bells and whistles I needed, and havent looked back. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would have 9k worth of stuff in my bedroom right now I wouldnt of believed ya! I am not in it for the money (right now hehe) but I am having a blast and meeting some really cool (smart ass hell) people! I have learned more in the past 6 months about recording than I would have ever emagined (I still have a long way to go though)

i see someone brought this thread back to life...thats good as there are a lot of newer folks on here and perhaps they'll want to share what theyre recording at this time...me, i'm getting ready to record The Spitboys ..its our 'real' record project....glass master and the whole nine yards.. :c: :c: printing in color!!!WHOO HOO! theres a few of the tunes on the critique thread that were done last year as a demo project and now its time to watch those and others tunes mature into whatever they are to be...of course if you've listened to any of the spitboy songs you'll know that 'mature' is only a form of speach...........we'll keep ya informed as to the progress...in fact, if it comes about the way we want it to, one of the moderators here may be on the knobs for us...that might be fun to cronicle for this site....what-do-ya-say fats?..sound like fun and informative?!....peace

Hi Fats!

I'm a newbee to RO having just learned of it through another newsgroup.

I just finished recording a CD of jazz tunes with a trumpeter I play with. That's basically my first love. When I'm not playing or recording with him I do some program music for a friend of mine who has a very successful program house and is linked with most of the major TV news and talk shows. It's nice every once in a while to open my mail and find a check from ASCAP. I also reorchestrated and recorded a musical recently - terrible music but good pay.

Awww Dave,
That sounds "mighty fine" to me... "mighty fine". Fats :D

Fats
I am in an original rock band called Downflow (go figure). We want to make an indie album, release it ourselves, promote it ourselves, and hopefully make some money. What's really important, though, is writing great songs. We want to know that we are putting out our very best stuff for people to hear. The complex art of recording is yet another obstacle that I have taken on to reach this goal, along with the still elusive mastery of lead guitar, the impossibly frustrating task of writing great songs (I have help with this!), and the formerly mysterious workings of the P.A. system. Now that I have found this site, I hope to get something up for you guys to hear A.S.A.P, so you can (as we say)"throw rocks at it". I can't wait to hear what your aforementioned point is.
Andy

Hey,
I have only recently got a small home studio up and running, I have recorded a 10 song cd of acceptable quality for a friend of my dads for cheap. Mostly to get experience but also for a bit of money to expand my studio. Currently I am working on a band of some friends of mine. I'm doing this one just for the practice, since its my first time recording drums. In this coming month I am also recording a string quartet that I wrote. I am using it as an entrance piece to university for my Bachelors of music. If anyone wants to check out part of a song from that 10 song cd I did its on my web site under music http://
There ya go

I remember you Kinsol, I really like the production.

Really great capability, sounds really good here.

Hi y'all, :)

I guess this would be a good place to introduce myself to this group since I just registered today. I used to be a working musician who had given it up for a day job until I met a singer/songwriter who is now my wife. When we first started working together, we got some songs published and after a few studio sessions where we weren't happy with the result because of our own unpreparedness, I figured we could *save some money* by building our own studio. This studio started taking shape in 1997. Prior to that, I knew nothing at all about what I was doing other than just watching what was happening at the studio where we were recording our demos. It's been almost 6 years I still consider myself a newbie. I haven't had the luxury of a *hands on* apprenticeship in a *real* studio, but over time, with some help from many friends and LOTS of mistakes, I am making recordings that I'm proud of. I record demo's for lots of local talent in my area and my wife and I are finishing up our first CD. We have the capability and rooms to track bands, but a lot of what we do involves mic'ing acoustic instruments and singer/songwriter sessions where there is mic bleed all over everything and then dubbing other instruments afterward, if necessary. We do very little midi production here but we are set up for it and have a separate workstation for midi and for integrating loop based tracks when necessary. When I look back and think that I was such an idiot that I thought I was going to *save money* by doing this, I laugh at myself. The up side is that I have found that I absolutely love doing this. A good thing, I guess, considering that I'm in too deep to turn back now. Since I have been doing a day job and then learning what I can during the evenings and on weekend sessions, internet groups like this have been an indispensable part of the process for me. This looks likea great place to learn and to find ways to spend more money.

:c:

Cheers,

Doug Joyce
Animatrix Productions
Durango, CO

Hey all,

I am a college student/musician and only about 2 months into this recording stuff. I decided to start recording because it is my favorite part of making music. I love the idea of the studio because I can do things that live would be impossible with only 2 hands.

Another reason for deciding to record, was my bad experience with a studio. My band layed down way too much money to get a CD that would have been good had we been able to afford the appropriate amount of time. I thought that getting my own set up would let me make recordings at home of my band, and others, as well as give me practice at efficiently using studio time. I would like to make the mistakes for free and then pay when I feel like I can use my money wisely.

I know that I am only getting started, but from what I have seen so far. I love this stuff. I can't wait to record more, and just experiment.

That's my shpeel.

I signed with an indie label thats run out of the upstairs of this guys house. He bought PT HD 192 and sat me down in front of it and said "Go." Needless to say, I got an instant boner that hasn't gone down since, but my share of headaches is also part of the package.
I am currently working on 2 seperate projects of my own.. :D