Studios that aren't studios - TAD where are you?

coldthrn

coldthrn

Chris Cauthen
Jul 9, 2007
361
0
16
soundcloud.com
So, the town I'm in doesn't have an commercial recording studio, well at least until now. There has been adds popping up in the news papers and on local radio stations. I decided to check it out. I thought I would find some cool guys to talk about gear with. I arrive at warehouse / garage unit and was greeted by a middle age guy "cooperate type / aka a tool" . I enter the "control room" I shit you not, his studio only consists of a macbook and a firepod hooked up to a 60" LG monitor.

I really didn't know what to say. So I ask him about what gear and amps he has, he says "Its all in here." pointing at his macbook. Being polite and just probing for what this guy knows I ask him about if he has his eye on any outboard gear. He says "Whats outboard gear? I dont understand what that is." WTF...!!! This was going downhill fast. I ask him about his background if he plays music and he said he isn't a musician he just a computer guy that knows how to manipulate programs. So I asked him to show me his portfolio. He hands me a cd and says that this is a band that he payed to have a cd made at another facility before his opened, and is handing this out for promotion for his studio.

When I was asking all of these questions to him he was starting to get irate. At this point I was wishing for Tad!!! He also said "Yea Protools is a horrid user interface and that he had Cubase that came with his firepod but it isn't as intuitive or flexible as Garageband.

Obviously this guy is fraudulent and this business wont hold up. This is a perfect case of why you can buy a computer and go to guitar center and by an interface. This does not constitute you being a studio. I am so floored. I fill sick now and need to puke.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
 
Oh, we had a lenghty discussion about what constitutes a "studio" not too long ago. Without regurgitating everything I typed back then - being quite liberal with the handling of the term, THIS:

coldthrn said:
He hands me a cd and says that this is a band that he payed to have a cd made at another facility before his opened, and is handing this out for promotion for his studio.
Click to expand...

... is just fucked up beyond any justification.
 
Totally subjective question about "what is a studio". I find setups like that perfectly adquate for local bands looking to get demos done. Its cheep and its cheerful and hell, when I was starting out I would have killed to have Reaper with its mass array of "stuff". I remember when a 486 with a soundcard was the stuff of a madmans dreams! I'd have laid waste to entire nations to get that setup in my shitty little midlands hometown where there's no studio period. I guess the moral is, ask what people are running and check before you book. If its not what you're after then there should be no problem.
Its shitty engineers with 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 U of expensive rackspace that dont know how to use it that really do my head in to be honest.
 
That whole scenario is messed up. What kills me though, is in the big cities around here, the places with gear to die for, put out recordings that sound like they were done by that guy you posted about. It all comes down to knowing how to use what you've got to its fullest potential.

That guy might as well have grabbed a CD at the local music store and showed it to people saying "yeah, this is what I can do." Woulda save him the money of paying for someone to record elsewhere. I can't imagine having a mind that worked the way this guy's does.
 
I mean, who cares? :lol: Don't worry about the other guys, just worry about doing the best you can do and prove with your work why clients should pick you out of the lot. It doesn't matter who uses what, if it sounds good it is good.
 
I don´t have anything about him mixing everything with softwares, but giving a CD where he didn´t take any part on production as his studio portfolio is just wrong.
Click to expand...

Yeah man, although I aint ever heard of that happeneing so I would be 10X pissed off about that if it happened to me! Although in fairness I have to wonder about some studios round here... because drums sound 10X worse recorded there than whats on their "reference CD's". I may do some digging! :lol:
 
We had a similar thing in my town a couple years ago. A guy who owned a coffee shop/small venue downtown decided to open a "studio" in the basement. He had a firepod, a macbook, and a ton of cracked plugins (all of which he advertised on business cards). He would rope in young bands, charge them way too much to record, give them a shit product and then sign them to his "record label" (:lol:).

He didn't stay around too long. I did book a couple shows for him though, which he never paid me for. What a fucking asshole.
 
Tons of crap like that in here,,,
i've been to much worse situation .a "studio" in a basement.one and only Behringer mic,Pentium 4 (!!!) with cracked Cubase.
the guy was like - well,it's not about gear,if your good,you can get good sounding record on anything, 'ere me,mate?
i worked one day,,recording his mates "freestyling" + few hours teaching him how to setup mic level and basic Cubase stuff.
got £40 for 12 hours day... ,after that he decided he don't need an engineer anymore,he learnt enuff to do it himself... :zombie: :Puke:
 
A lot of my work tends to involve salvaging the poor form of others. The problem is that these guys create wider mistrust and a bad reputation for the entire industry. Stuff I consider as normal professional procedure my clients at times tell me is just astounding to them. The fact that their work is actually being done without any insane complications or arguments. That's why I think apathy is not so great here, because these guys ultimately affect the perception our potential client base have of us. That, and I'm honestly sick of wondering 'what could have been?' whenever I do a project, regretting that half the tracking procedures were done so half-arsedly.
 
Well this could potentially mean good things for you

This dude has the only commercial studio in your town. He has advertised and it has at least caught your eye. How many other people have taken notice? Does you town have enough musos to warrant a commercial facilty?

If you headed down there just to check it out you must be a very keen engineer/mixer, so why don't you do what he is doing, only properly? Start recording for money. This guy sounds atrocious, if he paid another studio to make his portfolio then he obviously either has no portfolio of his own (no experience) or he has a portfolio and it is so terrible he knows it will harm his business to even use it.

So do what he does, only properly. I think it's half the people on this forums aim to be able to run a professional studio, you might just be in the right place at the right time.
 
In Tad's defense, I think he had/has a studio, he just doesn't know how to use it!

There was a "studio" around here that opened a couple years back. It was a converted garage where they basically just put 2x4 wall studs and a single piece of particle board up to seperate the rooms. Acoustic treatment was scattered throughout, but no real rhyme or reason.

the control room consisted of a behringer mixer attached to a regular computer that I believe did not run any true DAW software, just captured the stereo line out from the mixer. I don't believe there was any ability to multi track.

Turns out the dude running it was like 16 and his dad just put up the dividers for him and they were charging local bands to do their recordings. They were ROUGH.
 
Ermz said:
A lot of my work tends to involve salvaging the poor form of others. The problem is that these guys create wider mistrust and a bad reputation for the entire industry. Stuff I consider as normal professional procedure my clients at times tell me is just astounding to them. The fact that their work is actually being done without any insane complications or arguments. That's why I think apathy is not so great here, because these guys ultimately affect the perception our potential client base have of us. That, and I'm honestly sick of wondering 'what could have been?' whenever I do a project, regretting that half the tracking procedures were done so half-arsedly.
Click to expand...

You are so right Ermz. That is why it makes me sick. It smears the line of the amateur and semipro. I record because I love music and love putting out quality, something that I and my clients are proud of. Money is just a consequence to this craft. This guy is only concerned about money and he doesn't think that recording is a craft.


Star Ark said:
Well this could potentially mean good things for you

This dude has the only commercial studio in your town. He has advertised and it has at least caught your eye. How many other people have taken notice? Does you town have enough musos to warrant a commercial facilty?

If you headed down there just to check it out you must be a very keen engineer/mixer, so why don't you do what he is doing, only properly? Start recording for money. This guy sounds atrocious, if he paid another studio to make his portfolio then he obviously either has no portfolio of his own (no experience) or he has a portfolio and it is so terrible he knows it will harm his business to even use it.

So do what he does, only properly. I think it's half the people on this forums aim to be able to run a professional studio, you might just be in the right place at the right time.
Click to expand...

I don't record bands anymore, I don't have the time for it being a new father and having a day job. I get hit up all the time by local bands wanting me to record them and I thought I could send work to this guy. However I simply cant do that, It would be a total disservice. Not only that but I had my hopes that I found a person in my town that I could hold a conversation about gear and what not.
 
coldthrn said:
I record because I love music and love putting out quality, something that I and my clients are proud of. Money is just a consequence to this craft. This guy is only concerned about money and he doesn't think that recording is a craft.
Click to expand...

Something done without love, care and passion is something not worth doing at all.
But this happens everywhere unfortunately. There will always be a group of people who are in it for the money rather than it being their art.
 
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