Stress

The new studio has been up and running in Grove City for almost 3 months now. I've had several great rock bands, as well as hip hop artists, and a little bit of R&B come through my door. It's been fun.

But it's also slowing down a bit. So I'm looking into some new opportunities while things are slow, but those are hard to find in Central Ohio. I've decided to shift focus toward business audio for now, while ramping up significantly my marketing efforts by showing more of a presence in the local music scene.

Compounding things is the fact that a well established studio who had been closed for a few years is re-opening in the building literally right behind me. This has me concerned about people's perception of me and my operation, and I'm stressing out over every detail of my products overall quality level. I HAVE to be every bit as good as this guy, who can out-gear me any day of the week. Despite my fervent belief that gear doesn't make records, if you take two engineers who have good ears the client will probably choose the one with the gear.

So I've got to shift my product focus onto me, the engineer, and the value that I alone bring to the table. In order for me to be competitive in this dried up music market (hey, it's not Nashville or LA people), I have to do some PR work and increase the value of working with ME. The recording is the product overall, but what makes people come to me has to be the ME factor.

So I'm trying to improve my product in every way possible. I've been working on a mix that I recorded in the studio back in July as a tester for the new studio. I gave it to this band for free, and am now using the tracks I recorded to pull out all the stops. I've since found weaknesses in my room I've had to adapt to, which I've been able to overcome on a temporary basis. I've also found weaknesses in my workflow that I've been working to overcome thanks to the help of several of my engineer friends around the country.

But all of this has me second guessing the smallest of decisions in my mixes. I feel like I'm hitting a wall psychologically, and will have to climb over that to get back to full confidence.

Couple that with a recent head cold that clogged up my ears, which I'm only today finally recovering from, and you can see why I'm a bit stressed. Each day that goes by that I don't release this spectacular mix to the public, the neighboring studio gets closer to opening. But bouncing mixes off of several engineers while taking ear breaks for head colds takes valuable time. So I'm trying to offset that time by going to shows and networking.

I started going to shows again last weekend. I went to a show hosted by a friend of mine who runs Audiology Sound Studios, a neighboring studio. It was a charity show for his Music Is Life foundation. The line-up of the show consisted of at least one client, Bleeding Ink, as well as a large group of other artists who I was able to network with. Many of these artists I'd never seen live before, and some I'd never even heard of before. It was a great chance to network, but only one won't do it. I need a regular presence in this local scene if people are going to think of me. I need to talk to them about what I do, and I need to act fast. This will probably have to be an every-weekend venture for me. After all, you can't stop hunting, or else you'll starve.

Meanwhile, I'll be setting up a conference call with a business associate in Colorado at Swanpro Studios to go over some ways that I can get into the post audio market. Post audio production is more lucrative with more consistent work, and that is exactly what I need to make my 5 year goal a reality. At this point, I have 4.25 years to go. That's starting to not seem like a long time.

So I've got a long way to go, and a lot of work to do to get there. But now that I'm a family man, and I have two beautiful daughters counting on me, I can't rest on my laurels anymore. I must fight for my career for the sake of my family, and I need to do what it takes to psych myself up and get motivated.

In an odd way, I've turned to survival shows on Netflix as a source of motivation. Seeing people taking every measure necessary JUST to SURVIVE makes me feel blessed to have things as easy as I do, and makes me realize that the only hurdle to what I want in life is myself. It makes me realize that failure isn't so bad, because things could always be a lot worse. Even if I were homeless, it makes me realize that I'd be ok because I could find a way to make it. So that relieves some of my stress, while motivating me to continue forward toward my goals.

But it's not always easy getting over my own self-consciousness to find the motivation on the other side. I'm always worried about disappointing Laura, whom I would give my life for, and feel major guilt that I'm unable to be a better provider at this moment. But seeing her struggle so hard for our family motivates me 10 times more than anything else when I stop and think about it. She's given me everything she can, every part of her. Now it's time for me to take that and use it for the betterment of our whole family.

So to any competition that comes my way, you'd better look out. There's nothing more fearful than a determined underdog.