No matter how bad it gets, it always gets better too.

It's been a shitty February, and I know that. Yet here I sit, covered in paint, sweating, and smelling at 3 am. Sure, things suck, but I'm slaving for my future. That's something to feel proud of.

I scored some acoustic treatment for the studio this week. The cool thing is that, since I'm unemployed otherwise, I didn't have to pay anything for it! Nope, NOT TELLING! MUWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!


These are bare panels, I'll have to cover them in fabric and mount them on the walls. But I'm not mounting them in my current control room. There are a few reasons why.

Let's start this off by saying that we all start somewhere, and as our ears improve in the audio field, we realize what we're doing wrong and how to correct it. That's also true of how your gear is set up. Somewhere during the mixing the Enemy By Mourning record, I realized that I was set up completely wrong, and it was taking me longer BECAUSE of that error!

Skyline Sound Studios is located in my home. When Sarah and I moved in, I picked the only room with carpet and claimed that as master control. I picked it because it had carpet, and therefore would cut down on flutter echo and such. The problem is that the only logical place to put the desk was in the corner of the room, because there are doors in two opposite corners (diagonally across from each other), and windows on one wall. There really was only one option, and I have a corner workstation desk, so I stuck it in the corner.

To say that my hearing improved over the last year would be a major understatement. I scrutinized everything so intently because I was trying to improve my skills, which would allow me to compete in the central Ohio studio market. But through the mixing of that record, I started hearing what my current gears limitations were, and wanting to go past that point. So I realized that there were some things that needed to change, both in my equipment and my room.

I did some research to see how I could improve the acoustics of my room, and that's when I realized the error of my ways in placing the desk in the corner. Let me remind you that the corner was the only logical place to put the desk in it's current room, but the problem is that bass frequencies congregate in corners. Typically, you'll wanna use bass traps to absorb them, but here I was putting my critical listening area right in the middle of low end's breeding ground.

Not being able to do anything about it yet, I mixed the Enemy By Mourning record through headphones in an attempt to take the room out of the picture. Then I spent some time looking into what the proper layouts should be and how to handle acoustics in this environment. I decided to move master control to a new room in the house, which would allow me to put the desk against a flat centered wall.

Again, we all start somewhere, and even though I've been doing this a while it was only in the last 3 years that my skills finally started sharpening. So now that I know how to correct the issue, it was time to do something about it.

I got the panels that you see below.....


.....and just now I started priming the new control room.

Before:


Ready to start:

Primed:


The panels are bare, and need to be mounted onto wood frames (to help them hang on the wall), then covered in fabric and hung. To save money, and to be more green, I'm using old bedsheets that are solid colors to cover the panels. This should give it a unique look, and they'll still look professional while being environmentally friendly. I'm still hoping to be out of this town by summer's end, so I don't wanna invest a ton of money into these panels just yet. They need to look not-ghetto and work, that's all I care about for now.

The ideal environment is to NOT be in a house, but we go to war with the army we have and not the army we want. Like most businesses, I'm starting out meager and trying to make a mountain out of a grain of sand. I'm making waves, and this new room should help the end result of my mixes improve by leaps and bounds. After all, if I'm gonna take over central Ohio's studio market by 2017, I've gotta iron out my kinks now and hustle in the business.

The interesting side effect was the feeling of a job well done, and the effects it had on my tense and anxious day/week/month/year. I'm feeling pretty awesome right now, cause I've made major steps in improving my chances of getting where I wanna be.

I'll be posting before/after pics when the new control room is up.

In due time.

We all start somewhere. Me, I started poor as shit with the odds stacked against me unless I could get out of Scioto County. Luckily, I got out without a pill problem. I made some awesome moves, saw much of this awesome country, but I managed my money really poorly because I didn't know any better.

So now I'm focused on what I want and where I want to go, and I see examples of what I want in my colleagues. I'm proud that these people have what I'm striving for, so this isn't a jealous stab at them. But this blog is a place for me to get my thoughts out, and right now my thoughts are that I'm starting humble and building my way up to mega awesomeness with my studio.

This is gonna take a lot of effort on my part, and a LOT of major money management changes. I've been implementing those changes, and I have made some minor accomplishments so far to reduce my debt and increase my net worth. If I'm gonna get there, I gotta get outta the hole a.s.a.p. So this new lazer-like focus is a very big help with that.

But again, we all start somewhere. Right now, I feel that my skills have outgrown my meager gear, and I'm pretty good with the meager equipment I own. But my client base isn't there yet to justify any major gear upgrades. So I have to focus on the most important upgrades first, while continuing the necessary steps to increase my net worth and get myself out of insolvency. This way, when the time comes to make the switch from a full time day job to my own self employment, this insolvency won't be hanging over my head giving me a reason to say no to making the jump into uncertain income earnings. There's freedom in working for yourself completely, but there's also major risk, and right now I can't afford that risk until this insolvency is reversed. So that is a major factor that I'm attacking with full strength.

But here's a snapshot of where I've been. This was my studio in October 2009 in Conifer Colorado.



A few months later, I met Bob Swanson. This was the real game changer for me. Bob had talked one of my recording clients into having his studio mix the project instead of me, and yeah this did sting because I was trying to fight and scrape for clients where I could. To lose one was painful in those days.

But I took it like a professional. I went to Bob's studio and delivered the files. I walked into Bob's Pro Tools studio in Conifer, and was admittedly jealous of what I was seeing. This was light years beyond anything I could afford. But I was there for a professional purpose, so I had to be a pro and talk about what was intended for the mixes for the client.

Bob started probing me asking about the version of Pro Tools I was using. I told him I was tracking on a BOSS BR-1600, and mixing in Adobe Audition 1.5 on a shitty old PC in a spare bedroom…..

…..and you could see his demeanor change.

He said what struck him the most was that I was going out there with what most in the business would call toys, and calling myself a studio. And the thing that dumbfounded him was that it was working, because I was getting clients. He said he knew 30 people who wanted to "play the game" but didn't feel they had enough gear, when they had 10 times what I had, yet here I was doing it.

I think he felt somewhat guilty about snagging a client from someone who was just starting out, and felt compelled to help me out. So the next thing you know, he started handing me pop filters and headphones! He began placing bids on ebay for pieces that I could use, and got me a nice headphone amp. Then he started raiding his mic closet, and gave me a $700 mic! To top it all off, he asked his friends who were also audio engineers to pass him along some of their spare pieces that they were no longer using. I got two flat panel PC monitors, new Tannoy Active monitors, a bunch of new mics, and more! This was all given free of charge in an effort to help give me the jumpstart he felt I needed.

First of all, I did not deserve ANY of this generosity, but as if that wasn't enough Bob started having me come over to help him with studio tasks and began gaving me tips to improve my skills. I'm still flattered and somewhat confused by the generosity of someone like Bob, but here he was helping me left and right to build myself up. He'd say "With someone like you going at it with the meager amount of gear you have, if someone really pushed you………you'd be dangerous." And here he was pushing me.

So next thing you know, my gear list jumped by leaps and bounds. I went from this….



…..to this……



Then Bob ordered a new console for his studio, straight out of Nashville. This console is a Raindirk Symphony console, and there aren't many in the US. There's one in Columbus, Ohio, at John Schwab's studio, but Bob's is bigger (that's what she said…..) The fun thing is that I got to help install this behemoth! This console was as long as my Bonneville, I kid you not Here's a video I shot after helping him load it in off the truck from Nashville.



……and here's a pic of the console all set up in Bob's studio.



Here's the cool thing. Bob's new toy was bought from Nashville, where it was featured in this Casey Ashley video. The console in this video is the EXACT SAME ONE I helped install in Conifer, Colorado at Swanpro Studios.



Things were going well knowing Bob. Bob was the best thing that happened to me professionally, because it was the first time that someone not only showed faith in me, but it was also the first time someone put their money where their mouth is. The generosity he bestowed will never be forgotten.

While I lived in Conifer, I also met Brad Smalling, who owns Evergroove. This happened when one day I called up Evergroove after just having moved to Colorado to ask about their freelance rates. I never got any freelance clients to go to Evergroove, but one day I'm using the local Freecycle service and I spot a pro audio rack! I thought this was an odd find, but too good to pass up. So I snagged it up, which started a conversation with Jenny Chaput Smalling. Jenny informed me that they were the owners of Evergroove, which reminded me that I'd been in touch with them before. I got back in touch with Brad, and we started talking. I toured his studio, which is a very nice place in the mountains and is just down the road from Bob's studio! The environmentalist in me was stoked about Evergroove because it's solar powered, and I still think that's REALLY cool. Here's a photo of Evergroove.



So here I was with some meager equipment, but meeting some really cool Colorado contacts. Things were looking up, and even though I had a long way to go before I could match what these guys had, I was glad to be considered a player in the game of the Colorado music scene.

But then I moved back to Ohio when Sarah got a job in Richwood. I came here with a dedication to make Skyline Sound Studios something grand in the Buckeye state, and I'm still trying to make that happen. But when I landed here, the flow of clients I had obviously ground to a halt. The first session I had in Ohio was a blues band called Breadwagon, who were really cool to hang with. We spent 7 hours recording and mixing a really cool demo. Here's a video I shot that day.



But Skyline was still limited to just a spare bedroom of the house Sarah and I rented. We rented a house an hour north of my target market, which made getting clients a bit challenging. And then my ensuing personal financial crisis that occurred after Sarah left meant that I was stranded in Marion until my finances improved. So I decided to make the best of it. I spread the studio around the house, and now I had more space than Bob Swanson or Brad Smalling. The difference is it's in a house, not a professionally treated studio environment. But at least now I had a place finally all to myself to put my studio full time.

You see, before Sarah moved out my recording sessions would happen remotely. I'd pack up my gear and take it to the clients rehearsal space to do the recording, then bring the tracks back to "home base" to do the mixing. My current client Enemy By Mourning got this treatment in Ohio, as their first demo was rush-tracked in the band's rehearsal space. Here's a video of that session.



Again, this was just a demo, but it helped the band gain a footing in the central Ohio scene, which did help bring me a couple of clients. I know that Liquid Ghandi came in after hearing what I did for EBM on their demo.

When The Blitz wouldn't play EBM's demo on local stuff, I wasn't surprised. It was a rush job, and they wanted it that way. It was just a good sounding quick and dirty demo from the start. So we started planning out a way to get them something that did sound radio quality for airplay on The Blitz. We decided to use Electronic Drums I had acquired as a midi recorder and run the midi through Steven Slate Drums to get the drum sounds without the room playing a factor. I also upgraded my gear from Adobe Audition 1.5 to Pro Tools 9 on a brand new 27" iMac!



Now it was time to play the game. We buckled down and pumped out a mix that was successful in getting them airplay, and quite frankly it was one of the best things I'd recorded. I was uber proud of myself.

And now not only had my gear selection grown, but my abilities had grown thanks to the amount of space I had in the house to dedicate to the studio. Here's a pic of the live room in the current studio.



Not much has changed since then, as I've decided to focus any money coming in from Skyline toward my debts to reduce my insolvency. But more upgrades are in the works very soon. I'm going to switch back to using studio revenues for the betterment of the studio very soon. But the current set-up works very well for me and is proof that it's not the gear, it's the engineer. I've spent a lot of time over the last year honing my skills. Here's some of the fruits of those labors.



So I've come a good way in a couple of years considering the limited amount of time I have to put into things, and the amount of resources I have. It's been a ghettophoenic experience from the ground up. But I have places I wanna take it, and I'm working every day to make that happen. For example, let's look at Swanpro Studios and Evergroove Studios, then compare that with where I am gear wise…..

---

It's NOT the gear, it's the engineer. But being a quality engineer with the high end shit = living the dream. So I'm working toward it. Meanwhile, I just hope that people will judge my product, and not my gear. Because, again, it's NOT THE GEAR. It's the engineer. But I can honestly say that without podcasts (IHR, PSN, HRO, HRS, Sessions With Slau, Ronan's Recording Show…..to name a few), or the help of the engineers I've met guiding me through and giving me advice (Bob Swanson, Brad Smalling, Dave Piatek, to name a few…..), I'd not be where I am now. Two years ago, I'd have KILLED for what I have now, so it's all in perspective. But this isn't the end of the line. I wanna move Skyline out of the house and into it's own facility. I wanna make it a major player in the Columbus music scene, because my mixing skills have been proven to be competitive (Nuber on The Blitz is a tough cookie). So hopefully within the 5 years I have allocated for my 5 year goal, I'll be able to transition from where I am now to something more like one of these.





……and my blog will come along for the ride. Stay tuned.

Misteps.

Well, the train has been derailed again.

I fudged a calculation on my budget spreadsheet, and now I find that I've not only overdrawn my bank account and will be incurring an unfair NSF fee of $46, but may not be able to pay off the credit card this week as I originally planned. It's embarrassing, but here we are. I'm trying to find ways to bring in more cash flow to the house, but I'm also limited by work hours for the holidays......

.......yeah, it's January 10th, and I'm limited by work hours for the holidays. At my Monday-Friday 9-5 day job I've had December 26th off, January 2nd off, and will have January 16th off. This means that for 3 out of 4 weeks, I'm getting 30-32 hours each week instead of 40. This is a big deal for an hourly employee, and I'm kind of pissed that we would have so many holidays off in a row. It makes this whole thing even tougher to manage. I'd have been able to avoid the NSF I now have if I had worked a full 40 hour week over the last two weeks (......or if I had been more scrutinous of my spreadsheet calculations), but I'm starting to get to a point where I can't afford the income of this job if they don't start working me a 40 hour week. At this rate, I won't have regular 40 hour pay checks again until mid February.

The Enemy By Mourning record is finished, and now I can book other clients to bring in more cash flow to the studio, but I don't have any concrete bookings. I'm recording Jovy on Saturday, but that's for my label, so there's no cash coming in from that session. I'm possibly working with an artist on Sunday, but they haven't responded to my work agreement, and until that has been responded to it's not a solid booking. So that's not a guarantee. And now that I'm off of my day job Monday Jan. 16th, I'm trying to get studio bookings that day at a discounted rate. So far, no bites.

Obviously the only income I can project on my budget spreadsheet is the income from my day job, since studio bookings are virtually non-existant at this time and overage checks and tax returns are not a constant. The only way that I can see right now to keep the bills paid that I need to pay and keep myself from being in perpetual NSF with the bank is to not pay off the credit cards this weekend, which makes me feel like a huge failure and a dissapointment to the family members who gave me money to pay on them last fall (quick recap....I paid one off, and then needed brakes, so it was maxed out again after 3 days. The other, I needed the cash for other bills. I pledged to pay them off in January with money I was recieving, but here we are........).

I have a balance from a good faith client that needs to be collected. I've unsuccessfully tried to collect this on a few occasions, but the client has always paid toward his bill so I can't collect this aggressively. Better to have the client happy and paying in increments than to collect aggressively and cut off the revenue stream. In other words, on a business sense, it's in my best interest to not piss off this client and keep the revenue stream open.

Other than that, it's been tough. I fight, I budget, I cut out the fast food, I don't spend frivelously, but each month it's within single digits of not making it. It's cutting it too close. I've taken up ramen noodles again as a cheap source of food, though not on the same level I was eating them at after Sarah moved out. Now with winter gas bills at play in a large energy sucking house (I really need to move, but that takes MONEY!), I'm just thankful that we've had a reasonably warm winter in Ohio so far, although my gas bill is still tough to pay.

I've resigned myself to bundling up like crazy, and when I cook using the oven, I leave the oven open when I'm done to allow the heat to fill the house. Why waste the heat? I have a dishwasher that hooks up to my kitchen sink, and instead of using the hot water tap I use cold. The dishwasher has a heating element inside of it, so why should I pay to heat the water twice? I use an electric blanket at night, allowing me to turn the house thermostat down to the mid 60's, which in this house is more like the mid 50's. I budget, I scrimp, I try to save......

I think the thing that really pisses me off here is that money has been so tight, I can't get more coming in, and the amount that is coming in has been decreasing due to holiday time off. If i could just get more coming in, I'd be ok. I was ok in October before I got depressed after my cancer scare and let my spending habits get out of control again. I know I can do it. But the problem is that I've been paying for Octobers irresponsibility since then, and there's no end in sight. The thing that really pisses me off about that is that I didn't do anything really drastic then! I didn't track my spending, but I didn't go out and spend a lot of money either. But I was spending more on junk food and fast food (comfort items since I was stressed), and had time off of work that I simply could not afford. Then there's the medical bills (don't get me started.....). I drained my savings to keep my rent paid, and now I have almost nothing saved and can't get back on top. I plan, but there's always something that derails that plan. I do not want to live a life of perpetual poverty, so something drastic has to change.......NOW.

I realize though that I'm stressed, and that I shouldn't allow that to prevail. I just need to keep it all in perspective. I'm infinitely better off than I was over the summer, when I was unemployed and borrowing money to keep a roof over my head. But I'm on the rim of the fabled canyon, and could go over at any time. I have so far to go to get to my 5 year goal, and when things like this happen in the beginning it makes it seem like I'll never get there. I just need to try to remember that the things I'm putting in place now will make it easier to achieve that goal in the future. The baby steps that form the foundation show the least visible results, but are vital in building the house.

.....still, I may be digging the pit for the basement, but I wish I could be painting the shutters by now.

It's my world now!

I just got loaded with a HELL of a lot of drive to make 2012 my year.

First, today was a MAJOR ass kicking day behind the mixing desk. I got the Enemy By Mourning record about 99.9% done, and was able to make some more progress on the Project DIVIDE EP too!

Then, I got two studio inquiries, and a date booked for Jan. 15th. Yay for clients!

And finally, I noticed just now that a song that was recorded in the room where I sit right now and type this has been distributed to Spotify! It's the first time I've heard something I've created that was distributed there, so I'm having a mild geek out!

If you have Spotify, check out Free by K Nacole. Follow her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/KNacolemusic



This won't be the last time something I worked on is put on a nationally utilized distributor, but it is the first time, and I'm stoked!

That's it. I'm gonna make 2012 my bitch. It's about time shit turned around, and I'm pumped.