Downsides Of The Home Recording Studio Business

[articles]

It appears that as home recording technology gets more and more accessible, more people decide they want a career in the recording business. This is an article with me venting about the negative aspects of the home recording studio business.

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[bilco]

I appreciate the honesty in the article. I don't want to record other bands or songwriters (unless they are friends who need a favor) and in my old age I have zero tolerance for listening to bad bands and songwriters. I don't want to even go out and play lucrative pickup bass gigs with bad bands and songwriters. I just don't need the money that bad anymore......

I don't know how you can stand working with bad bands, although I am sure that after 7 years, word of mouth and reputation has resulted in you being able to record much better musicians. Still, I bet there are bad musicians with good day jobs (dentist/songwriter with dentist wife/backup singer) that come in with all kinds of money and you just have to grind your teeth and endure it.....

On the other hand, I have a reliable and fairly lucrative, but alternately boring, then extremely stressful dayjob. I have done it for 20 years now and it feels like a 20 year prison sentence. I literally hate that job and getting up to go do it every day is a challenge. I have 7 more years to go and I can retire at 60 with a pretty nice pension and cheap health insurance for the rest of my life. (If Hillary wins and actually carries through with socialized medicine and health care for everyone, I will be out of there in a heartbeat!!) I got into the job after 10 years in the restaurant business because I needed health insurance for the kids and I had to put food on the table.

Note to you young single folks: If you are serious and really want to make a career of some area of the music business, push hard for it when you are young and single. Treat it as an 8 hour a day job. Don't get detoured by the drugs and drinking; it is (and was for me) a guaranteed career killer and decade waster. Okay, sermon over.....

I kind of envy the dentists and accountants and lawyers who settled in their minds early on that they were going for the $$ instead of their passion. Maybe, dentistry and bean counting and the law ARE somebody's passion, but I bet they are few and far between.

I also envy the musicians and songwriters I know who are either incredibly talented or were just persistent enough to get success.

I was the round peg that wouldn't fit in the square hole. I wanted to live my dream, but I am not what you would call a self starter and it takes WORK to live your dream. So, I frittered away my youth in bar bands, partying by day
and playing by night. Marriage and the kids was a HUGE wakeup call and at almost 30 years old, I had to grow up in a hurry. Ironically, I don't think I wrote my best songs until I was 40 or so and way domesticated.

I got way off topic, but I think my life lessons apply.

If you want to have a successful Home Recording Studio Business:

*Work your ass off, 8 hours a day minimum, hustle for customers, apprentice with more experience engineers, whatever it takes to get really good at engineering and knowing your gear
*Do it while you are young and single; I am not sure how you could pull it off once you are married, unless you are married to a music loving dentist
*DO NOT DO DRUGS OR DRINK TOO MUCH
*Don't give up if this is your passion. The world needs more people who are living for their dream and doing what they are passionate about

That's it I guess, except that I would like for Brandon to know that I will buy that home recording book when it comes out. I think you have a natural talent for writing, an ability to use funny analogies to make a point and you tell it like it is. Thanks for your articles Brandon.

bilco