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Post by rowmat on Jun 27, 2019 23:13:17 GMT -6
I’ve decided to call it a day and I’m getting out of the studio biz. I’ll have a bunch of gear for sale soon but it will be here in Oz so mostly be suited to local buyers. I’ll probably keep a few mics, some pres and maybe my Hilo Converter but everything else will be going. I’m hitting the road in 2020 and looking forward to getting some sun and fresh air.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2019 23:30:26 GMT -6
i've been thinking about calling a day for the past 20 years..
Best of luck with it all..
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Post by rowmat on Jun 27, 2019 23:35:51 GMT -6
i've been thinking about calling a day for the past 20 years.. Best of luck with it all.. Ha! I’ve been thinking about it (seriously) for the past year but a bunch of things have conspired together in the last few months and there’s a little voice inside my head telling me it’s time to go. Ignore those little voices at your peril!
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Post by Blackdawg on Jun 27, 2019 23:40:07 GMT -6
well, shucks. But...have a great retirement. I'll keep my eye open to see if I can help facilitate your retirement haha
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Post by NoTomorrow on Jun 27, 2019 23:49:02 GMT -6
I’ve decided to call it a day and I’m getting out of the studio biz. I’ll have a bunch of gear for sale soon but it will be here in Oz so mostly be suited to local buyers. I’ll probably keep a few mics, some pres and maybe my Hilo Converter but everything else will be going. I’m hitting the road in 2020 and looking forward to getting some sun and fresh air. Instead of selling all your stuff, how about I hang on to it for you until you return from your walkabout?
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 0:13:35 GMT -6
I’ve decided to call it a day and I’m getting out of the studio biz. I’ll have a bunch of gear for sale soon but it will be here in Oz so mostly be suited to local buyers. I’ll probably keep a few mics, some pres and maybe my Hilo Converter but everything else will be going. I’m hitting the road in 2020 and looking forward to getting some sun and fresh air. Instead of selling all your stuff, how about I hang on to it for you until you return from your walkabout? Nope. I’m done with studio life. Too many hours. Not enough income. Dealing with the eccentricities of clients. Fixing and maintaining gear in between. When you’d rather stay in bed than go into the studio to setup for a session you know it’s time to move on.
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Post by NoTomorrow on Jun 28, 2019 0:18:57 GMT -6
Yea I get it dude...... it does sound like you're over it.
The 'starving' part of being a starving artist gets old.
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Post by chessparov on Jun 28, 2019 0:40:41 GMT -6
Wishing you all the best! Chris
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 28, 2019 1:03:22 GMT -6
It’s best to be honest with yourself.
I have made a couple of similar big decisions about my life recently and it came down to simply asking if something was or wasn’t making me happy. If the answer was no and I was really just engaged in a mostly frustrating process, I had the option of stopping it and now am happier.
You will be too: enjoy the change !
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Post by wiz on Jun 28, 2019 1:18:08 GMT -6
If you are up my way way look me up!
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 28, 2019 1:21:13 GMT -6
Instead of selling all your stuff, how about I hang on to it for you until you return from your walkabout? Nope. I’m done with studio life. Too many hours. Not enough income. Dealing with the eccentricities of clients. Fixing and maintaining gear in between. When you’d rather stay in bed than go into the studio to setup for a session you know it’s time to move on. i deeply admire your bravery - not just for making the decision you’ve made, but also for sharing that decision on an audio board.
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 2:07:35 GMT -6
Funny the last album we did was probably almost the best work we’ve done. It almost makes you understand why you keep doing it. But then you think of the late nights, the many long and often unpaid hours, lack of healthy living and the reality of it all sinks in. By day three of setting up, tracking and overdubbing a full band I’m hitting the wall. So time to hit the road instead and join the Grey Nomads!
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Post by EmRR on Jun 28, 2019 5:24:45 GMT -6
Best wishes!
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Post by svart on Jun 28, 2019 7:54:46 GMT -6
Hope everything works out for you.
You never know though, I did the same thing years back. I packed up everything and moved and just said to myself "why bother?" When it came time to decide if I was going to keep recording or not.
I eventually missed it enough to come back and spend even more time and money on it, but it still has it's moments where I contemplate selling all my gear..
But then again, if I sold all my studio gear I'd probably just end up doing video work, which is my other creative love.
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Post by drbill on Jun 28, 2019 10:10:39 GMT -6
Nope. I’m done with studio life. Too many hours. Not enough income. Dealing with the eccentricities of clients. Fixing and maintaining gear in between. When you’d rather stay in bed than go into the studio to setup for a session you know it’s time to move on. Best of luck! Enjoy the nomadic lifestyle!! I did something completely different, but with similar motives. I left a longstanding career in Los Angeles and moved to a location with virtually no recording industry. But I kept my gear, built a new studio, and record my own music for licensing now. The reward has been substantial. I love life more, have more freedom, look forward to the next project, and I don't have to deal with the drama of bands and clients. I'm still actively involved with writing and mixing - moreso than when I was in LA probably - but I'm enjoying it much more. Best of both worlds for me. But again, enjoy your life. Recording is not the be all, end all occupation. There are so many things more important. Good luck!
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 10:26:06 GMT -6
Hope everything works out for you. You never know though, I did the same thing years back. I packed up anything and moved and just said to myself "why bother?" When it came time to decide if I was going to keep recording or not. I eventually missed it enough to come back and spend even more time and money on it, but it still has it's moments where I contemplate selling all my gear.. But then again, if I sold all my studio gear I'd probably just end up doing video work, which is my other creative love. As I said, I’m keeping a few mics, some pres and probably my Hilo converter. I also have a Sound Devices 633 portable recorder and some Sanken Cos11 lav mics, Electrosonics wireless gear and a small Mackie mixer which can be used for monitoring. I do like the concept of a simple stereo (Blumlein, M/S etc) portable recording setup for capturing live performances where the ‘mixing’ happens during the recording. The typical studio routine of lots of mics on lots of instruments, lots of overdubs, lots of comp’ing, followed by multiple re-mixes when the client wants the “cowbell half a dB louder” and then changes their mind five times and finally decides that they want no cowbell at all even when you explain to them that it has spilled into every other open mic in the studio... Yada, yada, yada... (just kidding but you know what I mean). Anyway I’ve come to rather dislike that entire way of recording and the time thief that it becomes. However I might end up capturing some unique impromptu performances on the road in some far away places if I decide to ‘go down that road’. I have a solar setup for the van so I should be able to stay powered under most conditions. Who knows?
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Post by drbill on Jun 28, 2019 10:40:23 GMT -6
I have a solar setup for the van so I should be able to stay powered under most conditions. Who knows? Recording ambiences and SFX for film work? If you're out there, why not record some? There are guys who have made big careers out of exactly that....
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Post by spindrift on Jun 28, 2019 10:42:10 GMT -6
I’ve put my gear “away” for a couple years to take a break from it...only to come back to it with a new vigor after a long break. Maybe you could store some of it, at least the hard to acquire or vintage pieces? Stuff that is easily replaced and easily monetized can be rebought if necessary down the road.
Best of luck to you rowmat!
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 11:00:34 GMT -6
I’ve put my gear “away” for a couple years to take a break from it...only to come back to it with a new vigor after a long break. Maybe you could store some of it, at least the hard to acquire or vintage pieces? Stuff that is easily replaced and easily monetized can be rebought if necessary down the road. Best of luck to you rowmat! I bought an almost mint EMT-140 plate reverb eighteen months ago which I will never see the likes of again in my lifetime so that is something I’m kind of in two minds about, more so than the Lexicon 480L I also have. But I’m never going back to a studio situation unless it was to say finish off a small project I had recorded elsewhere and I can’t justify (or afford) to have a load of gear sitting around for a year or more collecting dust. I want to be pretty much free by the end of the year so I can’t afford to procrastinate or two years will go by and I’ll still be thinking about it. My studio partner who owns the premises is interested in the EMT-140 (he can’t live without it seems) so he may take it but his long term situation is now somewhat uncertain due to personal issues.
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 11:18:45 GMT -6
And then there’s that Neotek Elite that’s still work-in-progress. (roll eyes)
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Post by svart on Jun 28, 2019 11:38:42 GMT -6
Hope everything works out for you. You never know though, I did the same thing years back. I packed up anything and moved and just said to myself "why bother?" When it came time to decide if I was going to keep recording or not. I eventually missed it enough to come back and spend even more time and money on it, but it still has it's moments where I contemplate selling all my gear.. But then again, if I sold all my studio gear I'd probably just end up doing video work, which is my other creative love. As I said, I’m keeping a few mics, some pres and probably my Hilo converter. I also have a Sound Devices 633 portable recorder and some Sanken Cos11 lav mics, Electrosonics wireless gear and a small Mackie mixer which can be used for monitoring. I do like the concept of a simple stereo (Blumlein, M/S etc) portable recording setup for capturing live performances where the ‘mixing’ happens during the recording. The typical studio routine of lots of mics on lots of instruments, lots of overdubs, lots of comp’ing, followed by multiple re-mixes when the client wants the “cowbell half a dB louder” and then changes their mind five times and finally decides that they want no cowbell at all even when you explain to them that it has spilled into every other open mic in the studio... Yada, yada, yada... (just kidding but you know what I mean). Anyway I’ve come to rather dislike that entire way of recording and the time thief that it becomes. However I might end up capturing some unique impromptu performances on the road in some far away places if I decide to ‘go down that road’. I have a solar setup for the van so I should be able to stay powered under most conditions. Who knows? I found the biggest "waste" of time for me in the studio is hunting for tone. I guess nothing is a waste if it furthers your progress, but I think it tends to be needlessly lengthy. I rarely have clients that are willing to pay for any type of pre-production, so they show up with their amps and guitars and expect me to capture "the tone" that will be the essence of the recording. Generally what really happens is that they show up with strats and fender amps and expect me to get the LesPaul/Mesa sound out of it.. But rarely do I know that until it's time to mix. I'll ask multiple times: "Is this tone good for you?" and I usually get a "yeah that's perfect!".. Until mix time.. Seems that they change their mind regarding the tones between the times we track and the times we mix, and usually because their favorite bands have changed during this timeframe.. So I've adopted a new strategy, which is DI the guitar/bass as it comes from the jack, then loop that through their pedals/effects and out to another DI, then capture either an amp model through one of my modelling pedals, or the amp itself. If I use the modelling pedal I usually come back and re-amp the effected signal. I do it this way for maximum flexibility in tones during mixdown, but a HUGE benefit is that I can do all the re-amping later when the client isn't sitting there. I have found that clients tend to want changes to tones simply because it's not quite like what they are used to in practice, so they have a tendency to push you back into their familiar territory. Without that constant critique, I can find what works best in the mix on my own and submit it to them. Usually they respond extremely well and rarely have change requests. It's almost as if you get them far enough away from familiarity that they stop requiring it as a crutch. Of course, this is all because if the need arises later, I have the clean guitar/bass on it's own that I can use different effects on, etc, or I can use the effected signal through a different amp, or re-amp through a different amp. Also, I can track the drums, bass and guitar all at once in my small room, which drastically cuts down the amount of time needed to track each instrument and eliminates all bleed between instruments/amps. I built a custom template in Reaper that handles all this in folders, with each instrument group as a folder, but each DI and model is a sub-track for that folder. This way I can keep the same DI's and model pedals on the same inputs and just arm each folder as we work through the different instruments and no longer need to re-patch gear either. All this cuts hours and hours off the usual cycle.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 28, 2019 11:42:37 GMT -6
Instead of selling all your stuff, how about I hang on to it for you until you return from your walkabout? Nope. I’m done with studio life. Too many hours. Not enough income. Dealing with the eccentricities of clients. Fixing and maintaining gear in between. When you’d rather stay in bed than go into the studio to setup for a session you know it’s time to move on. Well, I'm sad to hear that. I pretty much gave up any real hope of making a commercial go of the studio side of things a few years ago when I was forced out of SF for economic reasons - but I kept all my stuff and am still accumulating. I just don't expect people to pay me to use it anymore. The upside is that I don't have to put up with anyone I don't want to.
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Post by rowmat on Jun 28, 2019 14:20:26 GMT -6
Time to hit the ol' Lost Highway.
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Post by wiz on Jun 28, 2019 16:54:08 GMT -6
Drop off the EMT on the way through....hell I will even put you up for a week
8)
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by Vincent R. on Jun 29, 2019 20:26:22 GMT -6
All the best!
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