Building Memories (BM) uses personal experiences and relates them to topics of importance to building.
This BM explores a boutique project of creating a small home recording studio.
My family moved to our current residence in 1992. The original portion of the house was built in ~ 1868. But over the years various owners had added hodge podge additions, poorly designed, and poorly constructed, the residence was in fact a safety hazard. But it was within our house budget, so we moved in and saved our money, and in 1994-1995 we knocked off all the various additions, kept the original frame and then ~ tripled the livable space including a basement area that over the years had two primary design functions.
- When our kids were growing up it was a semi-finished space that we called the” Do Everything Room”. It functioned exactly as it was named. All the fun, dirty, wet projects kids love to do were done there. When things spilled or various mishaps occurred, nobody worried or was upset.
- The room was also designed for a second function, that was not realized until many years later. The layout had been set up to build a music recording studio. When the kids were older and mostly out of the house, I did a bit of research and laid out all the cables, installed acoustic isolation insulation throughout, and had knotty pine installed. This was ~ 2010 and life still kept getting in the way, so it was not until 2017 that I finally bought the core recording equipment and software and began to finalize the installation.
The studio is comprised of a few different devices. To be honest I could have started with a lot less and still been able to record at the level I do now. But it was enjoyable figuring out the systems, building and assembling the parts and then actually putting them into use.
Progress was slow and by the winter of 2017 the studio was ready for the first test recordings. The first week was exhilarating! Learning to record and layer several music tracks and hear them together for the first time was awesome! Over time you learn that it is real work to make clean tracks, where each instrument is tightly synched with the other music tracks. At least at the amateur skill level that I brought to the table. It is now eight years later, and there have been at least two good working phases. I focused and spent a couple of months each time, spending a few hours 2 to 3 times per week working on the recording process. Developing better skills with technology and music. One important lesson I learned during the process was the more I focused on developing skills with recording technology, the less I enjoyed playing the music. Certainly, it put a damper on my initial enthusiasm, and I hope to get back to writing and recording music this winter.
Here is one song “Spirit Eyes” that came out of these initial recording sessions. I asked a drummer and a bass player to sit in with me and this is the result of about a one hour recording session.
Photo 1- Organizing Wires
Photo 2- Soldering Connectors
Photo 3- Setting UP cables
Photo 4- Control Room
Photo 5- Ready To Record
Photo 6- On The Air
Photo 7- Looking Finished