X-treme Networking

Lately I have been really focused on marketing myself and my studio.  I have had new business cards printed with my updated website and info.  I also designed the business card to be more professional and serve two purposes.  The cards can be used as both personal and studio related.  I have my personal email and contact information as well as my studio name and website.  This way I don't need to carry around two types of cards.


I have also been using people I currently have in my network to spread the word about me and my studio.  I do this through polite conversation.  When I record a band or am talking with someone I beginning talking with them about their goals for their band or interests.  This then turns the conversation to me eventually and I begin to talk about my studio and career goals.  The person I am talking with then offers to help spread the word about my studio and my services.  If it is a band I am recording they offer to tell people how great the studio was and to post links on Facebook and spread the word.  If the person I am talking with is not a client I hand them some business cards and they offer to pass them out.  So through talking and networking I am developing an unofficial street team for myself and my studio.


I am going to continue to use this method to build my network  Although I am still going out to places and continuing to meet people in person.  This method provides a little extra help.


here is a photo of the new business cards I have created:

Taking Advantage of Social Media

This post is not really huge one, but something that is vital to the success of my career.  I'm just writing about how I've been using social media to further advance my career.  I have had a Linkedin account for awhile but never filled out all the information completely.  So recently I did a major overhaul on my Linkedin account.  I completed each section and updated all the information.  All my current employment and education information is up to date as well as experience.  This took awhile to do but now that it is done I have a professional resume online that I can send to potential employers.  I can also start creating a network of people I have worked with.

Besides the Linkedin updates I have also re-worked my website.  I added a studio blog, some pictures, updated the 'about' section, and updated the audio samples.  This too needed to be done because I have done some great projects that I wanted to put in the sample section but never got around to doing.  I have also purchased new equipment and needed to update that page.  I have also been using Hootsuite to manage all my social media accounts.  This is really coming in handy.  I am still using my studio Twitter account and studio Facebook page.  Now that I have some new knowledge on how to get the most out of social networking I am really starting to use that to my advantage and help build my network.

Here are links to my social networking sites:

Homeroom Studios 

Studio Facbook

Personal Linkedin

Job Interview for Viper Alley

I was in a session recently and the studio owner and colleague of mine came up to me and mentioned this new venue that is opening up in Lincolnshire.  It is called Viper Alley.  It is a fair sized venue with a lounge/nightclub attached to it.  The studio owner said that he was going to be meeting with someone from Viper Alley to discuss some business arrangements.  I cannot go into details about the arrangements.  However, he asked if I wanted him to mention me in the meeting and see about getting an interview.  Since this is a new venue so they would most likely be needing employees and I would have a greater chance of getting a job.  I was mentioned during the meeting and recommended for a position.

 I was told to call Nick over at Viper Alley.  He is the director of operations.  I called him and we had a phone interview about my work that I've done for the studio and my live sound experience.  Nick seemed impressed with all the work I have accomplished and my passion for the field.  He asked me questions about my work ethic and the usual interview questions.  I mentioned my unique troubleshooting skills and my experience as an electrical technician, having worked for a kitchen appliance repair company since I was 16.  After the interview he said he would find out  a good time to have me come in for a meet and greet so they can learn more about me.  I have a good feeling about this seeing as I made it past the first round of the interview process.  This is will be great position for me because it will allow me to still work at the studio. No pictures of this because it was a phone interview but here is the link to the Viper Alley website.

www.viper-alley.com

'Midwest Philharmonic Orchestra' Live Recording

The Midwest Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Taka Matsunaga.  It is the main orchestra of The Midwest Conservatory of Music.  This is an institute that takes very talented kids and adults and further advances their skill level.  They perform concerts throughout the year and I, with Energy Command, am the one who goes and records the live performances.  The studio owner and I put together a portable recording rig that consists of a Mackie HDR, an eight-channel Mackie pre-amp, and a headphone amp for monitoring.  A lot of live recordings use a basic microphone setup in which only two mics are used and are set up over the conductor's head in a stereo pattern.  There are flaws to this setup.  The mics primarily pick up the front of the orchestra and this leaves no flexibility when editing later.  If the conductor wants the cellos turned up, it is very hard to do without compromising another frequency.  We use an eight microphone setup.  We put a Rode NT-5 in each of the four corners of the orchestra.  Then we put a stereo NT-4 over the conductor's head and a pair of Cascade Fatheads in the back of the orchestra.  This setup gives great flexibility while editing and allows for editing individual sections.  This makes for a much better mix.  The setup also gives a more professional look for the audience to see.  Below are pictures of ensemble.  In some of the pictures the microphone setup and recording rig can be seen.  The recording was done in a church so we wanted to capture the acoustics of the room so the microphones were placed at the correct distance to achieve a good blend.

House Cafe Show

Recently my band, The Slam Daddies, played a show at The House Cafe in Dekalb, IL.  I have always liked this venue and enjoyed playing there.  While at the show I helped load in and set up all the equipment.  After that I began to talk with the sound guys about the venue and what kind of setup they use.  They use a basic setup including a 32 channel mixer with some outboard compressors and eqs.  The monitor mixes are made using the sub groups and aux sends and distributed using a headphone distributer.

     He let me observe as he dialed in the mixes and set up the stage microphones.  It was a great experience getting to observe and participate in this show.  I got to see how things were routed and mixed to compliment the room.  The House Cafe is a small bar/cafe setting so there is no need for an over the top setup.  They use the standard Sure SM57's on the drums and guitars.  They only mic the toms, kick, snare, bass, guitar, and vocals.  The cymbals are not miked because of the smaller room.  They carry through the room without having to be miked.  Overall this was a good experience talking with the sound guy and observing the way he works.

Mixing Session with Joe Hamgeri

     I've been working with this artist for awhile now at Energy Command Studios.  He's a bluesy, rock type artist and has a lot of talent.  We are now in the mixing stages of his songs.  This song, Genevieve, has a particular feel that he wants.  He wants the drums to have a John Mayer Continuum sound to it. He also wants the vocals to have some characteristics of Coldplay's Viva La Vida.  The kick drum I eq'd to give it a more pillowy sound.  To have it sit well with the bass guitar I dropped the mid from the bass and boosted the attack to bring out the punch.  To give the drums that Continuum feel I used a lot of room sound and overheads topped with a slight plate reverb.


     The electric guitars had more of a warm mid range tone so I decided to keep the overall tone and just notch out certain frequencies to place it in the mix.  A little delay and reverb were added to the guitars to make it sound more like a blues club.  For the vocals I used a plugin called Izotope Nectar.  This is a vocal suite that has a bunch of plugins that work with each other to really give the vocals a nice sound. I dialed in a great vocal sound and moved on to the piano.  The piano is a MIDI track using one of pro tool's virtual instruments.  The sound being used is an electric piano with a little vibrato on it to give it a slight organ feel.  It sounds great mixed into the song and really polishes the song and gives it that sound the song is going for.


 No audio clip of this song is available yet as we are still in the early mixing stages.  However, there is a single and an acoustic song on his myspace to give a feel of the upcoming songs.


http://www.myspace.com/joehamgeri

'Dinner Party For Three' recording

      I have been working with this band for a while now.  I've been recording them out of my home studio as opposed to the studio I work at.  They are a three piece band that play indie rock music.  They saw my website and wanted to record.  They came in for a few days to lay down the tracks and then came back for some editing sessions.  I recorded everything into Protools 8.  I miked the drums with a full setup and using a stereo pair of Rode NT5's as overheads.  The kick and snare were stacked with sample layers to help treat the quality of the drums.  A Blue Bluebird microphone was used on vocals.

     I used a three mic setup on the guitars which used two close mics and one room mic to capture ambience.  They recorded six songs with me.  All songs were recorded, mixed, edited, and mastered by me using Pro Tools 8 and mastered in Sony Sound Forge 10 Pro. Some experimenting was done while finding guitar sounds and a Digidesign Eleven Rack was used to add some interesting guitar tracks.  A couple of the songs involved some complicated mixing using a variety of effect routing to achieve some great sounds.  There was some nice reverbs and delay that I found worked well with the vocals and complimented the style of music.  All in all it was a great project and very fun to work with these guys.

other songs from the project can be found at the band's myspace:  www.myspace.com/dinnerpartyforthreemusic

Audio Clip: Click Here
                (song owned by 'Dinner Party For Three' band)

Singer getting ready to record vocals

guitarist finding his tone

me at the board mixing

equipment hyperlink images come from my home studio website:  www.homeroomstudios.com