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 | | | | Jun30Written by:Bill Park
Friday, June 30, 2000 6:00 PM  Roger NormanRoger W. Norman has spent the majority of the past 20 years working in the Personal Computer industry. He has designed networks for the Internal Revenue Service, the US Navy, the FAA, the US Army, and built major programs within the Social Security Administration. Six years ago he left the corporate grind to run his basement facility, SirMusic Studio, as a full-time endeavor. Roger has not looked back since.
Seems like my first real memory is waking up singing ‘Davy Crockett' and everything goes from there. I've always had a guitar, even if the first one was plastic with plastic strings. I learned to play piano by banging away and seeing what happened. I've played in tons of bands, I've always liked recording, and now I've got the best of both worlds. I can do music, capture it and I'm able to reproduce it so that others might enjoy it.
About 1988 I started becoming a little disenfranchised about my high priority / high stress position and started concentrating on re-establishing some control on my life by building my studio in small steps. Music had always been the great equalizer for me, mostly due to the way that band practices split up the week and gave me something to look forward to.
Realizing this, and having been a songwriter since before college, I started concentrating on re-developing my musical chops and working on writing songs instead of bringing my corporate work home with me. Ultimately that was a bad move in that the studio took hold and started growing of it's own volition while my interest in continuing to work in the grind was waning.
I have a real hard time determining when the studio left being a song writing studio for me, and where it became a recording studio for a whole bunch of people I'd have never thought of recording before. It must have been sometime around when I moved from my little PortaStudio to a little larger one, with 8 tracks on a cassette. A 488, that's what it was, but after less than a year I had to upgrade to the Tascam 38 I still use. Couldn't record enough inputs at one time with the cassette, so yeah, that would be about the time the studio started recording other groups rather than just my own songs.
Finally, in 1994 I just didn't have it in my heart to continue with my previous career. Too many songs running through my mind and too little interest in the computer contracts. I guess the thing that precipitated the studio as a whole was the purchase of the Soundtracs Solo console. Once I had a decent board it was full bore and the next thing I know I'm working 60s R&R recordings, jazz horn bands, song writing demos, whatever. Lots of song writing work with others on their tunes but virtually nothing of song writing for me.
Nothing like lost focus, huh?
Then the other steps seemed to fall into place for recording, but again, not so much for song writing. An upgrade to a multichannel interface for computer recording and I have ended up with pretty much a hybrid analog/digital studio; a little analog of this here, a little digital of that there. And of course that means keeping up with having amps, drums, pianos, synths, guitars and basses. Maintenance schedules are a must.
In the end I took up the studio as a full time gig. Luckily a lot of the disciplines involved with the contracting work also apply to the studio work, so staying abreast of new technological developments was just as important. But I also had the tremendous learning curve that goes along with the personal development of any new career. Talk about STRESS! Being your own boss has enough stress, but building a new career during the normal mid-life crises time certainly didn't help. Neither does the fact that a new career takes just about as long to establish yourself as the original career did.
However, the original career had given me experience in dealing with others who have a great deal of knowledge about what they want to accomplish but don't know what methods to employ. I think this is probably the key factor in the continued growth of my cellar dweller existence, since I can identify with the goals and desires of artists who come to me. But I like to keep things simple. I'd rather not have to worry about having groups in that are largely based on midi loops and sequences.
I prefer working with a talent that has ideas but doesn't yet know what to do with them, so in effect, I am still writing even as I help engineer and produce. That's a lot of hats to wear but it's also what happens when you run a small studio. Then again, it also means that identifying those technologies which can help one's own business to grow, while still maintaining a semblance of fiscal control, make purchasing decisions extremely hard.
You balance the technology, which is a physical thing, with the ability to help an artist realize their dreams, which is strictly an intangible art. On the other hand, the artist may well come in enamoured with some new technology they've read or heard about, and wonder whether you, as an engineer/producer, can function without. Sometimes just the look of a studio will either sell it or get it rejected.
Taking the step to run your own studio is a weird one. The mental discipline is different than the 9 to 5, but that doesn't mean long hours of tracking into the night either. It's more of a shift in your thinking. You're the one there, you should always have something to work on. If you own a studio you should either be playing music, making music, or have music playing. That's my main discipline.
And I might say that it actually took me a while to not think about it as just playing music all day. It's about making music, and making the best music you can, and doing that all day. If someone were to be inclined to start a studio, I'd have to say ‘well, wait a minute. If you don't love music; if there's not a song always in your mind, you might be taking up the wrong cross. It a hard life, and you have to feel that it is your life. On the other hand, I couldn't be happier as far as what I've chosen to do. I could be happier with the actual profitability, but that's something any company would worry about.
Music is just a way of life, like being nomads, or rodeo people or whatever. You don't do it because of the money, although that's a nice benefit. You do it because you can't really see yourself doing something else.
Now I know all of this isn't what you wanted when we sat down to talk, but here's my take on your question. Owning a studio, be it large or small, is a labor of love. Believe me, no person in their right minds would do this for a living on purpose. I remember you making a statement about not being able to swing a dead cat without hitting a studio. I guess that says a lot about where people's hearts are. I think there are far more people out there who have a desire to be creative in life than most thought, and with the way prices have gone down on equipment and technological advances, there's been no better time in history to start using one's creative capabilities. Now, if you're going to make it something for a living, that's a different story. It is, however, nice to see people being able to enjoy work they did that has the potential to entertain others.
But all that aside, the actual process of moving from a 9 to 5 existence to one that involves always being around your work was a fairly easy transition after about the first 4 years. Although I wouldn't necessarily suggest making such a move on a whim, it certainly can be forthcoming, at least on the side of creativity, and ultimately financially. Then the only real step you need is to be accepted within the new career field for your knowledge and abilities. For that it doesn't hurt being a people person.
You're going to be depending on a lot of people extraneous to your work environment, and you can never know who might be instrumental in your continued development. Oh, it also doesn't hurt to have a little technical savvy and a couple of good ears either. One of my current projects is a set of compilation CDs for the Rec.Audio.Pro newsgroup, and with these submissions I can tell you I still have a long way to go. Never stop growing.
OK is NOT good enough. There's always better music and better recordings, so make certain that whatever goes out is MUCH better than what comes in. But in an environment where you are your own boss, and it means additional money when you take time to gussy up a song or CD just remember. Learn to make a decision and stick by it. The key isn't doing things fast, it isn't in doing things slow. The key is in doing things well and moving on.
You also asked how does one keep up with the technological changes. How to keep informed. A large part of that is just what we're doing on line. Discussing things and having that discussion available to others to learn from. The internet, and in particular, the newsgroups are great resources for information and instruction. Not only do you have people with experience with whatever problems you have, but a lot of times you'll get the person that actually developed a specific technique or piece of equipment.
The trades are great for what they give, but the real place is out there in the trenches with people like yourself doing the job you've chosen and coming up with solutions they are willing to share with others. It's not really as much of an ‘Old Boys Network' as people once perceived, and it seems the bigger they are, the more they are willing to help others. My love of music may have drawn me into building a studio, but it's been my contact with those that are currently doing and have gone before that make this a viable way of life for me. I can't begin to say how much a Bob Katz, Glenn Meadows, Bob Olhsson or George Massenberg , and many others' messages make a difference to me.
So maybe there aren't the apprenticeships that were once out there, but the same functional outcome is available. What was an apprenticeship is now more a form of mentoring, and the selection of mentors is larger. There's no way anyone could pay attention to what's being written about almost any subject on the internet today and not learn. It's a fascinating concept. It's allowed you and I to cyber-meet and develop a relationship that's years old now, as it has done for many others.
And even as I say all this, it comes to me that most times I'm sitting here alone in a basement studio, making music the best I can, and there's not another person in sight.
Ah, but they are never out of mind.
Article Continues in Part Three >>>
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