PRO TOOLS AND THE NEW RECORDING CULTURE

I recently had the pleasure of addressing students in the Envision Instrumental Music Program at the Canyon Crest Academy near San Diego. Prior to my talk, I was able to tour the facility and was very impressed with the quality of their on-campus recording facility. They had state of the art programs including Pro Tools which has revolutionized the industry (more on that in a minute).

After my presentation on marketing and music to a large class, a few of the musicians came up to play some of their music for me. One was a five song EP form Dead Bat Nightlife and the other was one track “Unraveling” by Aaron Berman. What struck me the most was the not only the quality of the musicianship and songwriting, but the production value was as good as or better than anything currently on the radio. In the old days, a recording of that quality would have cost an artist tens of thousands of dollars. And unless you came from a wealthy family, you pretty much had to be financed by a major label. Of course, this was before My Space and so the only way to get your music heard by the masses was through a business partnership with corporate America - major labels, radio stations and network TV. When FM came into its own in the 1960’s as an alternative to AM and the “Top 40″ radio format (the top best selling 40 records that included everything form pop to rock to country to the Singing Nun) it eventually succumbed to corporate takeover with the nationally programmed AOR format. To be able to record a top quality “demo” (a demonstration tape of your best performances and songs) to be able to be considered by a major label, we had something called “spec time” which was actually a deal you’d cut with a recording studio where they would front you some or all of the recording time with the agreement that you would pay them back if and when you received a major record deal, or you would repay them by recording your record at their studio. Spec bands and artists typically were relegated to “down time”, when nobody was using the studio, usually after midnight and ending before eight o’clock in the morning. That was of little concern because musicians were creatures of the night anyway (some clubs in Chicago with a 4:00 AM license wouldn’t put the headliner on until after midnight).

Buster, the band I was in, became pretty popular in the Chicago club scene playing well-known “cover” songs from the popular artist of the day. Eventually, like others in the same scene, we figured we had to write our own music if we were to ever get a major deal which was our dream from the first day we picked up a guitar. We went to Alan Kubica, who owned Chicago Recording Company, not only because we knew him from doing “jingle” work (recording commercials which was very lucrative for musicians in Chicago) but also because he had the best studio. He agreed so we began working with one of his young engineer’s, Phil Bonanno, from midnight on almost every night until we finished our demo. We got close to a deal, and went back for one more round then were finally offered a major deal by EMI America/Capitol. We ended up changing our name to Gambler, recording our first album in Los Angeles at the famed Village Recorders with Jeff Glixman (who had achieved Multi-Platinum success with Kansas). But we did remain true to our word with CRC, and recorded our second album “Love and Other Crimes” at Chicago Recording Company with Phil Bonanno as co-producer. Phil went on to major hits with Chicago greats Survivor (”Eye of the Tiger”) and Cheap Trick, but sadly passed away a few years ago. My brother Bruce, who was the keyboardist in the band, now is the main technical engineer for CRC.

The talented young artists of today do not have to go the corporate route that we had to get their music out. Tech savvy artists like Dead Bat Nightlife and Aaron Berman can record everything start to finish with Pro Tools (a Digital Audio Workstation platform for MAC OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems, developed and manufactured by Digidesign), which also can be used for video production so it can one stop shopping for career building. And thanks to My Space and You Tube, they really don’t need major labels and broadcast or cable TV to reach their audience. The only thing they don’t have is the gigs because there is not enough of a club scene to make a real living, but then again, they don’t have to worry about starting out playing covers and can concentrate on original music from the get-go. We relied on the gigs to pay bills and hone our chops, way before we were good enough to record for a major label. That’s why many first albums by otherwise great live bands were a little rough around the edges (hey it’s only Rock n’ Roll) and would eventually master the studio on their subsequent albums. Who knows where the next U2 or Led Zeppelin will come from, but I bet their first recording will sound pretty amazing, even though their live shows may be somewhat lacking.