$1.00 sent

Ah, see what you get, then... for $5, you'd get MUCH better value...

And he still ain't talking.

Sorry man, it appears you've been had.

Sure am glad I kept my dollar.

Oh man, he did indeed PayPal me a buck...

Now, I got to find the time to keep this thread going, and maybe add my 99 cents of a story.
FYI, I kept a penny for processing.

Alright, for the greater good of humanity, I will keep it going pro bono...

Now you're poaching the thread and ruining the industy!

If you raised your rates, you could get at least $2 per post.

Well, actually I am in the position of begging you to download my posts for free! So I've already lost that battle!

You know, not for nothing, but if this were the classifieds Steve would be getting crucified right now.

Not trying to start any crap here, I just really want to read the story of Steve's first eight years.

Or anyone else for that matter, but particularly Steve.

Okay, Steve, pick up the story: you are standing in the dock at Southampton...

It's only been five years, but what the hell; my mistakes might be educational.

Fall 2005. I had been a music major, semi-pro "legit" trumpet player, aspiring, if not perspiring, composer, and intermittent audiophool; including a one year employment stint at a high end audio salon.

A recent brain bleed (congenital AV malformations) had left me partially paralyzed, and unable to play. My wife (then girlfriend) got into the Royal Conservatory, in The Hague, to study baroque cello, and I had joined her.

It hit me at this time that recording might be a way of staying involved in music, in some capacity, so I purchased a three piece set of Nakamichi CM-300 microphones, some cables and stands, borrowed a Tascam DAT recorder from the school, and was off. After once reserving the Tascam and then finding it unavailable, I purchased a MOTU 896HD, to make myself independent of the school electronics department.

Unknown to me then, the Royal Conservatory had a recording program, and the recording students did not take kindly to someone charging less than them, and getting better results. I was badmouthed mercilessly, and made a periah.

Fast forward. My wife was, and currently is, a PhD candidate at UCLA, and a part-time working cellist. Since I mostly recorded with only two microphones, I purchased an Apogee duet, which is now my back up/editing I/O, replaced with a Nagra VI (ignoring the Studers I acquired, but rarely use.) Many other upgrades to my gear as well.

There is a recording technician at the department, and I prefer not to impose on the livelihood of others, so I keep a low profile.

Recent developments in the SF Bay Area are: a studio I'm helping to develop, and promoting my remote recording services with friends and former teachers. We'll see.

I went full-time freelance when I was 23, the year after starting the thread. Fast forward eight years. Still at it.

Step one was just for myself. I was writing music that I wanted to record. I'd stay up late writing chamber pieces, pop pieces, whatever. I was always thinking about how the recording would sound. After recording myself, I offered to help friends. I recorded Composition Class projects. Arranging Class projects. A roommate's musical. I remember when I bought my first condenser mics, MXL 990s. Mind blown! And when I bought my first serious preamp, the PreSonus ADL600. It was worth more than my car.

My first clients were other students and a few professors. I recorded my first paid recital for $20. The pianist ran into me drunk on her last day of classes: "The recording was so good. I should have paid you more." Later I recorded recitals for $75. When I eventually had the ability to record four tracks, but folks didn't want to pay $100 outright when I felt it would be necessary, I would record extra channels (at no cost), send them a test mix, and ask if they would like to add the extra channel(s) for $25. They would say yes. My first shows outside of university were high school concerts I begged to record. Then a youth concert for Virginia's only professional vocal ensemble. After comparing the recording to the other professional recordings they received from other concerts, they asked me to record their subsequent seasons (until they almost folded).

Setting rates was an evolution. Eventually, it became too expensive to work in an office if I had to turn down recordings. Later, I couldn't take a $350 recording if it meant turning down $750 recordings. Then, I couldn't take $750 recordings if it meant turning down $1500 and $3500 recordings. All income went back to the business.

I wrote classical recording engineers in DC, Virginia, and Maryland offering to assist, carry cases, cover gigs. Nothing. Every ensemble said "We already have a guy." And it's true: everyone already had a guy. After first living in the DC area, it took me three years before I got my first recording in the District. A soloist had botched an opening night performance and was too embarrassed to ask the engineer from the night before to record the second performance. When I wasn't recording, I was being paid to listen to and commercial recordings of classical, jazz, and world music.

Anytime I had an opportunity to record, I wanted to make the recording sound better than any recording they'd had before. I found performers and directors who cared about the differences, and I eventually had more work than I can handle, even full-time. In 2014, I joined "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, serving with two other remote recording professionals. Since that time, a great team of engineers has stepped up Arts Laureate. We've been able to record many beautiful concerts, fantastic CD projects, major symphonies across the US, cool summer programs, special recitals, etc. DC, LA, Chicago, NYC, Seattle, Texas, Massachusetts, Tennessee, wherever. After eight years, I'd like to think we've got some street cred: a gangsta crew, substantial mic locker, cutting edge gear, forum infractions, sexy pictures, hot dance moves, public radio broadcasts, top secret archives, and flaking Sennheiser paint. "Oh, and John Williams hit this microphone with his baton."

Big shout out to the team at Arts Laureate, some of whom you'll find here GS, as well as the other slutz I've had a chance to work with or meet around the US. If you want to follow what we're up to, we're on Facebook posting cool photos and videos. The Marine Band streams chamber concerts live and also posts some incredible concert and session recordings on YouTube.

Well, since you've seen fit to restart this thread...

I've always loved classical music - my parents told me I was putting on LPs of Smetana operas and Dvorak symphonies at age 4. In fifth grade my folks got a Grundig mono half-track reel-to-reel - I was hooked.
By the time I got to high school I was known as the guy to go to to fix anything electronic - I did a few demo tapes for basically cost of tape w/cheap Sony electrets and a Sony TC352.

Then I struck gold (literally) - I won the Shure Co-op Scholarship. This landed me two years tuition to Northwestern University to study engineering and three years of co-op as a technician at Shure. I was on the development teams for the long-defunct SM-59, the far from defunct SM-81, and the V15-IV.

Northwestern built Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in 1977 and I joined the original recording staff. Northwestern did not record student recitals, so students had to hire independents. A surprising number of people got their start this way - myself, Plush, Chris Willis (CSO), Vic Muenzer among others. I charged cost of tape plus $20 until I got my Soundfield - then my price doubled. I started recording private students of faculty members, chamber concerts by those same faculty members, then concerts by the other members of those chamber ensembles. Contract gigs for WFMT followed, and Dick Mintel hired me as staff recordist for Music of the Baroque. I eventually joined Vic Muenzer, Chris Willis, and Larry Rock at Classic Digital and got to do classical music for a living.

Then in 1992 I got married. Since my wife made 2x what I did, that meant moving to Philadelphia and starting over. I've had non-audio engineering as a day gig ever since; evenings and weekends I mostly do subcontracting to the "big names" around town. (I explicitly told them I had no desire to deprive them of their living, which got me a lot of good will at the start.) I charge enough to pay for new gear plus netting $5-10 grand a year. I record everything from middle school bands and choirs to members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's a weird position, but the music is great and my clients are happy!

Kick ass, Rudy!

Likewise, Plush! (For those of you who have never met Hudson and think his style is kind of, well, abrasive: keep in mind that he decided very early on that if he was going to be in this business he was going to make a comfortable living at it. Part of that was developing an image, and part of that image is being something of a prima donna. Don't take it personally - I'm (pretty) sure he doesn't!)

I don't think I'm a prima Donna, really. For sure I am always an advocate for quality.

Ohhh so Hudson's like the Lady Gaga of remote recording! Makes total sense now

-Mike

First of I all I know that there are proper remotesters like Plush and Norse Horse who make a living at it, but I think the category also includes home recordists who strive to make proper recordings of their own musical performances, and learn from their mistakes.

My formative years, from age zero to ten, were spent living in isolated pulp and paper towns in the province of Quebec. In the late 1950s/early 1960s my father acquired a fairly posh looking stereo tape deck, model Philips EL 3536 A, with a built-in speakers, and a plastic dynamic stereo mic. He also built various hand wired components, and had a cabinet maker build a singleton folded horn for a Wharfedale loudspeaker, with satellite stereo extension speakers. So there is some fatherly influence, on this area of interest, but in fact, he didn't want his son breaking his toys, so I was encouraged to get my own gear when the time was right.

In my late teens, early twenties, from the mid-seventies to the 1980s, I began collecting hifi gear, and I insisted in finding a stereo cassette deck with microphone inputs -- so that I could make my own recordings to track my progress in learning how to play the guitar, and to record my jam sessions with my friends. On one of my cycling trips around the West Island, of Montreal, I discovered a hi-fi repair shop that was an authorized dealer for Beyer microphones. I studied the Beyerdynamic catalogue with the intensity that one might use on legal or religious text, and I selected a pair of Beyer Soundstar mics -- which seemed to have a wide range of applications.

In turned out that with the pair of Soundstar mics, wired up with 1/4 phono jacks, I had the perfect rig for recording our little jam sessions. I was fixated on playing lead guitar on my acoustic guitar, my late friend George was our best rhythm guitar and singer, our tone deaf yet very scholastic singer Mike sang in a Lou Reed way, while our Irish buddy Brendan played with actual drumsticks on an empty beer case.

At a certain point I mounted the mics on the ceiling. This avoided any interference from the foot stomping and field hollers. Despite the limitations of the cassette format the recordings turned out quite well, very well blended, but I had to stop myself from getting carried away on the guitar and jazz violin. The first our gang to get married got a batch of our jam tapes as a wedding present.

This formative experience, recording sessions while trying to play an instrument, or sing, or do both at the same time, steered me into the category of live music, and for some reason I'm repulsed at doing sound on sound, or Steely Dan type of recordings. Our heroes were Bob Dylan and the Band, and in our own minds, we were doing a remote, or suburban copy of The Basement Tapes, but in fact the jams occurred in my bedroom.

Most of my interest, in music, lies in trying to sound half decent, and to use the recording process as a documentary medium. I have never been interested in supplying a recording service. But the idea of recording live performances, even rehearsals is truer to my ideas than attempting to be a home studio. There is a remote possibility that I'm becoming a better musician, but there's a distinct possibility that music is a money pit, or that I may be using music as a form of naive therapy.

I started out doing recordings of my college music programs. It was 1972 at College of the Canyons in Valencia, CA, next door to Cal Arts. I also played guitar in the jazz stage band and worked in the AV dept.

I had my Akai 2 track reel to reel and a small 6 channel Sony mixer. The band leader's wife worked over at near by Century Records so we got pressings done for free. Then I graduated to Cal State Northridge and ended up teaching audio in the TV/Film dept. and also recording productions there.

After school it was on to other stuff like building fancy guitars with Rex Bogue, doing circuits for Frank Zappa, touring with Stevie Wonder and other fun stuff.

That's cool that you started out composing music. Are you still doing composing? It would be nice to hear your music if you feel like posting a clip.

I believe Christian has moved on to other things since, but it’s great that (despite recent appalling federal misjudgement…see below) the ideals of the US Marine Band continues, and will ultimately prevail….after all, presidents will come and go, but the Marine Band carries on.

https://youtu.be/lhwS06U1SnA?si=675RmT7nB2CncTHo

PS…..here’s the full concert:
https://youtu.be/E48GgDX2NCA?si=ItGS7kaZGkhVsvaK

I started recording at school, with an Akai RTR and a pair of cheapo omnis. My first gig was recording a part-time pro jazz band a teacher played in. We stuck the two PA mikes through the Akai and on to the actual PA. They moved the mikes a lot but since they were only on the quieter things the balance was good, and mixed down to mono fairly well. One Mike was a Grampian, the other a Vortexion.

After school I bought a NEAL cassette deck and recorded a few concerts with borrowed mikes.

Years later I got a bit more Involved and got some recognisable digital gear and carried on recording concerts of bands I was involved with. In the early 2000s I was asked to record a series of recitals, mainly organ, in connection with a lottery grant project to renovate a Conacher organ. I got fairly OK expenses and the recordings weren’t bad considering my lack of skill and gear then. By the time I’d recorded them all, I’d upgraded a lot of gear and had some idea of what I was doing. But then I got busier with family, conducting and SR for wind bands and orchestras outdoors so I put recording on hold until I retired a couple of years back.

I’m starting all over again and soon will be ready to seek stuff to record. As before, I’ll record what I fancy doing and eventually somebody will start asking me to do other stuff. I’m quite happy to be paid, but I’ll ask to record concerts for my own pleasure and arrange with the performers anything they want on top. At my age, I need to avoid starting a full-blown business!