Originally Posted by nat8808 ➡️

Personally I would look to work on this side of things first, like seeing how you can go freelance in some similar line of work.

Transitioning to self-motivated work is a step in itself .. so probably best to get that down without them entering a completely new field of work too .

I couldn't hack a 9-5 either and felt.. yep existential dread, depression . In cycles I drifted getting in later and later until I was rocking up at 11 doing an 11-7 Until a reset after words were had .. and repeat. Until I went and did lower paid pracatical work in events, crewing. Then suddenly all the dread went away (replaced with poverty haha.. ).

Now I'm a freelance carpenter on corporate events earning good money and have time/money to rent a large ish studio space I could easily turn into a place of work (not for recording bands though)

Not to follow my example, but a freelance job you can fit studio stuff around I think is a good safety net.. and then you can jump full time to studio stuff later.

Originally Posted by AVSC ➡️

Spend no money up front.

Invest money that comes in back into business.

Before start research the market where you are. No rivals?

For me the space and you are what I would look at. I don't expect you to have a vintage Neve and thus not charging £1500 a day. As long as things work and session flow is good.

See if there is a regular client you can get.

Remember regular business can be had away from the "cool" side of the business. For example Birdwatchers used to pay my bills...

Tough business to be in, but I get your need to break away from "the man".

Originally Posted by bill5 ➡️

Unfortunately I agree that this is not a good idea and you may have to spend a lot of money and go through a lot of stress and serious lack of money to pay the bills before realizing it's not a good idea. But if you try it, I hope you prove me wrong. Oh, and if I were you I'd learn and use Pro Tools...apparently that "industry standard" crap is still very much around and musicians are ignorant enough to think it matters, despite many other DAWs that can do what it does as well if not better for far less money.

Originally Posted by kslight ➡️

I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue your dreams, but for context I used to have a commercial studio (shared with a couple other people because I can’t quit my day job) and have done various freelance work off and on as an engineer (at studio, or bringing my equipment to a location, mixing, producing, composing for film, etc) since the mid 00s.

In my experience bands have less money every day, everyone already knows someone, bands with label support will 100% of the time be going to a big name studio with a big name engineer, and if you do find steady work you’ll need to do twice as much of it to make half as much as you do today. I found it unsustainable to make enough money to simultaneously pay rent / business costs and pay myself a reasonable wage - why I quit having the physical studio.

The best way to meet bands is at the local shows. You probably will not get to record shows simply because almost every modest concert venue has a desk capable of recording already, it’s just not a value added service anymore. Disappointing because I used to enjoy this a lot, but I sold my location recording rack when I saw the writing on the wall.

But if you want to proceed, my suggestion is that you need to separate yourself - what do you have to offer that the next guys do not? What makes you worth paying for (as most bands to some capacity can work at home for free)? That TO ME means a great space, experience, personality and above average - pro level equipment. If you don’t have all of that, then you need to make friends with existing studios and see if anyone will cut you a break on studio time blocks or take you under their wing if you promise to bring in paying bands. I would not chase spending $$$$ on your own equipment without the first three.