Back in 2001, when Recording Studio Experiences were just a twinkle in the eye of the studio manager, we at the Beehouse were advertising on one of our websites for trainees to come and carry our some recording studio experience. A year later we were besieged by members of the public looking to come and record a variety of amateur and semi-professional projects direct with the studio.
The
Recording Studio Experience revolution took us all by surprise.
Recording studios have never, despite the imagery, been
glamorous environments; nonetheless to the musical they are compelling, which is why so many of us work long hard hours to remain in the recording studio when we could be earning much better money as teachers, council employees or accountants.
After a year or two of being one of only a handful of studios to offer the recording studio experience, we realised that there were certainly several different types of experience perceived by the general public. The first was the
pop star experience , where the majority of takers would be young women between the age of 16 and 35, with the occasional semi professional male singer. These customers would often treat the experience as a glamorous day out, arriving dressed up, and requiring to sing a range of the latest tracks in the charts.
Then, we would have the
singer songwriter experience, where the participant would arrive with guitar, to perform a large number of well known songs and one or two of his or her own. We still do quite a few of these today.
There would then be the
music production experience. These have always been predominantly male, and often involve someone who has worked privately on his own projects for a long while, and has reached the limit of what he can do without help. Sometimes such experience customers are intending to go on to a studio career, and are looking for encouragement and pointers.
My personal favourite is the
songwriter experience . During this session, we work with a potential songwriter on one of her or his ideas. Sometimes we start from a tune, with melody and harmony, if the songwriter can play an instrument. more often than not, though we interpret the
tunes and lyrics of the songwriter and add harmonies as we go, with the writer agreeing them or trying to explain what he or she wants . This experience is sought after in equal proportions by men and women. Some can sing, some have a singer brought in. Our latest two candidates arrived with no lyrics to speak of, no tunes, no harmonies and just an idea of an emotion and one or two words. Selfishly, we have a lot of fun in these cases, since we are essentially totally involved in the creative process, and cannot escape some degree of satisfaction as the track progresses to a fully fledged recording. We do this in five hours, so the adrenalin is added to the equation.
Beyond this we have a music experience, such as "
bass guitar experience" or "
cello experience" where customers record their achievements, often in a highly creative and individual way. The
piano experience is also very popular and turns out some very creative results, venturing into jazz, classical, pop and other genres. The studio has a very good acoustic piano, as well as
several electric pianos with weighted keyboards, which have the advantage of midi output - they can be converted into your chosen style of piano at a later stage. We also provide a
guitar recording experience with hardware which again enables the player to select styles after the recording is made.
Nowadays competition is much keener, petrol is much more expensive, and the recording studio experience customers are drawn more from the immediately surrounding areas of
Powys, Shropshire, Cheshire and the Midlands and Wales. The customer knows more about what he/she is looking for, and the product has been taken up by many hundreds of both large and small businesses. Nonetheless the thrill is still there, particularly on those very special days when a fantastic singer, a virtuoso guitarist, a spellbinding lyricist or songwriter, and sometimes all three in one body - walks into the studios and makes a very special recording. that is when the day becomes our
recording studio experience too.
