Live On Location Recording
When I started this business I didn’t know that I was supposed to learn how to run live sound (Front of House) BEFORE trying anything as daring as live recording. I just kinda jumped in, following the same thought process that made me a bass player: “I know they need guys to do this. Everybody else is either playing guitar or drums. I’ll take the bass.”
“I know they need guys to do this.” - I saw a need for someone to handle live recording for local talent. The BIG acts with BIG bucks could bring in BIG crews to run sound and handle recording, etc. The not-so-big acts didn’t really have access to this kind of service. If they wanted a live recording, they got somebody with a hand-held to help out, or threw a couple of mics up in the audience and copied the house mix. Hey, you do the best you can, with what you have at the time, right?
“Everybody else is either playing guitar or drums.” - The people I knew (admittedly few) in this business at that time were all running Front of House and / or struggling at trying to keep a studio up and running. Nobody had time, or was willing to commit the money required, to get set up for live multitrack recording. Well, I was new and there weren’t enough jobs out there at Front of House or Studio Production levels. I needed a way in, so ..
“I’ll take the bass.” - I started seriously looking at the community. I was getting ready to put my last dime into this and, as much as I wanted to believe there was a market for ‘live on location’ recording, I had to be as sure as possible. So I started doing it. I mean, I threw together enough of a rig to capture some sound and went to work.
Maybe ‘went to work’ is a little bold. The term ‘work’ implies one has some kind of job. I didn’t. I was doing this on my own, nobody hired me. I just wheeled my stuff in, set up, and started recording.
At first I was totally ignored. “Ok”, I thought “that’s to be expected.” Eventually there was some curiousity. People started noticing me: I’m wheeling all this gear in, I’m setting up mics, I’m sitting there with the cans (headphones) on, all wired up and obviously up to something. So people asked: “Who’s this guy and what the hell is he doing?”
That’s how I got started. I’d grab a couple of guys after they finished thier set, throw the cans on them and get them to listen to what I had just done. I was mixing and recording at the same time, guerilla stuff, so that I had something halfway decent for them to listen to. It took months of showing up, setting up, and some nights screwing up, before I got any real interest. Eventually, I sold a few recordings to local bands, but nothing much. It was almost a novelty ..
Then, a really good band out of Grand Rapids MI, Sweet Japonic, filled a last-minute spot at The Small Planet. I recorded thier set, mixing as I was going, and decided it was time. I played that recording back through the house PA. They bought the recording, told me they couldn’t believe I got that recording out of a live set, and cemented my belief that I was on the right track.
A couple of months later, Lochabar Sound was official.