Recording Boot Camp

There’s evolution in the air of home studios; there has been for some time. Some call it the 360 model; others the emergence of the truly DIY musician.

With the ever expanding cloud of new software and the rapidly evolving ‘new’ music industry, recording artists, wannabe engineers and home recording enthusiasts the world over are breaking operational and functional boundaries in an attempt to overcome the global recession and ‘cost’ of professional studios by recording quality music from the comfort of their own bedroom studio.

Yet there’s a gap.

There’s a gap between writing a great song and getting your great song heard.

And that gap is in the hands of the audio engineer.

Whilst we, the DIY army, are blessed with the availability and opportunity to get our hands on handy software such as Pro Tools, Logic or Cubase (and nowadays on some great vintage pro studio hardware) it is now nowhere near enough just to own such cool stuff. Before anything, we need to have an idea how to use it.

So what can we, as ambitious DIY musicians, do?

One option we have is to seek the advice and assistance of a professional audio engineer, at cost, as either an engineer or consultant. However, we’re trying to maximise the use of their time and, at the very least, save money by producing great bedroom demos so our ideas get understood in the meantime; should we decide to take our songs to Abbey Road.

We still need to be able to talk-the-talk.

Another option is to aspire to mastering the craft of mixing and engineering ourselves or getting some insider knowledge so we can ‘talk the talk’ (and again save time) when it comes to working with recording and mixing engineers and producers.

We could begin at a lower cost with good books. We could then look at more costly investments such as on-line courses. Then there are academic courses at various colleges and universities globally (higher cost) that claim to teach you almost all aspects of audio engineering, mixing and mastering. Yet it’s hard to gauge what your return on investment will be. All of these options require a serious time investment.

This is exactly where Ronan Chris Murphy comes in with Recording Boot Camp filling the gap for both musicians and those with a home studio engineering interest, who have some time and some money to invest, to improve their recording craft.

In addition to teaching recording boot camps in both Italy and L.A, as well as consulting throughout the year, Ronan works full time as a very in demand record producer, engineer and mixer.

Ronan has worked around the globe and in the last 20 years has worked with the likes of King Crimson (several albums), Steve Morse (Dixie Dreggs Deep Purple), Terry Bozzio (Zappa, Missing Persons), Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, John Lennon, Pink Floyd) as well as various projects featuring members of Tool, Ministry, Weezer, Dishwalla and Yes, to name but a few.

Sound good?

Having just finished up a season snowboarding and knocking out some quality food in La Rosiere, the temptation overcame me to hop over the border and join Ronan, with four other participants, in Vicenza, Italy at Abnegat Studios for a six day recording boot-camp.

At $1300 plus travel expenses the opportunity needed a little thought, however, was impressed that Ronan likes to give his potential students a call to check that their skill level is a match with which the boot camp is tailored.

Whilst I won’t be giving away any secrets, I will give you an insider taste of what to expect over the next few posts and hopefully a closer look at what we DIY musicians can gain (pun intended) from learning with an experienced industry professional.