What made you do it?

[SaraLs]

When I was a child, I would play with stuffed animals and rip old radios apart. I'd also collect various speaker drivers and assemble "speaker systems". I could be found, often, on the floor in front of my parent's record player, listening to marching bands and Beethoven, all the while trying to figure out what was wrong with the sound.

I tried to learn an instrument in junior high - bah, I'm not a musician! But, I discovered I had a knack for emulating what I heard live when running the dinky PA systems for some of the local garage bands!

In college, I started out going for a teaching degree (history), then I found theater. Not as an actress, but as a technician. I was "steered" towards set design, lighting design, and costume design, but that didn't work for me. Stage electronics, stage craft, and AUDIO did! When someone mentioned sound for a play, I positively lit up!

After school I toured with several off (off-off) broadway shows as the FOH engineer.

Many years ago, that knack for emulating what I heard live in various spaces took over and I turned my attention to location recording. I met various obstacles (one was my career, not in pro audio), so I made some compromises and decided that being a small scale, part time, local "recordist" worked the best for me. And, it kept me somewhat busy!

A couple of years ago, I got wind of a person who was giving up recording, and I bought up a lot of the gear that was being sold by them. They even gave me the name of the company, but I don't use it. I pared down that gear (it was really kind of hoge-poge) to what I like the sound of, and let the rest go.

And now, here (hear!) I am! I'm not terribly busy, I don't do it for a living, I'm not trying to "shake the world" nor am I terribly opinionated. However, I do what I like to do, and what I know works. I have a happy (but poor!) client base, and that makes me happy. Also, recording, along with bicycles and triathlon, keeps me sane and grounded.

My story, and I'm sticking to it!

[RinR]

I used to run open mics at my little project studio and decided to start recording them with the gear that was lying dormant in the corner. Eventually I started realizing that I had a nack for mic placement and organization in a live setting and fell in love with the concept of capturing a performance in a single take and not overdubbing for days on end. I started gigging here and there and have gradually expanded my set up to facilitate a decent sized track count and video production which for me seals the deal. Probably one of the biggest things that kicked my affinity for live multitrack recording into high gear was watching Valient Thorr's In Heat DVD that essentially documented their last 5 years of touring. As a documentary the film was excellent but from a sonic standpoint sounded like absolute balls as the audio feeds came right off the cameras for every show on the flick.

[Richard King]

Great thread.

After college I worked in the securities industry until the market turned bad in about 1973. I had always been curious about sound and electronics, so, I signed up at a local trade school in Minneapolis (Brown Institute) for their 2 year electronics technology program, including 3 months of audio technology which included time in their 4 track 1/2" Ampex studio. After going through the class I was hired by the school to teach the studio lab portion of the audio class. I taught in exchange for studio time. I would then sell the time to bands needing demo tapes or records done. Gradually I added to my own meager equipment, purchasing a Teac 3340 and eventually a Tascam 80-8. I used to haul those machines and assorted mixers around in the back of my 1972 Datsun 510 station wagon to record local bands (and the occasional national act passing through town). After a few years I got hired away from myself by my equipment supplier. I sold all my "stuff" so that I couldn't compete with my customers and went on to design and sell pro audio systems for all markets, including studio. In 1984 I got to design, wire and install a 24 track rental system for one of my customers to use in his rehearsal space for a "special project" he had started working on. The "special project" ended up being called "Purple Rain" and went on to sell over 13 million copies of the soundtrack album. The customer was Prince.

Roll ahead 30+ years from my last location session and I have decided I am going to be a remote recording engineer when I grow up. In the past couple of years I've picked up some gear (much of it used) and started recording a few bands in and around Vero Beach, Fl, where I live now. It's amazing what capabilities can fit in an eight space rack in the back of my Hyundai Santa Fe compared to what I used to cram in the back of my Datsun station wagon.

Here are a couple of songs from 1976-77 period, the first is a 4 track session, the second, eight track. The geezers among us will know the second song and artist.
It Doesn't Matter/Rock n Roll Woman - Cooper Street Band (1976) by Richard King on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy (recorded in 1976) by Richard King on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

And, a couple of more recent stuff, both from last month:
Voodoo - Run Through the Jungle - Recorded Feb 3, 2011 by Richard King on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
The Escape Artist .... Ants Marching - Long Train Runnin' medley by Richard King on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

I loved doing location work in the "old days" and still love doing it today. I only wish that I could be kept busier and actually make a living at it. I did make a living at it in Minneapolis, but, this is a much smaller market with a much smaller music scene. I think my attraction to location recording must have something to do with being able to see some rather immediate results.

The old studio:
studio old.jpg photo - Richard King photos at pbase.com
Me running the old location rig:
scan0009.jpg photo - Richard King photos at pbase.com
The new rig:
IMG_9486resize.jpg photo - Richard King photos at pbase.com

[rcrowley]

I was in high-school in the mid 1960s and had been interested in electronics and music for many years. I put the two together and bought my first recorder (Sony TC-250) and microphones (three Sony ECM-22). I was (and still am) involved with several choral groups.

I now am the technical director for a large festival chorus which has been doing several international tours and recording several other large groups, also. My Alesis HD24 died on our last trip to Romania (shaken to death as checked baggage on KLM/Delta) and I just replaced it with a JoeCo BBR-1. As soon as I make new cables to interface to my SP828 preamps, I will be back in business. I am also researching a good mic preamp circuit to build another 16 channels.

Because of the sorry state of audio for video, I got into video about 20 years ago and I now have a 4-camera digital HD live-switch production unit with Sony EX and XD cameras, switching with a Panasonic AW-HS50 and recording to AJA KiPro and Panasonic AG_HMR10.

These are all extra-curricular as my day job is engineer at Intel Corp.

[Jim Williams]

I got my first deck, a Sony 250 in 1965. Later I got an Akai deck and used that in college. I recorded the college music productions and stage band where I was the guitarist.

It went everywhere as I used a 6 channel Sony mixer and those ECM mics. Then it was the new 3340 Teac 4 track in 1973.

Nothing made me do it, I just like it. Stevie Wonder, Mel Torme', Frank Zappa and others made it interesting.

It beats torturing small animals.

[7rojo7]

I love music.
I make it, I record it.
It has brought me knowledge.
It has brought me disgrace.
Like any other passion, it has brought me depth.
I started by playing, I understand what a musician needs to feel while creating: Nothing lost.
I wish that while I'm performing and someone else is recording that they could apply the same rule to me.
basic human courtesy.
luckily, I've performed and or created some beautiful things.
AMEN

[cjogo]

Use to bring a mono cassette recorder along , in the 70's -- trying to capture my band. Recorded at Heiders and got inspired by Wally's live rig/truck .. still tracking bands @ live venues & in several studios..

[Louisscruz]

I'm a composer. Recordings are a must for graduate applications, etc. I figured, why not get my own equipment and learn a new trade? Looking to learn - still new.