Studio

So for the album I had a choice of renting studio time or doing it myself. My mentor, Michael Thomson, encouraged taking the money you would otherwise pay to someone else and putting that toward equipment and learn how to do it yourself, so that's what I did. I did my research and if you really look into it, the software today is so good that anyone can put together a decent studio themselves for a reasonable price. If your wondering what the "pros" use, it is protools HD, which although protools is a great program, it is really their hardware that makes it so good.
Anyways, Outkast recorded in a shower and I built this:


As you can see there are 7 panels and a mic stand inside. The panels are made from PVC and wood with stuffing in the middle and fake suede on the outside. Thanks to Chris Ruge and my parents for helping me put them together. Inside is sound foam, which is just foam cut into cool little shapes that reflect sound waves in a good way. (for physics majors: they make things quieter by slowing down the sound waves) I originally made panels for a door as well, but it turned out we didn't need it.
The picture on top is of my desk. It is extremely messy and normally I have my keyboard against the back wall and the monitors sit on the white foam and point out. I had taken down my keyboard to jam with John Hill when he came over. Vince P was also making beats on it over the weekend. I knew Vince from school and while at school he was working with Juelz Santana (I didn't even know at the time). Anyways, he's a master marketer and has some of his songs on rotation on the radio (B96, Kiss FM, etc).

My keyboard is a Motif ES6 (Yamaha) and is amazing. I use Cubase SE (a cheap but decent program, I will upgrade to ProTools HD at some point). I have an AT4050 large diaphragm mic and a firebox preamp. Otherwise it's just musicianship that makes the music. I recorded John Hill's "All for Nothing", which will be on ITunes in December, right here. We'll also have a live version out on YouTube shortly. It's a great song and you'll want to buy it. So that's where everything was written, recorded, mixed, and produced. Disclaimer * we mastered at MT's studio. So, when your listening to "The ABC's" which you bought/downloaded off of RelevantBeats.com just think how such a professional done album was created in a studio built by hand.

One Love