A new studio just opened up a few miles from myne!

  • Thread starter Thread starter wjgypsy
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I'm pretty good at photo shop. I'm going to look on all of the computers in the house and see if they have FrontPage 2002. Freeservers says taht that's the software that you need to be able to create your own site. The one i'm on right now dosn't but i'm going to look on the other ones.


Mikeh-I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to get 100 or so bizz cards printed up. There's a place in my town down on Depot. St. that's called "The Dog House" they have country and rock bands every week. So if i'm setting there and i like the band, after the show i will meet with them to give them my biz card.


Z
 
i say you should be trying to get down to atlanta, and try to get plugged in there.

sell your place as a country retreat.

by the way, my parents have a house in jasper, which is sort of close to you (45 minutes west?). real pretty place to live. great bbq.


anyway, i wouldnt worry too much. considering your age, you are doing quite well.

the fact that you even run a business at your age is pretty amazing, and i am sure that you will be great at it in a few years....
 
I havent read all of the replies yet Zeke ,but in a small town it all comes down to word of mouth in the "Music Community"....if word gets out to all the garage bands and karyoke kings and queens in your area that you CAN produce a QUALITY demo,then you'll start to see more people coming in.

You gotta have a finished product to show what you can do and you'll need a little help from the people that you record.They're the ones who will spread your name throughout the little music community in your area.
 
All of thie advice in this thread is good... and Zeke, your entreprenurial spirit and drive is excellent and will serve you well all your life... BUT... before you even worry about the business aspects of running even a small demo-studio, don't you think you should be spending more time in learning the craft BEFORE you try to make money at it?

Honestly! Spend the time now to hone your skills, really understand your equipment and how to get the best out of it, practice a lot of recording techniques, and then, in a couple of years, you'll be in a much better position to provide a valuable service to clients. Plus you'll have built-up confidence in your skills founded on experimentation. As well - you'll very likely have improved your gear list too.

Right now - if someone comes in, it's going to be luck-of-the-draw as to the end result -- they're essentially paying for your experimentation - and it will show - in the way the session runs, in your attitude and in the final result. And it's quite likely the client won't be satisified... which is good for neither your confidence, nor your business reputation.... word of mouth can either be good or bad, and negative feedback travels a lot more quickly than positive feedback.

I'm not trying to be rude - but if you're spending all your time trying to get clients - then you're not spending time working on the areas you SHOULD be working on - recording techniques. Get your skills up, THEN you will have a much easier time selling your business value to potential clients.

Walk before you run.... you'll need patience - because you want to "jump right in", but that's not a very rational way of approaching a business.
 
Perhaps the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Zeke, if you post an mp3 of your work we can at least assess it's quality to determine whether it is indeed that side of things that needs improvement.
 
Alchemist... I have heard some of his clips -- he's got some of the basics, but IMO - still pretty far from being able to provide professional product for clients from a business perspective.

If all he's going to do is his friends and neighbors for fun, experimentation and a little side-money, then he's good to go... but in this thread he's talking about competing with better and more equipped studios, advertising, business cards... which, from what I can see, is trying to jump before he can walk!

I'm not trying to diminish his dream -- I think it's great that he's so motivated - like I said it will get him far. BUT that doesn't mean he should rush it either -- for any business to be successful, you need goals and a plan of how to get there. You don't simply buy some gear, throw it in a room, take some pictures and put up a website and call that a business - expecting clients to flock right in!


Zeke... it takes a lot of effort simply to support the business alone (marketing, advertising, etc...) -- not even counting the engineering and producing product that your clients are paying you for!!!

What I'm suggesting is you concentrate your efforts on the most important aspects FIRST (recording skills), THEN once those are in place, you have more time to seriously develop a business.

And I'm not suggesting you stop your "business" --- just limit the scope of it to school buddies and friends, rather than try to take-on the general public -- I'm talking about the scale of your "business activity" here.

Trying to do both simultaneously, along with school, friends, and family obligations, will simply make your path to success that much longer because you're spreading your efforts out too thinly by rushing into areas you're not prepared for (yet!)

Just some stuff for you to seriously think about....!
 
ZEKE SAYER said:
There's a place in my town down on Depot. St. that's called "The Dog House" they have country and rock bands every week. So if i'm setting there and i like the band, after the show i will meet with them to give them my biz card.
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Be careful of places named "The Dog House"! ;) Like Bear says, work on your craft...you are young. Once you are completely confident (right now you have tons of Q's), go check out those bands and tell them all about your service with pride!
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Alchemist... I have heard some of his clips -- he's got some of the basics, but IMO - still pretty far from being able to provide professional product for clients from a business perspective.
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Having listened to the tracks as best I can on my dial-up connection (groan) I totally agree. The quality is promising for a young enthusiast but not quite at the standard yet where you can be said to provide professional quality results. As BBS said, and he's right more often than not, if you're recording friends or local bands in order to hone your skills then that's fine but you can't really hold yourself out to be a 'professional studio' at this point in time.

No doubt in the future you'll look back and have a wry smile to yourself about your humble beginnings...
 
I'm not trying to put out a Pro studio. I figure you at least have to have 10 years of GOOD exper. before you can even call your self "Pro". Thanks for criticing my work :)

About the website thing, I've got a great new design taht is ready but i can get it to up load. I've got some shitty web software that came with the computer. I thought taht my computer (HP, windows ME) should have a up to date version of FrontPage Express. I've used it on win 98, but that edition was just to old and out of date to use on my new site. I've got a friend of myne that is looking on his computers for it so keep your fingers crossed!
 
zeke

listen to blue bear's advice. The man has given you some valuable information. Forget about the website ( unless you just want it for shits and giggles ) and really start working on your craft.
 
One more thing -- nothing screams "amateur" like poor spelling and grammar.... and with tools like spell-checkers available, there's no excuse!
 
Thanks bb. I think i'm going to have to buy Mic. Frontpage express 2002. my friend e-mailed me back and said that he did not have it.

Thanks for all your help

Z
 
ZEKE SAYER said:

About the website thing, I've got a great new design taht is ready but i can get it to up load. I've got some shitty web software that came with the computer. I thought taht my computer (HP, windows ME) should have a up to date version of FrontPage Express. I've used it on win 98, but that edition was just to old and out of date to use on my new site. I've got a friend of myne that is looking on his computers for it so keep your fingers crossed!
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Check out this webpage editor:
http://www.coolpage.com/cpg.html

It's a drag and drop editor so you dont have to know how html works.It's a fully functional html editor also if you do now how to write code.I've been using it for awhile on my christmas site and it works really well......you can get a free version of it but you will have to post a small coolpage logo on each page you build with it....I bought the Cool Page Standard verison for $28.00........worth every penny.
 
Thanks Kramer! Looks like some good software! I'm dowloading it right now and if i like it i might buy the full version!

Zeke
 
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