{"id":19,"date":"2011-02-03T18:52:44","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T02:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saundhaus.com\/site\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2013-06-25T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T00:36:18","slug":"audio-for-the-masses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/?page_id=19","title":{"rendered":"Audio For The Masses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>by\u00a0Eric Kauschen, Founder, saundhaus<\/p>\n

Technology\u00a0is a beautiful thing. I remember getting my first portastudio about 30 years ago. It let you plug in 4-1\/4″ phone plugs and record 50-15khz\u00a0audio on to a cassette. The sound wasn’t the best, but at $500 it gave\u00a0me the power to be my own recording studio. I couldn’t do much with the\u00a0tapes and mixing these tapes down to another cassette gave you audio that\u00a0would make you cringe by today’s standards but it started something.<\/p>\n

Fast\u00a0forward 30 years to today. I sit at home in my little studio that has grown\u00a0over the years. I’ve added new keyboards and effects units and my little portastudio has been replaced by a computer. Yes,\u00a0a computer. Instead of the lo-fi portastudio, today I record digitally\u00a0direct to hard disc, mix, master and can burn a CD right at home. Only\u00a0about 20 years ago you would have needed close to $500k in a large studio\u00a0to do the same thing. My whole system for recording has cost me less than\u00a0$2500 and I have 64 tracks of 24 bit digital audio at my fingertips and\u00a0I can still use the computer for other tasks. Say it with me, technology\u00a0can be beautiful. In the original version of the article the cost was $5000, and I had 24 tracks at 16bit.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0rapid increase in advancing technology has lowered the price of recording\u00a0to a point where it is quite affordable to the masses. Now someone can\u00a0pick up a computer with simple RCA audio inputs, a 4-track portastudio-like\u00a0program and a CD burner and create their own CD’s for less than $1000 [I’m talking about the Mac that comes with garageband built in].\u00a0The audio isn’t going to be the same as what you get in a top flight studio,\u00a0but it’s significantly better than the original portastudio and better than most of the albums recorded in the ’60’s and ’70’s. If you\u00a0already have a computer you can add professional multitrack digital capabilities with\u00a0midi sequencing and effects processors for under $1000.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0what does throwing around all these numbers mean in the long run? Empowerment.\u00a0When I was in a working band we spent huge sums of money recording demos\u00a0and putting together press kits and sending them out to record companies\u00a0who consistantly rejected them. In the end we were out several thousands\u00a0of dollars with nothing to show for it. If we had been picked up by a\u00a0label we could have looked at even more money spent and if the album did\u00a0really well when all the royalties were figured out we might have made\u00a05% on each CD sold. Wow, break out the champagne.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0I’m fully in control of the whole process. I am my own record label. I\u00a0get to decide when and where a CD is released, I have complete control\u00a0of the packaging and what songs go on to it. I also don’t have to deal\u00a0with record company management telling me that the third cut isn’t commercially\u00a0viable enough. On top of all this, I get to keep 60% from the sale of\u00a0each CD. The thought of selling 1,000,000+ CD’s sounds inviting, but the\u00a0personal cost is too high. The record companies are aware of this and\u00a0they are nervous. I’ve already seen a shift in the past ten years from\u00a0bands being signed by a label and recording an album for the label to\u00a0a band producing it’s own album and having the record company distribute\u00a0it for a cut. Many indie labels were started this way. With today’s technology\u00a0though an artist can completely bypass the record labels and use what\u00a0would have been the record companies cut to cover marketing costs. In an update to all this there are now companies that will print your CD’s on demand or have them put out through iTunes as well as many other online music sites. The payouts are very good and all you have to do is the marketing. They’ll distribute your CD’s through Amazon.com and even get them into retail stores at no cost to you what so ever.<\/p>\n

Now\u00a0all of this doesn’t mean that you have talent or that anyone else is going\u00a0to want to hear your music, but it does mean that more and varied types\u00a0of music will become available and the record companies won’t be able\u00a0to control what the public has access to. In the grand scheme of things this is wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Eric Kauschen, Founder, saundhaus Technology\u00a0is a beautiful thing. I remember getting my first portastudio about 30 years ago. It let you plug in 4-1\/4″ phone plugs and record 50-15khz\u00a0audio on to a cassette. The sound wasn’t the best, but at $500 it gave\u00a0me the power to be my own recording studio. I couldn’t do much … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152,"parent":22,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions\/170"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saundhaus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}