I became interested in recording audio about 33 Years ago. My father was an Opera singer and owned an old Ferrograph mono reel-to-reel tape recorder and a Simon Cadenza ribbon mic.
At around 14 years old I was allowed to use the equipment and started to make recordings I also became interested in electronics too and was soon building my own mixers and pre’s out of the valves and other parts of old TV sets. At 15 I started playing drums and formed a band with some school friends (like you do). I started to record the band and I guess that at that stage the bug had bit and I was hooked.
Over the years I continued to play in bands and had a couple of sound on sound studios as multitrack systems were way out of my price range. Although I would not recommend sound on sound systems these days, the process actually does teach a lot of discipline and gives a good grounding to the way that audio behaves when layered and mixed. I became interested in playing guitar and keyboards and had dabbled with this over the years. In about 1998 I formed a band in which I programmed backing tracks on a Roland MC50 this gave me a good grounding in MIDI, subsequently the band diminished into a duo which included my wife Jan and myself, we needed a demo so I purchased a Roland VS840 my first multi track recorder. I used the back room of our house as the control room and set up a mic in the front room for vocal takes. My wife and I would mess about saying “Ourgate Studios take five” (as in my gate or our house) and the name stuck, Ourgate Studios was born.
I continued to build on equipment over some 5 years and eventually had the dream of becoming professional. However, although I had been recording by now for well over thirty years I did not have all of the skills that I needed and was not qualified. Whilst being qualified does not guarantee that you are a great engineer or producer, it does show potential clients or employers that you are committed, prepared to work hard and can achieve. By shear luck after browsing Ebay I stumbled across Audio Courses. I found Chris very helpful and supportive right from my first enquiry, I felt that I needed to gain qualifications but also learn about the side of audio that I just had not got involved in. Audio Courses delivered on both counts. This was a steep learning curve which was great, and I found that when taking my exams I easily had all of the knowledge required to answer the questions on the papers. Having passed the exams I now felt that I was ready for new challenges out on the field putting my skills into practice.
Ourgate studios was by now complete and taking on quality projects. I was also able to negotiate and open a studio in Mijas Cost Del Sol Spain in conjunction with “The Music Factory Academy” which is doing well in these early stages. I also have built a 24 Track digital mobile facility for on location recording based on a Ramsa WR-DA7 MkII desk and Mackie SDR24/96 recorder. I hope to turn fully professional this year.
Thanks Chris and Ben, and the boyz from the “Billie Jean Cohort”
