Carl's Scrapbook: The 90s

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For about the first 4 or 5 years after I married Nancy Shafar in 1978, our bedroom was a small 2½ room out building located behind my parent's house in Auburndale, FL. This location would eventually house our home studio and be dubbed The OutHouse (i.e. the little house behind the house).

In about 1984, we started home recording using a four-track Clarion cassette recorder that belonged to guitarist and my best friend, Joe Spann. He bought the recorder and an Ace Tone drum machine, so that we could record custom tracks that we could play along with at Skeeters Big Biscuit restaurant in Winter Haven. It soon became obvious that we could also record demos of original songs and save quite a bit of money by not having to book studio time in actual recording studios. At first we just set it all up and recorded wherever it was convenient. I believe the first recordings we made were at Joe's house in his living room. That was also where we recorded my first home demo, "Brand New Me". I pitched the demo to Ricky Skaggs, and the pitch yielded an album cut on the "Country Boy" album.

Although the recorder itself was of excellent quality for the time, the drum machine was just some electronic sounds that sounded nothing like actual drums. The tracks were very simplistic and crude. The drummer had a selection of about a half-dozen patterns and that was it. We had to manually switch patterns (an analog knob) while recording the drums to the recorder in order to have any variation in the track.

It was probably late 1984 or early '85 when we managed to purchase a DrumTrax drum machine that actually had drum samples for sounds. This was an excellent machine for the time. It was also featured programmable patterns so the drums could be programmed to do actual licks and more complex styles. By this time, my wife and I had moved into the big house and converted our former bedroom house into a studio -- where the equipment could be left set up. During this period we still had no midi capabilities, so drums and keyboards (a mini Casio) were still recorded real-time onto the recorder. We recorded a Dizzy Rambler Band album during this period, but because of financial constraints were unable to do any duplication. The album was our version of a (sort of) poor man's Sgt. Pepper in that it was recorded on 4-tracks with many creative workarounds to get the job done. It was an invaluable learning experience. This version of the studio also produced a fair number of my songwriter demos including the Ricky Skaggs hit, "Love's Gonna Get You".

Carl doing guitar overdubs in the original OutHouse Studio in Auburndale, FL - 1994

A major equipment upgrade came sometime in late '87 or early '88, shortly after we had started working at Boardwalk & Baseball. We purchased a Tascam "238" 8-track cassette recorder, a Tascam M-216 mixing board, a couple of outboard effects units, a Tascam midi synchronizer, an Alesis HR-16 drum machine and MMT-8 midi recorder -- and soon thereafter a Roland RD series piano. This was a sweet combination of components that served us very well for several years. With this new equipment, our recordings started to take on a more polished and professional sound. The very first project I took on, for the new studio, was a pro bono album for my uncle, "Boots" Eubanks (then in his 70's), that was designed to help me learn my new equipment and the ins and outs of commercial recording. One of the first commercial projects (for pay) we did was for Canadian country singer and songwriter, Gary Halliday. Both of these projects were duplicated in cassette format.

Carl at the controls.

1990 brought the end of Boardwalk & Baseball and left us without a regular paycheck. The studio became one of our major sources of income and we actively sought projects. The biggest problem with trying to make the studio pay was that -- I was only one person and could never seem to turn out the projects fast enough to keep up with living expenses. It took too long for me to program the drums and keyboards, record the bass and rhythm guitar, then produce and record the vocalist (who was usually inexperienced in studio recording), then book, produce and record the various lead instruments and back-up vocals. Then the whole thing had to be mixed. It was not unusual to take several weeks to several months to complete a project and deliver it to the client. I just couldn't charge enough to make-up for the amount of time I was putting in on each project. I did better on one, two or three song projects than full albums. I always made sure that clients were aware that I was not always quick in product turn-around. Most of the time they were willing to give me all the time I needed to do a good unhurried job. Some of the larger projects that we turned out during the 90's were: Joey Foley (3 albums), Joni Canova, David McClain, Tammy Hatch, Ron Whitney, Karisa Lynn, Hoyt Hughs, Big John Taylor (vintage recordings compilation), Mel Hancock, Willie Metts and the Canadian Rogues, Sandra Mahatapura and Angel Shumate. We also turned out a host of demo projects for songwriters and singers, far too numerous to list.

Lindsay Price in the vocal booth - 1999.

In about 1996, we moved to Winter Haven and the OutHouse Studio moved into our bedroom. In 1999, a major upgrade came in the purchase of a Roland VS-880 8-track digital recording station. Our bedroom would be the OutHouse Studio's location until about 2002.