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For about the first 4 or 5 years after Nancy and I married 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 (the little house behind the
house).
In about 1984, we started home recording
using a four-track Clarion cassette recorder that
belonged to our guitarist and 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, Nancy and I had moved into the big house and
converted our former bedroom
house to 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".
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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.
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Carl at the controls.
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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.
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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.
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