StudioPros

EDGE is a Studio Pros artist with a very unique sound. “My musical style is a mix of all the influences I had from my work and personal life,” says the French-born musician. “It’s also a mix of all the different periods I went through with music styles.” Some of these musical phases included The Beatles, Erasure and The Cure. He’s also been influenced by Brit pop like Pulp and the Manic Street Preachers, French music and American bands like Smashing Pumpkins and System of a Down. The result is a sound that touches on each of his international inspirations and keeps the listener wondering what to expect from the next song.

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Currently residing in Switzerland (after some time living in London and Madrid), EDGE came to Studio Pros after several disappointing experiences working with various sound engineers. “I was looking for people who could understand what I wanted to reach in terms of production,” he explains. “I found Studio Pros on the web and listened to the previews on the website. I found them just amazing, and decided to try.”

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Working from halfway across the world, Reign Lee used Studio Pros to record with world-class LA studio musicians from the the comfort of her own home.

Playing across continents is hard work, but recording an album with musicians that are halfway across the globe is even harder. Unless you do what Hong Kong musician Reign Lee did: record with Studio Pros. Lee has no trouble finding musicians to back her up in the many countries where she gigs, but when it came time to record her songs, she came up short. “I’m a solo artist, so when I tour I play with different players in different parts of the world,” she explains. “I don’t have a set band that I can just head into the studio with and start working on a record.”

For her latest EP, Angels in the Dirt, Lee decided she would use Studio Pros to record with top Los Angeles session musicians while staying in Asia. “About a year and a half ago I came across an ad for Studio Pros on Reverbnation,” she says. “I’d also read an article in Sound on Sound magazine and was very intrigued by the whole process. I knew that with this record I wanted to have a different experience than what I’ve had in the past and I really wanted to kick it up a few levels. That was why Studio Pros really appealed to me.”

Lee cites two primary factors in helping her decision to record with Studio Pros: “From a practical point of view, there was no better way that I could budget my money to get anything better than what they were offering. The other factor was scheduling.” She found the convenience of Studio Pros’ 48-hour turnaround very appealing. “I’ve never, ever had anybody’s parts completed in that amount of time.”

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You probably have an amazing album inside you, just waiting to burst out. The funny thing is, you might not even realize it yet… Sure, you know you have a lot of great musical ideas and a whole lot of untapped creativity swirling around inside your head. But a whole album might seem like something that you won’t be able to tackle until you have 12 fully realized songs ready to go.

But the fact that you only have a handful of songs that you feel are ready to record shouldn’t stop you from starting the process. Back when I wrote about the biggest myths keeping you from recording your album, I mentioned that not having enough songs doesn’t mean you can’t begin recording your masterpiece. In fact, it may be even better to start laying down some tracks when you only have a few songs to work on. Here are a few reasons why:

You can better focus your creativity

Recording just a few songs allows you to think about only a few things at a time–which means you don’t have to worry about spreading yourself too thin while trying to deal with a whole album’s worth of material. Figuring out the background vocal harmonies on four songs is a much less daunting task than tackling a dozen songs!

Find your musical direction and vision

Many professional musicians don’t have a complete album when they go to record. Instead, they take the music they have and start working with top producers and collaborators who help them hone the direction and vision of the album. This is a good strategy, because if you simply go into a recording session with a full album, you might find that some of them don’t quite fit–and then you’re back to the drawing board again. Starting with a few songs will help you figure out what direction your music is heading in, thereby giving you focus and purpose as you write new material.

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We used to think that the best thing about Studio Pros was our roster of world-class session musicians. In fact, I recently wrote a post about how to get the most out of our players and explained why they are such an amazing resource to musicians and songwriters all over the world.

But they’re not actually the thing that musicians like best about our service.

When we asked some of our artists why they love Studio Pros, most of them told us that it was because they don’t need to invest a lot of time when they use us to record their albums.

A lot of Studio Pros artists, like many aspiring musicians and songwriters, have a lot on their plate–families, day jobs, all sorts of obligations that make it really hard to devote a huge chunk of their time to pursuing their musical dreams.  All you need to do is read about some of our featured Studio Pros artists to see that most of them don’t start out as professional, full-time musicians. But luckily, none of them let that get in the way of recording the album they’ve always dreamed of making.

Instead of saying, “I just don’t have time to record an album, I have a job and a family so I should just give up on the dream,” these artists said, “I don’t have much time to record an album, so I’m gonna find a way to do it without taking away from paying the bills or spending time with my family.”

And boy are they glad they said that. Because they were proactive, they found Studio Pros and got done what they never thought they could. If these artists had kept saying that they’d never have time to record an album, they’d still be wondering if their music career would ever get a chance.

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