Recording studio, audio training, bands and DJs - Aurora, Illinois

IN THE STUDIO: Tiny Candle

The annual Backthird Christmas celebration, Tiny Candle, welcomed a packed studio Friday and Saturday nights. We sang, we snacked, we were very quiet - and very loud. For me, Christmas reallly starts with Tiny Candle.

If you've never experienced this night - well, you'll have to ask someone who has to really get what it was about. If you were there this year - thank you. Thanks for sharing this special night with us. We'll see you soon.

The Tiny Candle video is online! Click here to view.

IN THE STUDIO: Aaron Lechuga Band

Last weekend brought the chance to spice things up with a little Latin jazz with Aaron Lechuga and his 7-piece group. The boys recorded live, with all seven players in our big room - always a fun engineering challenge. We knocked out three songs in an afternoon, with Aaron returning for mixing a few days later. You can hear the result in the mp3 player at www.backthird.com.

 

Take a look at yourself...

Do you really know what people hear?

This month, my column is a time capsule. I wrote this post two weeks ago, then set my e-mail service to deliver it to you this morning. In the intervening time, I’ve gotten married.

Planning my own wedding was a lot of work and tons of fun. From a professional standpoint, one massive benefit has been the way it’s put me in my clients’ shoes. I run a wedding business. I’ve played ceremonies, booked DJs and led dance bands for years. I have brides and grooms at my conference table most weekends, giving me dance requests and asking my professional advice. But last month I crossed the table. I became the client.

Big retailers do this all the time. Starbucks pays “secret shoppers” to buy lattes and critique their service. They know it’s the customer’s perspective that matters, and they do everything they can to experience their business as customers do. Music’s more personal, though. We don’t have customers – we have listeners. Our “products” are the songs we write, the mixes we create or the experiences we provide at live performances. You can’t sit with the audience and watch yourself perform. You can’t hear a song you wrote as if you’ve never heard it before.

What if you could? If the music you make wasn’t yours, what would it mean to you?

Here’s what I learned by swapping places with the brides and grooms I usually work for: 

1. Small things are big. Like communication – we hired folks to help out with our wedding who returned calls promptly, e-mailed contracts right away and always kept us notified on what they needed us to do by when. We also hired folks who were tough to get in touch with, didn’t call us back for weeks and sent us e-mail messages that were vague and confusing. Guess what’s better?
2. Big things might not be. Like overdone CD samplers. When I shopped my competition to find the other best wedding band in Chicago, most mailed a demo to us on CD. Some bands sent us two or three separate CDs. Did this make a difference? Not to me. We booked the band that sounded best and treated us with the most professionalism – not the one that cluttered up the mailbox most.
3. I’m special. For me this was the most important part – by seeing things from my clients’ perspective, I realized what I’m already doing that’s different from what others do. This doesn’t mean my band’s for everyone – but by understanding what makes us unique and putting those qualities front and center, I make it easier for people who do want to hire us to discover us in the first place.

So what about you? You may not be in the wedding business – but if you make music, you have listeners. Who are they? What does your music offer them?