Lesson Summary
David shares how he went from looking for an affordable way to record his own music to building a home studio and producing spoken-word recordings for clients. It’s also the story behind Meditation Maker and why learning to record at home can give you more freedom, flexibility, and control over your work.
Transcript
My name is David Christopher. I’m a full-time independent musician and multimedia specialist living between Hanoi, Vietnam, and the beautiful coastal town of Kiama on Australia’s New South Wales south coast. I’ve been a professional musician since 2005 and, in recent years, a voice-over artist and recording engineer who has successfully made a living from the art of home recording.
Back in 2011, I had a bunch of songs I’d written and wanted to record as an album. However, I had no idea how to do that other than the usual method: spend a whole lot of money hiring a studio by the hour, along with a recording engineer to press all the buttons for me—again, at a premium hourly rate—not to mention the very sterile atmosphere inside a recording studio.
It became frustrating. I needed a way to get my songs down while also having the breathing space to record at my own pace and leisure. I didn’t want to be on the clock or forced to get something down just to save money. That’s the very antithesis of creativity.
Around that time, a good friend of mine, who was also a musician from Brisbane, Australia, was about to release his band’s debut CD. He’d sent me the tracks to get my opinion. I thought the songs were fantastic, but what stood out most to me was the quality of the production.
“Where did you record these?” I asked.
“At home,” he replied. “In the lounge room.”
During the lengthy conversation that followed, when my friend answered all my questions about home recording, I saw a solution to my problem. Why not invest the money I would otherwise spend on ongoing studio fees in setting up my own home studio?
Based on his advice, I began researching all aspects of home recording, from PC specifications to audio software, recording equipment, and everything else I’d need to get started. The icing on the cake came when I bought him a return air ticket to visit, stay in my beachside town, and act as a recording consultant for a weekend.
Within six months, I’d recorded and released my first single on both CD and iTunes. Within a year, I was recording my first album, all in the comfort of my bedroom studio. Finally, the world was getting to hear my music the way I’d heard it in my head. I had no financial or scheduling pressures—just my own creativity checking in for the day when I needed it to. To date, I’ve recorded four albums, two singles, and an EP.
It was around this time that a friend of a friend heard about my home-recording setup. They called to ask if I could record a meditation CD for them. Even though I hadn’t recorded a meditation album before, I figured: why not give it a shot? I already knew how to record voice and other instruments and how to produce a final, polished product. Why not simply apply my current skills to recording spoken-word material?
And so I did. To date, I’ve recorded more than a dozen meditation and spoken-word titles for clients. You can hear samples of these on the Meditation Maker SoundCloud page. The best part was that all of these albums were recorded in the comfort of either my or my clients’ living spaces.
As I began to undertake more meditation-recording projects, one thing struck me. Just as I had once been, my clients simply weren’t aware that they could easily learn to do for themselves, in their own homes, the very thing they were paying me to do. Meditation recording also has an easier learning curve given the nature of the medium: spoken word combined with sparse ambient music or nature sounds.
I set about researching how I could pass on my knowledge and experience to people and help them become self-sufficient. And so Meditation Maker was born.
The difference for you is that, with the help of this course, you can avoid taking years, months, or even weeks to learn this knowledge. Sit back and relax, because you’re about to learn all you need to know in just one afternoon.