Let's Talk GR Music discusses recording, recording studios

On April 24, 2017, Let’s Talk GR Music hosted a conversation about “Recording Music” with two studio owners located in Grand Rapids, MI. Our guests were Peter Fox of Stone House Recording and Roy Wallace of River City Studios.

Though there are many fine recording producers and engineers in the city, Let’s Talk GR Music chose these two because of our connection. Both studios have actually hosted meetings for us in the past. They both are also very well respected in the music community.

Roy Wallace has been active in the music community since the 90’s while playing with the band Mission Orange. He actually recorded at River City Studios way before becoming the owner and moving it to its current location in 2012. Between the 90’s and now Roy spent time playing with Sweet Japonic, interning at Station C and even teaching recording classes as a professor.

Peter moved to Michigan in 2007. After spending a little time in Detroit, he made GR his home on the NW side of town in one of the oldest buildings in the city. Currently he is in his 8th year owning Stone House Recording. It’s been a journey that has included time spent at Full Sail University in Orlando, FL, a stint at Guitar Center and even a flood that destroyed all of his recording gear.

After learning a little about Peter and Roy’s studios, basically the guys opened up the floor to questions. A very large chunk of time was spent talking about some of the ways bands use studio time and how it has transformed over the years. We covered information about home recording and how that has affected the process as well. It’s no secret that many musicians are able to record themselves. Some musicians use those as demos and will use those to work out a lot of ideas before spending time and money at a studio. It was mentioned that giving demos or home recordings to a studio before recording can help the studio get a feel for the project you want to create. Roy and Peter also both talked about the role of a producer and the roll of an engineer.

“In a smaller market like Grand Rapids, no one is just an engineer,” Roy explained. Producers help impact your recordings and your overall experience. If someone is helping you find a certain sound or “feel” then they’re a producer. Engineers are primarily thought of as “knob turners." Understanding these little roles can be very important. How you credit or pay producers, studio musicians or arrangers can have a monumental impact on royalties and copyrights down the road. According to Roy, the minute an engineer opens his mouth, the law sees that as a producer and would deserve credit for any work in a recording project.

Overall the night was very informative and actually touched on many more topics outside of recording an album. I even got the boys to talk about some of the biggest mistakes with DIY recordings that they notice and different ways bands save money when they do not have the budget to record in a top studio. For more information about these recording studios please click the links in the article and check out some of their work. 

I really appreciate these two taking the time to come share with us. As I mentioned, this is not Let’s Talk GR Music telling you that your music has to be recorded at one of these studios. Grand Rapids has a lot of great options and there are a lot of great resources out there to learn about recording at home. I will say that if you are looking for a two very knowledgeable and patient people, Peter and Roy are both. They also put out some pretty amazing recordings with some pretty amazing musicians.

Due to the holiday, Let’s Talk GR Music will meet on the second to last Monday this month. Our 19th meeting will take place Monday, May 22, 2017, at The Wealthy Theatre Annex located at 1110 Wealthy St. SE. For more information you can find it here at The Rapidian, by searching “Let’s Talk GR Music” on Facebook or by following the Twitter handle @LetsTalkGRMusic.