PREREQUISITES
To succeed, you should have patience, people
skills, and an understanding of busi-
ness and marketing. "When you're in school
studying to be an engineer and you're
made to take marketing and accounting classes,
you think it will never help you," says
Tom Harding, "but all of that has helped me.
You understand that you've got to keep
your checkbook balanced. It all sounds logical
and a bit silly, but you'd be surprised at
how many studio owners don't understand finance
and marketing."
A DAY IN THE LIFE
"The first thing I do is check to see what is
booked in the studio," says Tom
Harding. "If I have an outside engineer coming
in, I make sure I have an assistant
here before anybody arrives to get everything
set up. If the session is tracking, we
make sure that we've got two-inch tape on hand,
DATS, and cassettes. If there are any
maintenance problems in the studio, we make
sure those have been taken care of.
Electronics constantly need repairs; it is
vital to the session that everything is
working. I make sure that we've got coffee and
that the machine is working. If I need
to arrange for catering, I take care of that. I
meet with the client and make sure every-
one is happy and they have what they need. Then
I might have some invoicing, bills
payable, and other business to take care
of."
POINTERS FOR THE JOB SEARCH
"To manage your own studio, you better know
your clientele and who you are
gearing your studio for first. There was a
studio built just a mile from Tombstone and
they spent around three million dollars making
it very state of the art. It lasted 14
months. Number one, the room was too complex.
Even if they were booked every
day, they would not make enough money to pay
their bills. Number two, they didn't
THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS
JOB:
"I don't think you could ask anybody about any
job that they wouldn't
say that the politics is what they
dislike."
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS JOB:
"I just love that point when you're putting
music down for the first
time, when I'm recording a band and we're in
the studio for around
six hours, it's gotten dark and everybody is
tired, but everybody is in
that zone where everything is clicking and it
almost seems surreal."
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