Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Upcoming Events

I have two events coming up this fall that I am really excited about. The first is a five or six-band festival on Halloween. This should be very interesting since I have no idea what kind of gear will be available. But I'm very excited about the chance to work with a few bands. These fests are very exciting and stressful all at the same time.

In November I'm mixing for a fairly well known Christian artist at a church in Little Rock. I'm very excited about the chance to work for a pro on a pro rig. We're renting gear from Just Sound in Little Rock so the only barrier will likely be the interface between my ears and the equipment :-)

I hope that my work will be a blessing to everyone involved in these events.

I'm planning now for a recording project for some of my own music. Many songs from the Ash Wednesday days were never recorded well. I need to put some thought into how I can squeeze that into my schedule. In the meantime I'd love to pick up a couple of recording projects or events if you have need for sound this fall. Contact me at greg@fattuesdayaudio.com if you need my help.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Open For Business

Sound has always been a hobby for me. It's an expensive and time-consuming hobby to be sure. Cheap sound equipment is no good and good sound equipment is not cheap. Even good sound equipment takes time to learn how to operate and time to do things right. At some point a budding sound engineer will either quit out of frustration from using crappy gear or invest money in some good kit. This investment of money and time pretty much requires a person to turn the hobby into a business. That's the crossroads I find myself standing in.

I've been doing sound in some capacity for about 13 years now. Off and on I've made a little bit of money doing it. The time has come for me to transition this from a hobby to a real business. That's a difficult thing to do. At one time I didn't have the experience to justify charging people for my work. Now I don't have the time to justify doing it for free. As much as I want to jump at every opportunity to mix or do a project I now have to consider whether these gigs are a good fit for the business. Is the payout worth the investment? Is there a different kind of payout like marketing potential or learning experience? Is there an opportunity for me to be generous with a cause I want to support? Is there risk involved that I need to calculate? These questions are not always easy to answer.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fat Tuesday What?

Most musicians can recall some magical moments when things just click. The name "Fat Tuesday Audio" was born out of one of those moments. In college I was part of a band called Ash Wednesday. We practiced on Tuesday nights in what could loosely be called an "apartment" in downtown Conway, AR. In one of our first practices we played for several hours and created what became about five or six of the songs we played. Thankfully, we had the presence of mind to record it all on a 4-track cassette recorder. On one of those recordings someone wrote "Recorded at Fat Tuesday Studios".

I've always had some interest in the technical side of the music business. As I transitioned from being a player to being a mixer the name "Fat Tuesday" stuck. I've toyed around with several different names. This one seems to have some longevity and it reminds me of where I came from and what I am doing this for. I have had some difficulty deciding what the third word of the name will be. I've switched around between "Fat Tuesday Audio", "Fat Tuesday Productions", "Fat Tuesday Sound" and others. My current favorite is "Fat Tuesday Music". I'll explain more about that in a future post. But for now I want to focus on the fact that I am more of an artist than a technician. I'm not nearly as interested in being in the "sound" business as I am in being in the "music" business. With that in mind I intend to run things a bit different than many sound companies. For now, this site will be a collection of my musical activities. We'll see where it goes from here. Thanks for listening to my megaphone!