#42 Cookie's Corner - Bringing the house concert to your home - what does that mean?

Most long time fans of Blue Coast Records are aware of the painstaking efforts we take to record to DSD to achieve the quality of sound we want to reach.  What you may not know is how we setup to get the passionate performances we bring to your home.  It can only be achieved with the artists playing live in the same room.

About 35 years ago, I turned my house into a studio. Sitting atop an oak studded hill it was love at first site when I first arrived.  Overlooking the San Francisco Bay Area, the lower level became devoted to our band rehearsals and my piano teaching.  On August 1, EnjoytheMusic.com will run a feature article on why I became a recording engineer with loads of pictures.

Once we opened the studio, we found this peaceful location ideal for acoustic music artists.  We weren't located on a busy city street or flat industrial park.  Here, the musicians often rehearsed outside under the oak tree (perhaps to the dismay of our neighbors, but not really).  

After adding a 3rd level for the control room and additional isolation room, I discovered how much I loved hearing those rehearsals.  Rehearsals weren't perfect, but were often performed without thoughts to microphones placement and the musicians played at a dynamic level to hear each other clearly without the constraint of the headphones.

It took me nearly 20 years to figure out that this was the sound I wanted to capture for my own listening pleasure.  Mistakes and all, these performances were the ones that melted my heart. These were the songs that had the intimacy that made me cry.  This is how I wanted my record label to sound.  I wanted the musicians in my house all the time.

And thus came Blue Coast Records.  We're more than capable of isolated rooms with perfect sound and fixed up performances.  I spent decades getting paid a lot of money to do that.... but the question I asked myself was "Why"?  What I wanted was to experience that day in the studio again and again.  The banter between songs, the sightly curled note that brings a smile, the songs that made me cry... all those things can only be captured while living on the edge and taking the risk of a live performance.

Fortunately, I found many of you, our music lovers, also craved that experience.

With the pandemic and the changes we all face ahead, bringing the artists into your home is a unique experience you can only get through a live performance captured as we do.

It's not perfect... it's human... and everything that comes along with that.