This blog is part 1 of 13 in a series. Jump to the next page below or use the table of contents to pick up where you left off.

TOC:
Part 1 – The Briefest of Histories (you are here!)
Part 2 – The Audition
Part 3 – The Contract
Part 4 – The First Official Project Meeting
Part 5 – The First Session
Part 6 – The Second Session
Part 7 – The Third Session
Part 8 – A Brief Intermission
Part 9 – The Fourth Session
Part 10 – The Workshop
Part 11 – The Fifth Session
Part 12 – The Mix
Part 13 – Aftermath & Takeaways

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It gives me great displeasure to return to the Am I Being Scammed? series with this retelling of a recent experience that I, CF the musical artist, had with a professional music producer who wanted to work with me on an original single. All in, the experience spanned nearly 7 months for some reason and by the end of it, I opted to cut my losses (financially, energy-y and otherwise) and part ways.

If you haven’t been with me from the beginning of this ever-changing music blog website, then I will begin by briefly reiterating my own resume because I think it’s pertinent to how this story played out. 

But retelling this story is less about me and more about ensuring that you, a musician presumbly, don’t have a similar experience. 

After I take you through the story, I’ll end with some takeaways that might be helpful to you (and to me the next time an opportunity like this one arises).

If you don’t want to wait until we get there, come back to this post after the series is complete and jump through the table of contents straight to the conclusion and takeaways.

Ready? Here we go.

Briefest of Histories

I started working in professional recording studios when I was 17 years old under producer/engineer Brian Moncarz. I consider myself quite spoiled to have landed this placement when I was in highschool because I’d come to learn in time that Brian Moncarz is one of Canada’s best mixing engineers and has worked with acts I greatly admire, like The Trews and Classified. He’s also just a generally pretty good dude which meant I was able to avoid a lot of the horror stories some of my peers would later go through with other industry professionals (thanks Brian).

Through Brian I also began working with producer David Bottrill (Peter Gabriel, Tool, so many others), and then after completing music production school (herafter referred to as clown college), I also landed an internship at Metalworks Studios where I was even more spoiled to get a chance to work on projects with incredible talents like L. Stu Young, Eddie Kramer, Lenny De Rose, Gavin Brown, Eric Ratz, the house engineering team; Chris Crerar, Kevin Dietz and Wayne Cochrane, and so many others. 

The point of mentioning this is that those experiences were pivotal to my understanding of a professional recording studio environment where the only thing that is more important than the knowledge of engineering you have is your attitude when you walk through the doors and your ability to read a room. 

Of all the things I understand in my life, professional recording environments are up at the top. Every person in the room has to have the same understanding and same pro attitude about the work or else it can really derail a session or project.

To me, it is an absolute privlege to be there when new songs and ideas are being persued and captured and you could say I take that privlege kind of seriously.

When the opportunity arose for the first time for me to work with a pro producer, but this time as the artist and not as a member of the engineering or studio team for somebody else’s creative endeavour, I was pretty excited, but I also had a certain expectation for how things should go.

I recognize that a lot of artists don’t go into their first recording projects with my perspective and that’s why I’ve decided to write this series. I hope it’s mildly illuminating and if at any point you want to reach out with questions, I invite you to drop your comments below and I’ll do my best to get back to them.

It started in a way I never expected it to – with an audition.

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Next up in the series, read Part 2: The Audition.