Sweet Dane Studios
The most exciting thing in my life right now, by far, is my wife’s choice to dive into the world of sound engineering. Let me give you a break down of how this came about.
In 2021 Dana took up podcasting as a hobby. At that time she learned to use Audacity, a DAW that allows you to track record on a laptop computer. At that time we made our Music Laughter Love podcasts using real simple production and editing. We always knew that we could produce music tracks in Audacity, and in 2022 we even had attempted a song a week for a work out conducted by the Fort Collins Msic District, but never really mastered it. At that time I stubbornly insisted on mic-ing everything which lead to muddy mixes.
Now fast forward a year and a half. Around Christmas time 2023 my wife found a Sync Licensing company out of California, TAXi, that seems to be well renowned all over the world for placing tracks into music libraries. From there TV editors shop for music tracks using these libraries, purchasing to license the lucky tracks they feel will be usable for film. TAXI makes it easy! Most every day they post new briefs, describing exactly what kind of music a client is looking for and even at times breaking down the instrumentation and style of the tracks they are looking for. At that point my wife and I decided to go for it!
Our first try was to put a microphone up on the piano and later sing a nice quiet piano version of Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles. This was the brief of the day. TAXI was looking for a pleasing arrangement of Peaceful Easy Feeling by The Eagles, and “please, make the song your own.” I figured a piano based version was enough of a departure from the original version of the song to work for the brief.
This was the first mix we turned out for TAXI, and we did get a response, a rejection response, but yet, an encouraging one. I’m not going to try to quote the TAXI rep that got back to us, but in no uncertain terms they told us that they liked the arrangement and style of the track, but could not use the mix, it was just too muddy. At that point I said to Dane, “we need to stop mic-ing the instruments, this is my fault.”
The following week my wife surprised me again, buying an interface for the studio I had told her about. The interface allowed us to plug our instruments and microphones into it, serving as a middle machine between the instruments and Audacity. Our mixes suddenly got much better! We have submitted tracks to briefs requesting piano underscores, minimalist instrumental cues, eighties music, modern pop, and we keep expanding. Everything we have submitted since the change has not been returned to us. We will continue to work, that is the name of this game, the long game! It may be that we can create a new career for ourselves, writing, arranging, recording and producing music. In addition, whenever possible, we will send Brian David Colins songs and hopefully Seers songs, to briefs we feel they may work for.
Entertaining live has it’s challenges. First and foremost, I wind up singing songs I have no real business singing, like Come Sail Away by Styx. I’m getting into my forties now and this is becoming more challenging. I always want to entertain to some extent, it’s truly one of the greatest joys of my life. However, I am excited for the possibility of not depending on entertaining live for income. The financial freedom sounds nice and I have always wanted to write professionally. As Tom Petty used to say:
“I’m running down a dream
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream”