so THAT must be why i decided not to become a studio musician.  (year and a half as a music major down the drain ... sitting on the other side of the console has always been more fun.)

nevermind that i have always hated practicing violin.

in terms of sonic difference, though, the only people who can ever tell are are other good musicans.  and even then, with most instruments, you can get some really amazing impostors.  i have yet to find a fake solo violin track that has fooled me, though

Please Shaun… call it “simplifying.”

BTW for your next Compassion concert gig, we are booking “Jeff’s Red Keyboard"… you don’t need to be here.

OK, I’m kidding.  Sort of ... I think.

Hi Shaun,
It’s great to watch you at work from my work...as your Samaritan Ministries member service team leader
Micah Repke
samaritanministries.com
themorningcenter.org

HOLY COW!  Seriously?

Thanks for what you do, Micah.  Seriously.  Thank you.  My family gets all the medical care they need because of you.  THANK YOU!

(I think you and I just made a commercial of sort, Micah.)

Micah’s making sure you’re not eating or drinking anything that’s not healthy for you.

We all (at SMI) just wish we could’ve seen you when you were here in Peoria a couple weeks ago.

A notorious New York composer used to produce the music for the TV ad campaigns I work on. It was wonderful sitting in the studio for a couple days at a time as a parade of live players would come in to do their parts. They were all old timers and full of great stories. Those days are long gone; my music comes from a Los Angeles-based ‘box of wonderment’ now. It’s well-styled but, eh, it’s just not the same.

I’m a cop in California and this past week we laid off 18 people within the department and 100 for the city. This is just the beginning.

I took an interest to this specific post because I have/had always wanted to go to Belmont Univ. in Nashville to become an engineer. God had always shut the doors. Maybe he was looking out for me?

Shaun, you and Brody are in my thoughts. If you need something please let us/me know.

Like home values, I feel that many music companies have overvalued the cost of music, and have since the innovation of the CD.  That is why I believe that piracy has been such a problem for the industry, because in economic terms the ‘black market’ if you will has risen up because of those higher prices.  If there is one industry that really needs to retool and reorganize how it delivers its product, I’d say the music industry would be near the top of the list.  Especially considering that people on fixed incomes can’t really afford the splurge on music when they have to worry about food or other necessities.

I’m sorry your friends are out of a Job, but I’ve long felt that the RIAA and music execs that have been pushing after pirates have missed the real problem, and that being they are not rethinking their delivery systems. 

Here’s hoping this down economy does not stay down for too long so that those folks can make a come back one day.

Well, that little box of wonderment can do all its tricks and flash all its shiny lights...but it still can’t write a song. 

It’s sad (and oh-so-convenient) that the studio experience is becoming reduced to this. Marginalizing the human element just doesn’t seem right to me.

Shaun,
Just found your blog and want to say how much I love your music.  You did a concert at a little Lutheran church in Fargo a few years back, and it was so amazing!  Also, I’m pretty sure I might have seen you at a bookstore that same week, but I was too star-struck to say hi.  Heehee.  Keep up your amazing ministry!

Having studio musicians who act as a group of friends and colleagues, who support your vision as an artist and lend to a spirit of creativity that gives a record personality, is a great luxury, and not something I would look down on a record or an artist for.

Failing that, I think it’s kind of cool when an artist can compose and perform a lot of that sort of stuff on his own and give it the illusion of there being a band present. (Then it’s just a matter of working out logistics when going on tour - but stripping it back to an acoustic performance in a live setting ain’t a bad thing, either.)

But either approach is preferable to hired-gun studio musicians who believe it’s their job to turn in faceless performances and basically stay out of the way. Records get criticized for being overproduced because money is spent on extra bells and whistles that don’t always need to be there. I’m not one of those guys who think all rock records should sound like they were recorded in your basement or anything - technology is our friend and we can accomplish some wonderful works of it with it at our disposal. But I do think that this downturn in the economy might force a few record labels and producers and artists to be more, well, economical - and for some of the more mainstream stuff made for mass consumption, that might not be a bad thing.

Though people being out of jobs is always a bad thing…