PHOTO : CHUMAN TANO
I , for one , am incredibly excited about the future of home studios . The commute is way better and it allows each creator a much more personalized creative space to help them realize their unique visions . Large-format commercial studios will always need to exist unless you can fit an 80-piece orchestra in your garage . Still , I know that the home studio is here to stay , and is now a dominant force in the entertainment industry .
Dajaun Martineau is a Canadian gold-certified producer , songwriter , multi-instrumentalist , and mixer with multiple Juno-nominated projects who is now based in Los Angeles .
www . dajaun . com .
Phil Hotz
Phil Hotz is a Canadian engineer , songwriter , and record producer based in Toronto . He has engineered and assisted for artists such as Dua Lipa , Elton John , Pusha T , Aminé , Savannah Ré , Boi-1da , T-Minus , and more .
CM : What is the smartest purchase you ’ ve made for your home recording needs ? How has it made a difference for you ?
Phil Hotz : My home setup is pretty minimal in terms of gear . I live down the street from my main mixing room at 80A Studios , so I end up doing a lot of my Dolby Atmos binaural and stereo pre-mixing here from headphones .
I hate having cables everywhere , so I think the smartest purchase I ’ ve made to date for the studio was a $ 15 steel fish tape . I ’ m running all of my ethernet , optical thunderbolt / video , USB , audio , and AES lines through pipe conduit behind the walls . It attaches to a monitor cart with enough slack that I can bring it into any room in my house while keeping fan noise to a minimum when tracking .
CM : Thinking of things you ’ ve learned over the years of recording and / or mixing music at home , what is one often-overlooked tip you ’ d like to share with others ?
Hotz : I think the best experience you can get is from moving around and working out of a lot of different rooms . Getting out of your comfort zone forces you to learn the sound of the space on a recording really quickly . It switches your focus to what sounds “ bad ” while teaching you a unique skill set to fix it . Polar patterns are also such a powerful tool to get more rejection out of recordings .
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 47