ÀFALCH-NIELSEN : I think we don ’ t really know how À Àthis will impact things going forward because we À Àhaven ’ t seen the real effect of it yet . The reason for À Àthis is that in Canada , most musicians are just finish-À Àing up their CERB payments [ in September ]. What À
À that means is , for the past six months , their income À
À hasn ’ t been completely destroyed . They also have À
À had more spare time , so once they felt comfortable À
À coming to the studio , they had the time and money À
À to do so . Once CERB runs out and everyone is hunting À
À for jobs , this might change . The hospitality industry À
À was hit extremely hard , and this is often the industry À
À that musicians first look to for extra work . The jobs À
À simply aren ’ t there for all the musicians to get . If musi-À
À cians don ’ t have the money to record , I think we À À could see a decline in business .
À Furthermore , many companies are relying on the À
À [ government ’ s ] wage subsidy at this point to stay À
À afloat . Right now , they can hire people , but when À
À that runs out in December , we might see a further À
À decline of jobs available , which could trickle down to À
À musicians having less money to spend on things like À Àrecording .
À All of this is dependent on what happens with À
À COVID . Will the numbers increase or decrease ? No one À
À knows , but there are many businesses that are alive right À
À now only because of the government subsidies and if À
À numbers stay the way they are now or get worse and À
À the subsidies do not continue , we could be looking at a À À huge amount of job loss .
À With that being said , I am optimistic that these À
À things will work out . Music isn ’ t going anywhere and À
À musicians want to record it . For the average client , À
À I don ’ t think they are recording their music to make À
À lots of money ; they are doing it because they want to , À À and I don ’ t think they will stop wanting to record .
ÀMOORE : To be honest , even pre-pandemic , I person-À À ally started to feel a huge paradigm shift in the way À À clients work in the studio . A lot of them were starting À À to move more towards recording themselves and À À then finding an engineer to finalize their project and À
À do their mixing and things like that . I feel like this pan-À
À demic sped up the process and a lot of people got À
À home setups once they were in lockdown so they À
À could record as many songs as they could . Then , a lot À
À of people out of the blue started hitting me up and À
À trying to find if I ’ d mix some tracks remotely . I feel like À À that ’ s where it ’ s headed now .
À VAN GO : I have no idea what ’ s coming . That ’ s the main À Àthing I ’ ve learned . I ’ ve stopped trying to predict the À Àfuture of the business and just focus on doing great cre-À Àative work and find likeminded creatives to work with .
ÀWORSLEY : I mean , there ’ s no doubt that it ’ s going to À Àbe tough and it ’ s going to continue to get more com-À Àpetitive , I think . But we ’ re really lucky to live in Canada À Àwhere we have access to so many different streams of À Àgrant funding .
À I definitely think it ’ ll accelerate the trend [ of art-À
À ists recording at home and hiring engineers and À
À studios to mix and finalize a project ]. In a lot of ways , À
À it ’ s become a necessity for them to do some form À
À of recording and production on their own . I also À
À think it ’ s probably going to shift the industry even À
À more from a genre perspective because it will create À
À more bedroom-based recordings , which people are À
À already getting very used to . It ’ s almost a genre in À
À itself , these sort of lo-fi pop recordings . Depending À
À on what genre you ’ re working in , too – like indie rock À
À and metal and stuff like that – it ’ s been more difficult À
À for those artists because it ’ s a lot harder to do those À
À sorts of things on your own . Those are the genres that À
À still really do need studios to get it done the way they À À really want it to .
ÀZIMMERMANN : So far , I have seen a big increase À Àin recording sessions as musicians need to find a way À Àto bring their music out with live shows not happen-À Àing at the moment . Aside from the increase in studio À Àtime demand , I also noticed that more sessions get À
À filmed to have another way of bringing the music À
À close to the fans with either livestreaming or in-studio À Àfootage .
À Personally , I have a feeling that recording studios À
À will stay busy for a long time as there is no known À
À timeline of this pandemic that could describe when À
À things go “ back to normal .” Having professional re-À
À cording studios that can help artists stay busy creat-À
À ing and performing is a relief to many session mu-À
À sicians . It keeps their income going and a way for the À
À artist themselves to produce content in the form of À À music and videos .
Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of Professional Sound .
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