It’s been a little over a week since I started this blog, and I have been a busy little beaver.  I decided to start building a following on social media first.  The   I created both a Twitter account and Facebook page for the podcast.  I am slow rolling the Facebook page out, but have been very active on Twitter.   As expected, I have ‘discovered’ many new performers from all over the globe.  One of things that has struck me is the quality of the music I am hearing.  Production quality for a lot of what I’m hearing rivals anything coming from the major record labels, and this reinforces my belief that the indie music scene is much more vibrant and exciting than the commercial-centric stuff heard on the radio.

The reaction from the music world has been fantastic.  I’ve started making connections with some of these artists,  and I’m starting to feel like a part of the community for the first time in 30 years.  I never realized how much I missed it until I started following the trials and travels of this new generation of musicians.  It takes me back to the days when I was pursuing that same musical dream (more on that another time), and makes it obvious that this current passion of promoting and exposing these artists is my way of giving back to the community I have loved my entire life.

Once the social accounts were up and running, I had to turn my attention to the technological challenges of producing the podcast.  As you can probably determine from the picture, I have way more than the average computer setup in my studio.  The room is broken up into three distinct areas- a traditional office workspace (left side of the picture), a corner for my keyboards (not pictured) and then the monstrosity which is my recording desk (right side of the picture).

The recording desk consists of five stationary monitors, powered by three desktop PC’s.  One PC is dedicated to my music composition, another to run email, social and other random internet stuff, and the third one is the powerhouse I use specifically for recording.  It has Sonar Platinum, Finale and Audacity loaded on it, which allows me to record a variety of mediums.  I currently have two audio systems set up (a Klipsch stereo setup and a Logitech 5.1 surround system), with a third planned in the coming days.  Using different systems allows me to hear my recorded work with the different colorings of each of the systems.  Overkill?  Most likely, but it works for me.  Rounding out the setup are a no-name Chinese condenser microphone (which is amazingly responsive) and a set of Audio Technica noise cancelling headphones.

So, to sum up all of the above, I have everything I need to get started.  The journey should move to the next stage shortly, and I can’t wait to see what it brings!