I think there are reasons why I don't own my own business. I just don't have that cutthroat impulse. I don't often see the opportunities. When I do, I'm not the sort of fellow who says "I've got to do that before someone else does!" I don't really like to gamble because I'm instinctively bad at managing certain kinds of risk, and, starting a business is always about a willingness to risk everything. So, I often miss the boat where certain ideas are concerned.
Take the last idea I had: I thought to myself, there has to be a way to bring budget recording technology to the masses. If the file swapping revolution is going to happen, I think it is going to fundamentally change the music business operates. Recording companies act essentially act like large banks, loaning capital to record albums and making money back on the sales and copyrights (musicians nearly always seem to default on their loans, but that's another story). If file swapping is going to reduce the amount of money recording companies will make on albums to essentially nothing and allow musicians to distribute music themselves, the recording process has got to become cheaper.
I also reasoned that one way to do that is technology. After all, what makes a room into a recording studio? It is a combination of sound proofing and mixing equipment. Well, ever since Dave Grohl more or less put egg cartons on the basement walls of a house in Virginia and recorded the Foo Fighters' There Is Nothing Left To Lose, I have been covinced that sound proofing can be done easily enough. Studio mixing equipment is a bit tougher nut to crack... recording gear can cost big money, and that mean there is money to be made.
Having an idea is one thing and capitalizing on it is another, however. I just got around to reading through an old issue of Rolling Stone or two and happened across an article about a new suite of recording software called Pro Tools from Digidesign.
Pro Tools allows you to take a mid-range notebook computer and turn it into a music mixing and production board, once it is connected to some moderately priced hardware. Yes, another good idea that somebody else thought of first.
*sigh* This should be a lesson to me. One of these days, I'll finally think of a way to build a better mouse trap and actually build it. You'll see.
said drgeek
on 2004-02-07 at 8:23 p.m.
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The Wayback Machine - To Infinity And Beyond
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