Do you remember your first (commercial) recording?

I found it this afternoon, my first recording 'job' which I did around 1980.

A guy was sent to me by a musicshop holder who knew I owned a Teac 3440, a very small Teac 2A mixing desk and couple of mics, so I could be considered a 'studio'.

This studio was actually a small bedroom in the attic of our rather small house.

He was a guy from Turkey, had a very nice voice and he had brought the 'music tracks' with him on cassette. It sounded not very good, but hey, who cares.

I didn't have any outboard gear like compressors or effect units and the only thing I was able to do was add some tape delay with an old 3 speed consumer tapedeck.

So this afternoon I've listened to some authentic classic Turkish songs, which was really a joy to listen to.

So, tell me: what was you first payed recording job and how much did it pay? My first 'rate' was dfl 10 per hour, which must have been some $6 back in 1980.

All together now:

So are you talking as an engineer or a performer?

Hi Ani, as an engineer.

My first "paid recording"was in 2000.It was a DJ ,which should normaly be very easy but he was too {censored}ed up too get everything on time.So I had too do alot of editing.I used a cracked version of cubase 5.0 a {censored}ty gateway computer and I think an Echo audio card.I got paid in drugs but hey it was still pay!

Sounds like you were peas in a pod.

I don't remember my first commercial recording because it hasn't happened yet.

I try really hard not to make money working on other people's music, but, as a fairly early DAW adopter, sometimes I just couldn't help it. One time I did some "masterng" for the composer Dean Jones, who was not fully DAW-enabled yet, and he insisted on paying me for it. What could I do? I said, "now, don't make it a habit." I guess that was my first.

I used to make a portion of my living, though never near a majority, writing music for multimedia and theater and such. And I only bring this up because I once had a "client" on a corporate training CD project who insisted on paying me hourly and then drew out the project to a ridiculous lengths by describing precisely the kind of splash cymbal hits he wanted at certain points in the the music. "Like Neil Peart," he said, making splash cymbal sounds and gesticulations. That was funny and profitable.