Soundproof or Naked Truth: Local bands mix in spaces from the high-end to the basement booth

Photo Courtesy of Element Recording Studios

As home recording equipment, production software, and distribution channels become more and more accessible, it often feels like DIY music creation has entered something of a golden age. The pandemic and its aftermath have especially made this seem like the case—in April 2020, Rolling Stone reported record levels of Garageband downloads since February of that year, along with high order volumes and search spikes for music gear on platforms like Reverb and Sweetwater. 

While recording at home is certainly easier than ever, some musicians have pushed back against the tendency to frame this as an empowering DIY utopia. Hence, when Spotify CEO Daniel Ek suggested that the cost of creating content is now “close to zero,” he was widely derided. 

Caufield Schnug—one half of Lawrence-based indie duo Sweeping Promises—operates a home studio with bandmate Lira Mondal. The pair established the studio in 2021 with their advance from Sub Pop Records, though they’d been self-recording material together since they met in 2008. Schnug prides the studio for its spaciousness and the natural reverb. 

A reliable recording space has been a crucial aspect of the band’s creative process since the beginning. Home recording equipment might be increasingly accessible for small-time musicians, but Schnug argues that this particular resource is still hard to come by. This calls into question the notion that music creation has been rendered accessible to all, or that musicians have been empowered to a significant degree.  

“If you believe we’re living in some sort of democratic explosion of self-making paradise, just talk to bands and you’ll see that’s not true,” Schnug says. “You have to have your own room. You have to have band members with enough free time. Those are conditions that capitalism is not providing.” 

Other factors further complicate the narrative that music creation has entered an egalitarian golden age. The broken touring business is one. According to Element Recording Studios owner Joel Nanos, the ubiquity of streaming services is another. 

Streaming has gravely harmed the profitability of the commercial recording business, Nanos says. In the pre-streaming era, producers often collected royalties from the albums they worked on. Now, thanks to dismal per-stream royalty rates, it’s far more difficult for both musicians and producers to get by. 

“It’s harder than ever to break into the business,” he says. “I always tell the students that come through, ‘If you can do anything else and be happy, you probably should do it.’” 

An isolation booth at Element Recording Studios. // Photo Courtesy of Element Recording Studios

Nanos says home recording technology, however, poses little threat to commercial studios, and his own studio is still in high demand. Though DIY recording is more feasible now, the old way is far from obsolete, and the traditional studio model is not quite the ancien régime it’s sometimes made out to be. 

Nanos attributes this to the sheer convenience commercial studios have to offer. After all, working with an expert in a professionally-designed physical space is much easier than acquiring that expertise or, as Schnug points out, crafting that space yourself. Furthermore, Nanos has noticed that, for artists, learning how to self-record can be so grueling that it often takes the fun out of the creative process. 

The Auras—a newer band to Kansas City’s scene, having been around for a year—is one such example. The band recorded its debut single, “You and I,” at a local studio in 2023, and they plan to continue doing so for other projects in the near future.

Photo Courtesy of The Moose

Though the group is predominantly made up of audio engineering students at Kansas City Community College, they decided to record the song in a professional environment to avoid the cost of setting up a good home studio, not to mention the learning curve. By, instead, working with a professional, they say they were able to achieve their desired level of audio quality with ease.

“Producers have already done this for way longer,” says Auras lead singer Sereena Burton. “They already have experience. They’ve put records out themselves. Even though we’re audio engineering students, we’re pretty new to this.”

“Taking the time to learn would be harder than going into a studio,” adds bassist Ivan Ramirez. 

But, for some bands, this difficulty is part of the appeal of home recording. The Moose—a psych-rock band active since 2016—began recording and producing its own material after the release of its self-titled debut EP in 2017. The five-song EP was recorded at a commercial studio, which the then-high schoolers could afford thanks to contributions from friends and family. 

Drummer Emma Klein says while the band was grateful for the experience, they were left unsatisfied with the final product. In time-honored indie tradition, they subsequently decided that if you want to do something right, you’ve got to do it yourself. But creative integrity isn’t The Moose’s only rationale for taking the DIY recording route. At the end of the day, the group’s primary motivation is a simple love for the learning process. 

“At this point, I wouldn’t want to go to a studio because I like doing it myself, and that’s part of the process for me,” Klein says. “I have to be close with the songs, and I get pretty attached with the record that we’re working on.” 

Emma Klein recording for The Moose. // Photo Courtesy of The Moose

Being a psych-rock band, The Moose heavily relies on audio effects like reverb and compression, which they pull off using audio plugins—a much cheaper alternative to hardware.

With the group’s lack of fancy gear, Klein says there’s no secret to the high level of audio quality they’ve achieved. She instead chalks it up to a years-long process of trial-and-error—something the group would have missed out on had they continued recording at commercial studios. 

“I’m still learning so much,” she says. “But one of the more rewarding things about it is going from album to album, doing new things, and then being super excited to apply those to the next project. I’ve learned to really appreciate the process.” 

Sweeping Promises recording with Will Henricksen in its Lawrence home studio. // Photo Courtesy of Sweeping Promises

While it might be reductive to claim that the cost of independent music creation is now “close to zero,” as Daniel Ek did, or that artists have finally been liberated from the traditional power structures of the music business, it’s also tough to deny that the sophisticated home recordings of a band like The Moose would have been nearly impossible in any other era. 

Indeed, you can now make a great album with nothing more than a Yeti microphone and a MacBook. This is a good thing—but it alone does not constitute empowerment. Like Schnug says, there’s still a long way to go until musicians reach that point. 

“I would encourage bands to find their own spaces and take control of their own sonic milieu,” says Schnug. “Unless you’re like us, and you make a little money from touring, that’s increasingly impossible.”