Is The Antiquated Commercial Recording Studio Dream Dead? Maybe Not... | With Steve Ornest

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, Episode 179

Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place.

Welcome back to another episode of the 6 Figure Creative Podcast. I'm your host Brian Hood, and I am not here with my bald, beautiful co-host. I miss him so much. He couldn't make the podcast today because he had a pre-existing appointment that he had to be at. So that's just the way it goes when we have guests on the podcast today. And because we have a guest on the podcast today, and because I don't have my co-host today on the podcast, unfortunately, I have no pre-episode banter conversation to have that me and Christian normally have. So I'm just gonna go straight in this episode. We have a treat for you today because we have Steve Ornest, who is, I don't actually know what your role is, Steve. I'm just gonna BS, and then you can correct me later. Steve is a co-owner of a recording studio that's been around since 1981 And it's a studio that's been around the block. They're in LA, or they're actually on the outskirts of LA, and they've worked with the likes of No Doubt, Sublime, Pennywise, Van Morrison, Foreigner, Guns N Roses, a bunch of other bands like that. And Steve has done something really cool that I thought was worth coming on the podcast to talk about, and that is bringing that sort of recording studio, I call it like the legacy era of recording studios, like the golden days when you're selling golden platinum albums left and right, and everyone's buying albums, and it's easy to make the music industry work.

Now back in, I mean, getting through the huge dip in the 2000s and the teens, and now we're kind of coming back again in the stream era. Steve has been a big part of bringing this studio along for the ride into the modern era, and I think he's done some really cool stuff along with that. So first of all, I just want to say, hey, Steve. Hey, man.

Steve Ornest (1:46)

Thanks for having me on the show. Appreciate it. Huge fan.

Brian Hood (1:49)

Well, dude, I'm glad to have you on, and we were joking about this before. We're both audio nerds, and you more than even I am an audio nerd, because you run a very legitimate studio, and you're in your office now with like, echoey room, computer mic.

Steve Ornest (2:03)

I didn't even have headphones until my wife found them for me.

Brian Hood (2:07)

Yeah, yeah. And just for anyone listening, chances are it doesn't sound as bad to you as it actually sounds, because we have really cool software to really zhuzh things up.

But first of all, thanks for coming to the podcast, Steve, and coming on to share your story with us. So just to start things out here, you're telling me an interesting story kind of how you got into this in the first place, because in most cases, you never or rarely see an old guard legacy studio that came up the old school way really adapting and embracing the new era.

And even more, and that's why so many of them have fallen off. Unfortunately, I don't ever want to see those studios shut down.

That's just the unfortunate reality of so many of those studios. But the few that actually come into the new world, even fewer of those are actually partnering with and pairing with younger people like you, who are part of the new wave of home studios and I say home studios liberally, it's really just people that are approaching the business of recording much differently. So can you tell me the story of how you even got connected with the studio in the first place?

Steve Ornest (3:04)

Yeah, so I feel like a lot of people that wind up in this business, I didn't necessarily think that I was going to wind up ever owning a studio. And that wasn't really what my trajectory was, but sort of a funny story is that while I was going to high school many, many years ago, I was the guitar player that always came to class with the guitar around his back and long hair. And it was like that guy.

Brian Hood (3:29)

Or that guy.

Steve Ornest (3:30)

I was that guy. I think I was coined to Steve Metal. Seriously, in the freshman year of high school, anyway, this girl saw me at the bleachers practicing when I should have been in class and came over and said, you're really good. I should introduce you to my dad. He's a record producer. And I was like, oh yeah, like who is he? And she said, Winn Davis. And I was like, okay. And I went home and looked him up and was like, oh my God, this guy's done all these records that I like love, like, you know, worked with Dio and Black Sabbath and all these just like, like it's Guns N Roses. And so anyway, I came back to school the next day and I was like, yes, you should definitely introduce me to your dad. I want to meet this guy. I had a local gig coming up. I was playing with some cover band, these guys that were like twice my age, doing like eighties rock covers, you know.