October 14 2009 Recording studio open to the public Will Lydgate’s Steelgrass Farm is creative haven By Pamela Varma Brown Kaua‘i People For Will Lydgate, owning a state-of-the-art recording studio near his home in Wailua is about more than helping folks record great music. It’s about bringing more art and culture to the island and helping people achieve their dreams. At Steelgrass Farm Recording Studio, a full-service, open-to-the-public recording studio, “I am seeing this as a platform as education to teach recording arts, to hold workshops, of course to record great music and do voiceovers and studio gigs,” Lydgate said. “It provides a nest or hale for really creative things to happen.” And a place where sounds of roosters and heavy rain won’t be caught on tape, a challenge faced by many people who have home recording studios in Hawai`i. Designed as a room within a room, the Steelgrass studio is able to significantly reduce audio interference from outside, even if a bulldozer were to be operating next door, Lydgate said. “We have sound isolation,” he said. “Because of that, we’re the go-to studio for voiceovers.” Introducing voice-over and other talent to Kaua`i – or having a place for them to work while they’re vacationing in Hawai`i – is another of Lydgate’s goals: bringing people from the mainland to contribute to the island economy. Producers can phone in from the mainland and they and the people in the vocal booth can hear each other. Since it opened three years ago, the studio has had some high profile customers. Voice-overs by Ben Stiller for “Madagascar 2,” Jack Black for “Kung F Panda,” television shows “Ghost Hunters International” and “Deadliest Catch” and diverse musical talent such as the gospel Dixie Hummingbirds, Indian slide guitar pioneer Debashish Bhattacharya, the U.S. Air Force Band of the Pacific and Hawai`i’s `ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro have all been recorded at Steelgrass. As a professional musician himself – an alum of Berklee College of Music, a bass and `ukulele player and member of the popular “The Yes Men” band – Lydgate says he intuitively provides added value as an engineer. “I know what a creative groove is. Sometimes you don’t talk. I allow the musicians to stay in the zone,” he said. He also knows the nuts and bolts of recording, beginning with what a musical group should do before ever coming into a studio. “Pre-production is the most important part of production – deciding what songs you want to play, form, interpretation, everyone learning their parts – so that when you come into the studio you can be creative and add that extra 10 percent of inspiration or magic – and you’ve already mastered the material,” he said. “Prepare, prepare, prepare.” There are five elements to getting a great sound in a recording studio, and without the first three, the last two don’t count, Lydgate said. “The first three are: a great player with a great instrument in a great-sounding room. Once you have those then the last two things are a great microphone into a great preamp, so it’s all about the music really,” he said. A pre-amp amplifies the microphone’s signal. Lydgate recommends people record themselves at home to gauge how far they’ve come, something he said can be done easily using an Apple computer with a built-in microphone and GarageBand, software that allows people to record and mix their own music. “Record yourself and listen to yourself everyday,” he said, explaining that helps a person catch themself in the act of doing something fabulous. “You don’t always know in the moment what was cool when you were doing it.” How can you know if you’re ready to record? “Pray on it, meditate on it. Ask your friends. They’ll tell you, or what you should work on,” he said. “People give great advice usually.” And when you’re ready, “a professional recording studio and engineer can help take you to the next level,” Lydgate said. “When you come to me, I help you by putting you in touch with the best musicians, putting you in the best space and giving you the best vibe.” For songwriters who want to make a demo recording, working with a professional studio can be where dreams become reality “because you know it’s going to get finished as opposed to sitting around and dreaming about it for years and years,” he said. “We can make things tangible.” When Lydgate’s father, Tony, built Steelgrass Farm Recording Studio, which is owned by Will and his sister Emily who resides in England, he helped make more of the family’s own dreams tangible. “My family has strong feelings about enriching the island,” Will Lydgate said. “I feel a great blessing from some of the work that’s been carried out by the family on my father’s side, especially JM (John Mortimer Lydgate, Will’s great-grandfather for whom the county-owned Lydgate Park is named). “Everyone in the family endeavors to be of service. It spills over to the recording studio. It’s kind of spiritual.” Lydgate has recently been working with kumu hula Kehaulani Kekua to record chants that were passed down to her from her grandmother. “I’m really excited to help preserve the Hawaiian language,” he said, noting that his great-grandfather spoke fluent Hawaiian. Lydgate has also helped set up a recording studio at charter school Ke Kula Ni`ihau O Kekaha. He hopes that in some way Steelgrass Farm Recording Studio can help Kaua`i’s young musicians become highly successful in the national music scene. “I want kids to come out of Kaua`i and have people say ‘Where’s that kid from? Kaua`i? Oh, they play great over there,’ ” he said. He quotes a Nashville musician who told him, “The rising tide raises all ships.” “I interpret that as everyone gets better when everyone gets better.” Contact Steelgrass Farm Recording Studio: 651-0302, will@steelgrass.org or www.steelgrass.org .
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