As a blind or partially sighted person have you ever thought about setting up your own recording studio and producing your own music?

Well RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with Shaun Hayward, a blind musician and ballroom dancer who in the early 2000s set up a basement studio in Leeds with his blind musician friend Joe Kenny which was very much an analogue studio recording on to a Windows PC with JAWS and the audio software package Sonar. After working and producing music with Joe for almost 10 years Shaun took some time away from music making but recently decided to get back in to music again and this time has gone down the route of setting up a home studio using the digital audio workstation Pro Tools on an Apple Mac computer. 

Shaun began by giving Toby an overview of the studio he and Joe set up in Leeds, a bit about how they worked together producing and making music and why he decided to step away from music making after almost 10 years. Then to what made him want to get back into music again and what it was like having to get to grips with not only learning to use an Apple Mac computer but also working with Pro Tools. 

Shaun also gave Toby an overview of his home studio, the kit he has for making music at home along with some helpful tips and advice for other blind and partially sighted people who would like to go down a similar route and make and produce their own music at home. 

Some useful online resources for blind and partially sighted people who want to get in to recording and music making:

Sound without Sight - an online community hub that has a wide range of information, articles, blogs and podcast about getting in to recording and music making which can be found by visiting - https://soundwithoutsight.org

If like Shaun you are thinking of using Pro Tools on an Apple Mac computer there is a great online Pro Tools tutorial produced by a number of blind musicians and producers in America which can be found by visiting the following link - https://ptaccess.github.io

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