Welcome to the Home Studio Hustle Podcast. This is episode 2. In this episode, I give you some background on myself, as well as clarify who Home Studio Hustle is for.

I want to respect your time, so it's only right to be up front and clear about who I want to help with Home Studio Hustle.

But first, let's start with me:

(Always a good sign, right?)

No, I believe that if I expect you to give your time to me, you should at least know some things about who I am and where I come from.

My name is Michael Brown and I'm from Connecticut. I work with Special Education Kindergarteners as my day job and I LOVE IT. I leave work every single day feeling full and fulfilled.I hope your day job makes you feel the same way. Maybe it doesn't, but that isn't terribly relevant to what we're talking about here.

Growing up I was constantly around music. I sang in chorus and joined band as soon as I could. I knew immediately that music was something I wanted to do forever.

Now, I could go on and on about school and my experiences in each grade, but I'm just going to do some fast-forwarding here to High School.

Does anyone here remember LimeWire? It was kind of like Nappster. It was an illegal file sharing program and community that hosted a crazy amount of music for free.

Hey, I told you I was going to be honest. That's a part of my story. I was young and irreverent at the time and that's not something I would participate in today. In fact, I have a whole future episode of the podcast coming out about how piracy kills creativity!

Anyway, my friend Colin and I were looking around in the files, there, and we discovered a new, budding, genre of music: A Cappella.Yes you heard me correctly. This is WAY before The Sing-Off or Pitch Perfect or even a general knowledge of the style was around.

It blew my mind. I needed in. I researched colleges based on A Cappella groups rather than graduation rates and student life.

Fast forward some more and I'm in the group I eventually joined- Divisi from Central Connecticut State University. My freshman year, we got the budget to record our first album.

When we walked into the recording studio for the first time, I was awestruck.

"This is it," I thought. "This is what I need to do forever."

Leaving the space, though, I felt heartbroken by the amount of equipment I THOUGHT I needed in order to make enough money to be comfortable as a recording engineer.

I wish someone pulled me aside and told me what I actually needed in order to make an income doing what I so clearly loved.

Fast forward again and the album wasn't even really that good. Here's another pain point. If this guy had all of this equipment, he must be doing something wrong with it. I KNEW that if I was working with his gear, I could record a KILLER collection of music.

But still, nobody told me just how small an investment I'd have to make in order to create a quality product- so I moved on.

In 2014, out of a desire to create more, I joined an online challenge called FAWM. That's F A W M, which is an acronym for February Album Writing Month. The point is it's a creativity and productivity hack designed to get your juices flowing and force you to churn out projects. The challenge is to write and record 14 songs in the month of February- a full album.

Since I had no way to record the music I was writing, I went online and searched for a solution.

What I found was a product called an AudioBox from Presonus. It even came with a free copy of their DAW, Studio One 2. (We don't need to go into how confusing that name is right now)I want to pause here for a moment, because this is one of the most pivotal moments in my life. This small purchase of around $100 changed my path forever.

I devoured tutorials. I recorded relentlessly. I read books and talked to experts.

I heavily invested in myself so that I could give value to others.

During that month, I wrote good songs, and I wrote bad songs, but most importantly I began the journey of improving my skills through practice.

If this part of my life was in a montage, it would cut quickly between my practicing, failing, practicing more, succeeding a little, and practicing even more.

Now, I understand that this is getting a little tedious, so let me speed it up for you.

Over the next 5 years I began producing A Cappella albums and made some strong connections with members of the community.

I partied with the top names in the niche, and curated important relationships with the professionals.

The professional group I was in after college, Connect, won 3rd place in a national competition called the Harmony Sweepstakes. I recorded them and we made killer music and people are still streaming our music today!

Perhaps one of the next most important points in my audio journey was joining a Mastermind. I was surrounded by like-minded up-and-coming producers and engineers who wanted to up their A Cappella game.

More than any individual tip or skill I learned in that group (It was a paid mastermind) I found myself in some solid relationships with those people.

Fast forward again to the present day. I'm making impactful, supplemental income out of my home studio.

Now, did I tell you all of that because I'm in love with myself and just want to sit people down and shove my story down their throat?No.

I have shared my story because I want to highlight the most important parts of it:

• That I felt like I couldn't do it
• That I took advantage of a moment of strength and jumped into recording
• That I invested in MYSELF instead of gear in order to get the job done
• That I curated and leveraged RELATIONSHIPS
• And that when I had nobody else to work with, I created my OWN projects and EXECUTED on them

So, did you hear me say ANYWHERE that I was the best at something?

No

In fact, I have a personal rule never to be the best in the room.

1. With that said- I want to help as many people as I can with Home Studio Hustle, but I'm sure it won't be for everyone.

(Ad lib a little on these points)

• I'm not going to make you rich overnight
• I can't fix lazy
• I can't help you if you're headstrong in the WAYS you want to go about this.

Who is Home Studio Hustle for? Let's get specific.

• If you're sitting down at your workstation several times a week and playing around with the same project file but not making any real progress, HSH IFY
• If you've tweaked the EQ and compression settings on your acoustic guitar every night this week, but it's still not perfect. HSH IFY
• If you've ever rejected a paid opportunity because you're nervous that you don't have what it takes to deliver. HSH IFY
• If you're pumping out good beats and putting them on soundcloud where they sit and collect dust. HSH IFY
• If you have a strong desire to create meaningful and impactful art or education using your skills. HSH IFY
• If you know that you need to invest in YOURSELF in order to improve your work. HSH IFY
• And if you want to transition your hobby into a reliable supplemental paycheck. HSH IFY

If any of those sound like you, join me at homestudiohustle.com/podcast and Subscribe to this podcast. I'll be here every week to share tips, tricks, hacks, and actionable techniques to get you closer to your goals.

Thank you, and keep hustlin.