Aislin Recordings is a digital recording studio located in Nixa. Producer Matt Grojean started in 2010 and has been making records for local bands and teaching piano and violin lessons on the side since.

Before Aislin Recordings, Grojean was a touring musician playing piano and keyboards for various groups. He eventually went on to tour with the band Rookie of the Year.

Grojean shared a few details about life in the studio with The Scoop:

It can start as a hobby. 

Like many other careers, recording can start with a fascination and love of what one does. Grojean would record demos for himself and others using Ableton and learned as much as possible from others and on his own. While on tour, he met and co-wrote music with singer-songwriter Andrew Goldstein, after which he received a loan from a hopeful friend to start up his own studio.

Local bands are at a big disadvantage compared with their higher-budget counterparts.

Most people are used to listening to high-quality recordings from major labels with larger studios. A person listening to the radio or music on the Internet might give a song eight seconds and then decide they don’t like the band. To be taken seriously, a recording needs to sound as good as anything else on the listener’s iPod.

Paying for studio time can be an unforeseen issue with local bands.

Other professional studios often charge $70-$80 per hour to use their facilities. When producing for local bands, he uses state-of-the-art recording interfaces to help give his clients the best sound they can get. Grojean charges by the project, which helps a lot of first-time recording artists who don’t know their way around the studio.

Hundreds of hours can go into an album. 

Under most circumstances, everything is recorded individually, in segments, Grojean says. So recording for a five-piece band adds up. Something like recording live drums can take seven, eight hours or more. Then you have to mix the song and accommodate any creative wishes of the client.