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When I was in the 10th grade, I won a scholarship to take one course at Muskegon Community College. The class I chose was Intro to Electronic Music. I'll always remember the first day I walked in to class, because the person next to me asked if I was a freshmen or sophomore, and I replied "sophomore". Of course, I didn't mention that I meant a sophomore in HIGH SCHOOL, not college!

Anyways, this turned out to be an excellent education in MIDI technology, sequencing, sampling, and looping. I became good friends with the college's KORG keyboard.

About that same time, the rock band I was in (Scourge) recorded four songs at Roger's Recording Studio in Muskegon, Michigan. This hardly counted as a real recording experience, because the engineer just had an eight channel mixer and a stereo cassette tape machine. We ended up transferring our songs to a VHS tape, and the cables running to it had a short. Although we spent two hundred bucks, this recording sounded even worse than the 4-track recordings we had made in my bedroom!

Tracking the song "Contemplation" at AudioMatrix, Toledo, Ohio.

Matt Perdue's Denmark Studios

I've never seen so much KISS memorabilia in my life!

Over the past 10 years, Matt and I have been corresponding with each other musically. We have been writing songs together since we were 13 years old, and have even remixed some of the old Scourge material. We have put together song parodys, cover tunes, and original music over the past two decades. "Uninsured Vehicle" is probably one of my favorites...

In 1999, I formed the hard rock band CLIMB. We lived in an old ice factory on Huron Street in downtown Ann Arbor. The foot thick concert walls made great sound insulation, and our studio setup was nice... We recorded using the Fostex 16 track tape machine exclusively. Every so often, we'd take a really good cut of a song from rehearsal, and dump all 16 tracks to Pro Tools. Mixing was easy with a four piece band. In order to make the sound fuller, we expirimented with making the bass drum stereo, the snare stereo, the vocals stereo, and I had a special pair of plug ins for guitar that were named "quadrophonic". We played lots of shows at the Heidelberg and the Blind Pig.

On Hoch Avenue in Adrian, Michigan, I set up an upstairs studio for recording local bands, poets, and singer songwriters. The most successful bands each contributed one song to my compilation CD entitled "Carved in Stone". I started a record label called "Omega 13 Records." During this time, I engineered a demo with Gospel Guitarist Jeremy Blaska, who is very successful with his music on digstation.

In Blissfield, Michigan, I did a lot of ambient recording and soundtracks for Siena Heights University's Theater Program. At the time I was the guitar instructor for Siena Heights University, Adrian College, and the Jackson Community Music School.

Ross Strayer during the tracking of "Corridors"...

In Adrian, Michigan, I lived above the Pizza Joint downtown, and played at the Barley House every Wednesday night. I did a lot of gospel recording. I also recorded several local musicians' sonic reactions to the 9-11 tragedy.

When I was in the 10th grade, I won a scholarship to take one course at Muskegon Community College. The class I chose was Intro to Electronic Music. I'll always remember the first day I walked in to class, because the person next to me asked if I was a freshmen or sophomore, and I replied "sophomore". Of course, I didn't mention that I meant a sophomore in HIGH SCHOOL, not college! Anyways, this turned out to be an excellent education in MIDI technology, sequencing, sampling, and looping. I became good friends with the college's KORG keyboard. About that same time, the rock band I was in (Scourge) recorded four songs at Roger's Recording Studio in Muskegon, Michigan. This hardly counted as a real recording experience, because the engineer just had an eight channel mixer and a stereo cassette tape machine. We ended up transferring our songs to a VHS tape, and the cables running to it had a short. Although we spent two hundred bucks, this recording sounded even worse than the 4-track recordings we had made in my bedroom!	Mixing for SideStream...
Recording Horizons at Subterranean Studios...	In high school, Matt Perdue, Irving Cryderman, and I reformed the band "Scourge", and this was my first REAL recording experience. We tracked at Blue Dog Recording in Big Rapids, Michigan. This was on a Fostex 16 track half inch tape machine. We ended up mixing down to a Super-VHS tape, and I remember taking it home, putting it in the VCR, and listening to our songs as it was snowing on the TV. No eq or compression was added to any of the tracks. But of course, back then I didn't know any better...

When I was attending Siena Heights University in 1994, I participated in a program that allowed me to intern at Scharren Recording Studios in Toledo, Ohio. After duping tapes and making coffee for a couple months, their main rock and rap engineer moved down south. This left the position of recording engineer open for me. As soon as I was on board, I recorded acts like Sweet 'N Low, Wickford Green, and The Organization. This is when I discovered that simply recording and playing back 24 tracks doesn't guaratee that it will sound good. All those tracks contain competing frequncies. I was shown how to reveal sound using only reductive eq, like peeling away the layers of an onion. I recorded men's choirs, heavy metal bands, and even the Toledo Symphony. The experience that I gained in learning Pro Tools was very valuable. I learned formulas for tracking drums, hooking up outbard gears through Pro Tools I/O, and then bouncing the new sounds back to Prol Tools on a different layer. Later, I started developing web sites and editing video through the studio's multi-media department. It was very exciting, and I learned the ins and outs (literally!) of Pro Tools from a true professional and Grammy-Nominated engineer, Dan Schroder. I earned a BA in Music Technology from Siena Heights University in 1997.	Scharren Recording Studios, Toledo, Ohio.
U.S. Sound Studios and Peanut Roasting Facility. Yes, I really do have curly hair!	During the summer of 1995, I took on another job through the University at US Sound in Hillsdale, Michigan, which was a sound recording studio for country and gospel artists. Upon arriving, I found that the previous engineer had left with many projects unfinished. Everything had been tracked on several projects, but the levels were so low that noise became a major issue. I showed the owner how to go through all the gain stages and eliminate noise. Then we bounced all the tracks down to stereo and expirimented with how hard we could hit that tape. There was not a single piece of digital equipment anywhere in the studio. The soundproof vocal booth and mixdown room were built in an enormous industrial building with foot-thick cement walls. Everything was done on a Fostex 8-track reel-to-reel tape machine. This is where I learned to sync a tape machine to a drum machine by using track 8 as a FSK signal.
In 1998, I began Graduate School at the University of Toledo, and also began working at Audiomatrix Recording Studio in Toledo, as well as Strawberry Fields Studios in Lyons, Ohio. Here I recorded many hip-hop and rap artists, as well as Gospel music. AudioMatrix used digital performer rather than pro tools. Backing up material and archiving sessions was something I carried into this experience. The studio also specialized in audio restoration, cleaning up 911 calls, and doing work for the local police department. Both studios were equipped with 3 Alesis ADAT machines, and a mixing board with muting automation. I was stunned at the amount and complexity of the work simply to mute tracks, especially after being trained on the latest Pro Tools 24 system. I was going for my Master's Degree in Composition at the University of Toledo.	Tracking the song "Contemplation" at AudioMatrix, Toledo, Ohio.
Matt Perdue's Denmark Studios I've never seen so much KISS memorabilia in my life!	Over the past 10 years, Matt and I have been corresponding with each other musically. We have been writing songs together since we were 13 years old, and have even remixed some of the old Scourge material. We have put together song parodys, cover tunes, and original music over the past two decades. "Uninsured Vehicle" is probably one of my favorites...
In 1999, I formed the hard rock band CLIMB. We lived in an old ice factory on Huron Street in downtown Ann Arbor. The foot thick concert walls made great sound insulation, and our studio setup was nice... We recorded using the Fostex 16 track tape machine exclusively. Every so often, we'd take a really good cut of a song from rehearsal, and dump all 16 tracks to Pro Tools. Mixing was easy with a four piece band. In order to make the sound fuller, we expirimented with making the bass drum stereo, the snare stereo, the vocals stereo, and I had a special pair of plug ins for guitar that were named "quadrophonic". We played lots of shows at the Heidelberg and the Blind Pig.	Huron Street Production Room, CLIMB's rehearsal and recording space.

It started out simple - Just a tape machine, mixing board, Pro Tools, and a Scooby Doo poster...	On Hoch Avenue in Adrian, Michigan, I set up an upstairs studio for recording local bands, poets, and singer songwriters. The most successful bands each contributed one song to my compilation CD entitled "Carved in Stone". I started a record label called "Omega 13 Records." During this time, I engineered a demo with Gospel Guitarist Jeremy Blaska, who is very successful with his music on digstation.
In Blissfield, Michigan, I did a lot of ambient recording and soundtracks for Siena Heights University's Theater Program. At the time I was the guitar instructor for Siena Heights University, Adrian College, and the Jackson Community Music School.	Mike Dumire gets ready to record the track "Chicago" for the Omega 13 Records Compilation CD...
Ross Strayer during the tracking of "*Corridors*"...	In Adrian, Michigan, I lived above the Pizza Joint downtown, and played at the Barley House every Wednesday night. I did a lot of gospel recording. I also recorded several local musicians' sonic reactions to the 9-11 tragedy.
My Pro Tools gear is small enough to travel, so I set it up at the local music store and recorded Brad Skinner after hours. The tracks feature some very keen jazz guitar, with Brad laying down a rhythm part, then overdubbing a melody and improvised solos. A group of friends from Adrian had a band called Blindside, and we recorded using 4 mics and a 4 track cassette recorder in their basement rehearsal area. I remember setting up all the equipment on the pool table.	Tracking "the Bee Flat Tune"...
Listening to out takes for "Impressions"...	After moving to Longmont, Colorado, I began to work at the Denver Musician's Union Recording Studio and the Grammy winning Bendiksen Productions. That's where I started working next to Mike Binder, Mike Nuccio, Colin Chapman and Orange Peel Moses. We did the soundtrack to a documentary film for the U. S. Forest Service. I'm currently finishing a project with Filter Mist, a hardcore band from Longmont. Bands I have recently finished are Birth of Jubal, Crimson Reigns, and The Dojo Warriors. I've also just finished with 2 time Grammy award winning producer Tom Wasinger on a collection of original solo classical guitar pieces entitled "Horizons." I've recently enrolled in classes at Digital Poets in Boulder, Colorado, to complete my Pro Tools Expert Certification.