Audio engineers Keenan McRae and Joe Ceponis seem to embrace change and the pandemic that has otherwise wreaked havoc on our city doesn’t appear to be getting them down.
There’s an old saying that goes something like – “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”
The classically-trained Loyola grads who make up the Artisound Production team spend their days submerged in over 10 years of respectively collected musical gear and gizmos in Art Space 3116 on St. Claude. Walking through the studio doors, one feels instantly inspired, as works by local artist Matthew Rosenbeck adorn the walls. Walking into the music area of the studio, visitors see an enormous mixer board that once belonged to an NYC producer who recorded Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. (McRae and Ceponis have a long tale about how it got there, but that is a different story.)
“What is blowing my mind [during this pandemic] is people are putting money into their investments, like music, and therefore investing in us which is a beautiful thing. It’s the whole meaning of music. My personal definition of it comes from the Bible – it says musicians should be paid for their work and through the community,” says McRae, the son of a preacher who grew up with gospel. For him, seeing that people are still creating music is a silver lining, as he believes the pandemic can’t survive “what we do as people.”
When lockdown commenced in March, many live musicians who performed in the area were hit hard, as permits for live performance were revoked. Streaming service Bandcamp made several efforts to assist struggling artists by allowing them to keep their revenue shares. Social media feeds all over lit up with calls to purchase band albums and merch and to tune into live streams. Sales for microphone packs and FocusRite guitar interfaces shot up. A Rolling Stone article reported that Sweetwater’s sales in April were greater than the seven days following Thanksgiving sales 2019. Zack McCord, a Sweetwater Sales Engineer, says FocusRite’s interfaces were a “big player” in the boom.
But the increase in content doesn’t necessarily parallel quality. McRae insists simply, “People won’t listen to your stuff if it doesn’t sound right.” Ceponis adds that musicians need to get a bit more in touch with their entrepreneurial sides in order to triumph in this difficult new music marketplace.
“I think there is a lot of predatory behavior by auditory tech companies giving people tools and not how to use them. If I press the button why aren’t the money and likes rolling out? I do feel bad for the up and coming because there is this myth of a rags to riches industry. We [ourselves] fell for that at Loyola when they were on the verge of realizing streaming was going to destroy the industry. By our third year they said be an entrepreneur and make your own income and we took that with us. No musician should be in the desperation of a position to say ‘please listen to my stuff,’” Ceponis states.
So what does adapting to the needs of a post COVID-19 music industry in New Orleans look like? For McRae and Ceponis, it ranges from helping live musicians learn to set up a live stream, consulting with musicians new to home recordings on gear, working on film scores, and doing mixing and mastering work to solidify the sound of those just starting to record themselves at home.
Ceponis sees a silver lining in the pandemic, saying, “It’s proving people are still investing in art. I love being in the studio and advising people on technological advancements in the industry. The way people spend their money as artists right now is so significant and it’s moving in the direction of people being able to widely display their work.”
To learn more about Artisound Production, visit here.
