Brief Biography of Jacob Belser, owner
I have owned Farm Fresh Studios for over 10 years and have been a professional audio engineer since 1993. I attended Indiana University where I studied music and audio recording. From 1993-1999 I worked as a live sound engineer, mixing front-of-house or monitors for over 1000 shows in venues ranging from coffee shops to college auditoriums to stadiums for small local groups to large national acts. Some of the more memorable shows I have done sound for include Wilco, Frank Black, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Warren Zevon, Junior Brown, Clint Black, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, and touring with Kim Fox. While I still enjoy live sound from time to time, my true place all along has been the studio. I have recorded, mixed, and mastered hundreds of albums and still find every project exciting and interesting. In the fall of 2006 I began teaching an audio class, A350, at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. I enjoy teaching and hope to continue to do more of it in the future. I continue to grow and develop the studio and my ability every day, always doing my best to keep up with technology and trends in style.
Speaking of changes, the recording and music business has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Technology has created possibilities in music production barely dreamed of years ago, it has also made recording more accessible to more and more people. As with most things, there is a downside to this new technology-technical quality is increasing while musical skill and quality is constantly decreasing. Many bands are under-rehearsed and rely on technology to fix their shortcomings. It's true that we can now correct tempo, rhythm, and pitch, but my opinion is that we as musicians, producers, and engineers should make judicious use of those abilities. For example, nearly every song on the radio has had the vocals "auto-tuned," even when the vocals didn't necessarily need to be corrected. I believe the attitude that allows that to happen has contributed to the slowdown of album sales and the increase in single sales. At this point a band only has to have one good song and release it as a single on ITunes to be successful, therefore bands aren't being developed artistically and are being dropped from their label before they learn how to be a good band. Listen to some old albums, and listen carefully to time and pitch-you will likely find that there are flat notes and tempos that vary. Take "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones for example, do you think it would be nearly as good if it were perfectly in time and in tune?