Playing music is a hard way to make a living. Most musican work is most likely to be contract labor, with no job security and no benefits. The working hours are typically dismal. The working conditions are too often unhealthy, depressing, and, sometimes, in dangerous locations.

Establishing one's reputation in the music business takes years of touring and that disrupts one's education and stresses one's family relationships. 

A person who has the discipline and intelligence to master a musical instrument will  have other interests in which they are equally accomplished. For these people, considering a career in music must compete with more stable ways to make a living.

Income that is predictable and to be able to stay home with the family offer  compelling reasons to choose a career other than music. Many so chose. 

Most musicians who leave the music scene, for on reason or another, still love to make music. They are musically active in their community and churches and schools; wherever music exist for them. 

It is these fine musicians that Affable Sound Recording is dedicated to servicing.

The benefits of singing and playing musical instruments goes beyond the enjoyment derived from participating in such activity. The person with musical experience is in a position to derive greater pleasure from hearing music performed by others. The awareness of the process gives such a listener an added dimension on which to weave pleasure. 

It is regrettable that so few people today trouble themselves with making music. The traditional ways of learning about music have mostly disappeared.  The pastime of a family playing music together in their home is seldom observed today.

Music played by talented non-professional musicians too often falls away to silence - lost forever because the microphone was unavailable at that moment. This situation is changing. Recording equipment capable of producing sound of professional quality is becoming affordable to people with modest incomes. The result is that the manufacture of musical recording equipment is a growth industry.  The musically inclined are buying these recording tools and putting them to use recording their music in their bedrooms and basements. This music is published and distributed by independent recording enterprises and, typically, sold to the end user directly and through the Internet. Every category of music someone can imagine is finding an audience that appreciates and supports it. The Independent Recording movement has grown to the point that Billboard Magazine  has recently established a new section -- The Independent Album Chart -- tracking indie music sales. This is the signal that independent music publication is now legitimate. Affable Sound Recording Service and Products is an enterprise that falls under the definition of independent music production. 

This recording activity begin when I acquired a CD-R recording device for my computer. It occurred to me I could make my own audio CDs with whatever music I wanted on them. I started recording musicians in my neighborhood using a cassette tape deck, a pair  of SM-57 microphones, a Mackie 1202 mixer, and my computer running Cool Edit Pro audio editing software. The sound was surprisingly pleasant and the process was technically interesting. I have since then taken a more serious interest in sound recording. I shamelessly brow-beat my musically talented friends to practice, practice, and  my singing neighbors to stop smoking cigarettes. They won't. Still, life is pleasant. 

Philip Childress