By Marc Diebold
Having a passion for something outside of your day-to-day job responsibilities can fuel your creative side and inform and enhance the important career-related work that you do. Over the years, I’ve found that the things our staff at dgs are passionate about outside of work can be quite varied and interesting, and contribute in positive ways to our corporate culture. For some, it’s family or community related, like coaching their kid’s sports team or doing volunteer work at their church, or physical fitness related, like working out every day or participating in sporting events. For others, it’s simply a serious hobby that brings them joy and self-satisfaction. For me, it’s performing acoustic rock music at clubs and other venues, and recording songs or backing tracks in my home studio.
Recently I had the chance to attend a three-day Master Class on audio recording at a nationally-known recording studio along with 20 other recording enthusiasts, most of whom were studio owners or audio engineers. The guest artist we were recording was the legendary musician and songwriter Don Felder, best known as the former lead guitar player for The Eagles, where he wrote the music for several hit songs including Hotel California.
During the class, we re-recorded Don playing all the guitar parts (both his and Joe Walsh’s) for that famous song using guitars, amps and microphones nearly identical to the ones he used when he did the original recording. Our challenge was to make a recording that sounded as close as possible to the original release.
We were also treated to a few fascinating ‘behind the scenes’ stories about the making of that iconic album and Don’s life with The Eagles. Besides the one-on-one conversations I had with Don throughout the day, a big highlight for me was getting to hear Don’s original demo for the song, which he recorded in his then one-year old daughter’s bedroom on a four-track tape machine – some two years before The Eagles recorded it as a band. It was amazing to hear how close that demo sounded to the finished song so many of us have committed to memory almost note-for-note.
That class was a great learning experience for me, and certainly motivated me to get back in my own studio and do some more recording. I’d encourage all of you reading this to find something interesting to be engaged with outside of your job, and let the creativity and pleasure you derive from it carry over into your career.