Sam Hillman participates in Studio LIFE audio recording program at the Walnut House

It’s a common predicament. A college graduate applies for a position that requires not only an education, but a few years of prior experience in that position. Too often, it’s prior experience that new graduates don’t have and internships don’t provide, especially in the music business and recording industry.

Nathan Adam and Chris Sy have the right idea.

Adam is the owner of Walnut House, a sort of centralized music mecca at 116 N. Walnut St. which has provided space for dozens of recording projects (including those by nationally recognized recording artists) and live shows, as well as The Murfreesboro Pulse office. Over the past five years, Adam has overseen countless recording and engineering projects there, and the most recent addition to his complex is Studio LIFE.

Studio LIFE is a recording fraternity, not to be confused with MTSU RIM fraternity Omega Delta Psi (which Adam was an advisor for). Though student recording and producing have always taken place at Walnut House, the Studio LIFE fraternity moved in and launched in August 2011. The club’s main purpose is to keep recording industry and music business students out of that post-college rattrap.

“Most entry level jobs have that dreaded phrase, ‘Entry level position, two years experience required,’” Adam says. “Well, you can’t have two years of experience if you can’t get an actual position [laughs]. Their goal is that by the time they finish their degrees, they’ll have 2,000 hours of hands-on studio and live, concert promotion, booking and contracts experience under their belts.”

Since last semester, Studio LIFE’s membership has expanded to nearly 50 members from the core five or six interns and volunteers who initially kept busy inside Walnut House.

All at varying experience levels, members gain more than 2,000 hours of hands-on experience in any aspect of the music business. Members are paired up based on interest and level of experience to make complementary and more productive teams.

“Some people come in, and they’ve done a lot of producing on their computer maybe, but not done any live sound. Other people have never recorded anything. Pairing people like that, especially if there’s someone more experienced, they’re able to teach and work with one another,” Adam explains, “I love seeing students pursue their passions.

There are four levels of experience—apprentice, assistant, semi-pro and pro—with definitive goals and hours set for each. At the pro level, students will complete projects in leadership and service, as well as projects like running sound for live events, booking shows or producing in the studio to total 1,500-2,000 hours of hands-on experience.

Adam knows a lot about the hands-on.

A learn-by-doing sort who describes his education and career approach as “multi-faceted,” Adam taught audio engineering and production classes for seven years at MTSU, four of which he served as Associate Chair of the Recording Industry department. He taught himself to record and produce by doing it, and says that apprenticeships held more weight than formal education in the recording industry at the time. He co-authored two books, Pro Tools 9: The Mixer’s Toolkit and Multi-Platinum Pro Tools. He worked on numerous recording and engineering projects, and appeared on MSNBC’s Tonight With Deborah Norville as a recording expert.

When Adam bought Walnut House in 2007, another fraternity was working out of the studios nearly full time. He says it took another three years or so to find the fit with Chris Sy and his Studio LIFE group.

“You just have to have the right people,” he says.

Now there appears to be plenty of right people, who attest to their success at Studio LIFE on the website, sharing how they got involved with the fraternity and how membership has served as an education of the most practical kind.

Jake Tackett, an MTSU student and member of Studio LIFE, has written, recorded and produced music from a home studio as part of the band Hope Held High along with twin brother Nik. Like all LIFE members, he has a pretty unwavering ambition and career vision.

“I got involved because it’s what I am going to do with my life. I am going to own a professional recording studio, and I want to network with people who can better me as an audio engineer. It’s about the hands you shake, not the grade you make,” Tackett says, adding, “Well, the grades still matter a little.”

Adam emphasizes that Studio LIFE is a supplement, not a replacement, for the formal education members gain at schools like Belmont and MTSU.

“While students are getting this great education, Studio LIFE is a supplementary thing. No one thinks anything of someone studying phys ed also having a membership at Gold’s Gym. That would be normal and expected. This is the Gold’s Gym for recording industry majors [laughs],” he adds.

Thus far, the club has provided for some members a bridge between school and the elusive paying job. Enhancing their resumes to top-of-the-pile quality over years spent at Studio LIFE, one student went into production at Murfreesboro’s World Outreach Church. Another was hired for audio/video supervising at a hotel.

The goal at Studio LIFE is to make entrepreneurship in the music business and recording industries possible.

“We’ve sort of been taught from birth, once you finish college, you get a job. But that’s not the same for every industry, especially now. Things are changing, the world is changing. If something can be done overseas for cheaper, that’s going to happen. So they want to make sure everyone has the hands-on experience to say, ‘I know how to create my own job, whether that’s starting my own label, starting my own production company,’ and we’re providing the facilities and support,” Adam says.

As for next semester, a lab will be available for students, and it will be equipped with video content on advanced mixing, Pro Tools, miking techniques and more. A main focus for the coming semester will be structuring projects around realistic production budgets to create a “real world” experience.

Studio LIFE will also be developing more opportunities and projects for the business-oriented members interested in booking and promotion.

Studio LIFE members are close, Adam says, and he predicts that the accomplishments of the fraternity, or the “tribe,” as he calls it, will only get bigger, probably because of a collective, zealous dedication to the same thing. They hope to expand a 2nd chapter to Nashville to help students in that area in the near future.

“Everybody wants to belong to something where they’re surrounded by people who love the things they love,” Adam says. “I grew up as the only guy doing any recording and producing, so to come to Middle Tennessee nine years ago and be surrounded by people who were into that was a dream come true for me, and is a dream come true for a lot of students at Studio LIFE.”

For more information, send an e-mail here or visit www.lifeinthestudio.com.