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Laying Down
Tracks at Dream Factory Studios “We tore down the insides and painted the whole outside,” O’Brien says. “When we started, all we had was a hammer and a crowbar.” With the help of two members of McLain’s family—as luck would have it, a painter and a general contractor—the studio was completed in about nine months. “We really put blood, sweat and tears into it. It was the middle of summer, and we had no AC. We hurt ourselves a few times, but we bandaged up and kept going. “Everything you see, we all did together,” he continues. “The paint, textures, AC and plumbing, electrical, the main control room, everything.” The studio opened last November at 728 Edge Street, a location chosen after scouting a lot of places, including an old radio station. “But pretty much all the places we went—acoustically, they weren’t right. This place looked like a dump. I don’t know why, but we felt like this was the best place to do it.” A row of movie theater chairs in the lobby suggests that the room will soon function as a screening room. The walls are decorated with framed pictures of George Jones, Frank Sinatra, the Doors, and Smokey Robinson. There is a framed print of Beethoven in the control room where McLain is busy tweaking some sort of heavy-rock project.
Sure, there are a lot of musicians who record out of their homes using computer programs like ProTools, but McLain and O’Brien provide state-of-the-art digital production as well as what their company philosophy calls “a complete collaboration between the client and the studio.” “You’re not really paying us to record your stuff,” O’Brien says. “You’re paying us to listen. Anyone can record, but Micha really knows how to listen and engineer.” “With the home studios, because people can afford it and they read a few articles, they think they can do it,” McLain says. “But it takes a lot of time. I’ve been doing this six years, and I’m still learning.” O’Brien agrees. “All your life you’re learning. We’re techies—always on top of technology. I love technology.” McLain says Dream Factory Studios is equipped to record any style of music—gospel, jazz, blues, rock and funk. He and O’Brien have worked with both local and out-of-town artists. “Most of the time, with a common rock band, you set up the rhythm track,” McLain says. “After that, you add embellishments, guitar solos, and the lead vocals are normally the last thing. Jazz musicians always want to play ‘live’ with no overdubs. I base my decision on how to record an artist based on the song and their talent.” Occasionally, musicians will produce themselves or bring in an outside producer. “I like doing just mixing projects,” McLain says. “One of my favorite things is working with singer-songwriters and getting to arrange all the other parts. So far everyone has really loved our work. We can take an artist’s concept and improve on it.” “We try not to obey a formula for every client,” O’Brien says. In addition to recording and engineering, Dream Factory Studios designs web sites for artists and creates press kits, graphics and logo designs. Music videos can be part of the package; although O’Brien says most up-and-coming acts don’t have a large enough budget to do them properly. Late last year, Dream Factory Studios released the compilation CD New Slang to raise money for the Emerald Coast Foundation. With a couple of exceptions, all the tracks were recorded in the new studio. O’Brien and McLain also produced an unreleased EP for the now-defunct jam band Space Medicine. This two-man operation appears to be off to a great start. So far, O’Brien and McLain have relied mostly on word of mouth for business. Dream Factory Studios offers an hourly rate for most sessions. “We’ll give discounts for bigger projects and multiple services,” McLain says. Musicians can contact O’Brien and McLain through the website www.dreamfactorystudios.com. “The cool thing about our jobs is we never work on the same project twice,” O’Brien says. “We’re not Lucy working in the chocolate factory. It’s always fresh—new ideas, different music, different projects.” In addition to Dream Factory Studios duties, O’Brien is putting his own band together and McLain is forming a blues ensemble. It’s too early to tell how these groups will turn out, but you can bet their productions will have a really good drum sound, something McLain says is lacking in most home recordings. *** Inspired by Stephen Frears’ film High Fidelity, O’Brien and McLain quickly rattle off their “Top Five Bands and Artists.” O’Brien’s
Top Five: McLain’s Top Five: |
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“Two
guys who don’t know much about construction” built Dream
Factory Studios in Fort Walton Beach from the ground up, Sean O’Brien
says. He and his business partner Micha McLain have converted an
old lawnmower shop into a high-quality recording studio. 
O’Brien’s
background is film, and he is a huge admirer of director David Fincher
(Se7en, Fight Club). The Sonoma County, Calif. native joined the
Air Force after high school and wound up at Hurlburt Field where
he met McLain. The two worked out of their homes for a while calling
their business Part Time Productions. McLain has been recording
“ever since he was a fetus” and with O’Brien’s
interest in graphics and songwriting, the Dream Factory team appears
ready to meet any client’s needs.Copyright © The Beachcomber, Inc. 2003 - 2008. All rights reserved.