Musician to Musician: Treetop Studio | arts & entertainment

Colin Shultzaberger: I was building a rehearsal space, and I wanted to start my own studio, but I guess I didn’t have the understanding I thought I had until I met Donnie. I was like, ‘Wow, this guy really has an ear for it. He understands what it should look like,’” and we worked well together. I had the music perspective, and Donnie was just great on the sticks. It was an instant friendship. I trusted what he was doing, and he trusted what I was doing, and here we are.

72 Hours: What are the responsibilities between you two? Who does what? If you have a band in, do you both engineer the record?

Donnie Carlo: Usually, I might be in the room, and Colin will kind of run the computer and manage the session. I’ll be in with the musicians. It all depends on what’s happening. Colin’s a really good musician, so he might be tuning an instrument and helping them prepare things, getting a musical perspective.

72 Hours: Is there a producer’s element to what you guys do? Has anyone asked you to be a kind of extra songwriting mind as they record?

Carl: It kind of happens. We kind of insert ourselves sometimes.

72 Hours: So you are producers?

Shultzaberger: Yeah, but when I think of a producer … we have a light touch. Ultimately, the band gets the final say. As a musician, I don’t want people telling me what to do with my music. We’re like, “Can we suggest that you don’t run everything through a tape echo through the stereo?” Donnie often will either be in the control room and recording or out here with the band, and then we’ll switch, so we’re both hearing both sides of what the band sounds like, either through headphones or through the mix. We both work with that together.

72 Hours: I want to get to the videos. How did you come up with that idea and the format?

Carl: My background is in broadcast, and I spent seven years working as an engineer for a radio station. So, I kind of learned the rhythm and production cycle of a broadcast situation from that. It gave me the cadence and the rhythm. I made notes of things I liked and things I didn’t like. I like the idea of ​​personalities but without taking too much time and then having to pull the e-break on the whole show to do an interview. I just want to keep things moving along really tight. Colin and I both love things like SNL and little skits, so we just wanted to have a surreal and humorous framing device but have great musical performances, too.

Shultzaberger: Yeah, we wanted something that would benefit the band and benefit us, too. We’re able to say, “Treetop exists!” But we’re also able to say, “Check out our favorite bands, too.”

Carl: To circle back, when we decided we were going into business together, we knew the backbone of our business was going to be studio recording projects. Then, we were trying to think of ways to promote and advertise ourselves but also demonstrate the quality of our process. I’m a YouTube freak. I love it. So, I was like, “Why don’t we just do concerts and people can come in here, spend time with us, see the space, and then they can hear the quality and see the video and do something for this community of people without getting anything in return. It would just be a fun thing to do.”

Shultzaberger: We’re sharing with the community of musicians, and they’re kind of developing this gallery.

72 Hours: That’s a good way of putting it. I can’t think of another studio around that offers a video component when an artist wants it. Do you know of anyone else doing it this way?

Shultzaberger: That’s part of the business. We offer audio, and we offer video. We’re also trying to expand. We have an open space, not just a recording studio. You can record video, and you can record audio in it. We want to be an audio/visual studio.

Carl: It’s also 2022. You can’t simply do … music is the soundtrack to video now. Music is the afterthought. Not that that’s where my heart is, but that’s the cold reality, and if you’re not doing video stuff, you’re not part of the culture. You might be incredible with art, but I think that’s just sort of how it is.

72 Hours: When did the studio officially open?

Shultzaberger: In January, we had Tall Well in here to record.

Carl: Yeah, but we were still working. Maybe March 2022.

72 Hours: So you’ve been doing this for almost all the year. Were there goals when the year started, and have you reached those goals yet? How has the year gone so far?

Shultzaberger: I don’t think we believed the studio tour would be where it is now. I think we thought we’d get 25 subscribers over three months. We thought it would be a big deal if 100 would see one of our videos. But, no, we’re at 5,100 [views] for all the videos we put up since June. It’s so cool because I can tell you I hang out with a lot of the people we’ve had come in, so it’s just good to see these people.

72 Hours: How do you dictate who’s going to be on one of your videos?

Carl: It’s mostly just friends and colleagues.

Shultzaberger: But people we also wanted here. There are bands I see and I’m like, “I like it, the people like it, and we need to put these bands on this stage.”

72 Hours: Are there bands so far that you haven’t brought in yet, who you want to bring in and you might reach out to them?

Shultzaberger: We want to get everybody. Yes, there’s so many bands we want to see.

Carl: Yeah, there is kind of a subversive quality to it, in that it’s in Colin’s garage. Some of these bands are great and so talented; it’s fun and funny to have them here in this garage. It’s kind of anachronistic. I would love to get a huge name band in here, just because it’d be so stupid.

Shultzaberger: Yeah, we’re reaching out to people all the time. Donnie was doing sound at Joe Squared in Baltimore for a while. He’d be like, “I just ran into this band tonight,” and it’d be a quick conversation and they’d end up here. Sometimes we aren’t asking people; we just bump into people and are like, “What are you doing Wednesday?” People have been so willing to do it, and it’s just been fun.

72 Hours: I was talking to Kenny Eaton from Mystery Ton Studios for this a couple months ago, and he’s always grinding. Have you run into the issue of finding new clients, or is it an over-abundance of work you guys have so far?

Carl: We absolutely have to fight for every dollar. The Studio Tours [the video concerts] have become more a community project than a part of our business that generates any revenue. It’s almost like a completely separate attitude.

Shultzaberger: We focus half our business on the Studio Tours because in some ways, it could be a long-term thing.

Carl: And the thing about putting something positive in the world without asking for anything in return, that does come back to you. Even if it’s not a very specific connection to money, the good will comes back, and people just know it’s fun to record here, and we’re not idiots and we know what we’re doing.

Shultzaberger: As a person who listens to a lot of music, listen to our Soundcloud. Listen to the Studio Tours we do. It’s amazing. I’m not just saying that. We both love the live sound, and we’ll accommodate anything.

Carl: Special moments of music happen when people connect and share a moment together and play off each other spontaneously, in sync. Those special moments only happen when human beings play together in a room. So, that’s the goal. You can simulate that and fake it, but the high-water mark and the goals to shoot for are special moments between people.

Colin McGuire has been in and out of bands for more than 20 years and also helps produce concerts in and around Frederick. His work has appeared in Alternative Press magazine, PopMatters and 72 Hours, among other outlets. He is convinced that the difference between being in a band and being in a romantic relationship is less than minimal. Contact him at mcguire.colin@gmail.com.