Nathanael Stone, owner of Stoneridge Recording, is working to create a culture that supports local music in Siloam Springs.
He hopes to encourage people to listen to and buy more local music. His newly built studio offers a supportive recording experience, as well as promotion and marketing.
Stone saw a need in Siloam Springs for a recording studio that serves bands that play folk, indie and roots music. He recently branched into marketing and promoting bands in the five or six state region.
"The area has the potential to go anywhere with music or creative arts," Stone said.
Stone has transitioned his passion for music from hobby to job. He is a classically trained violin player and a former member of the North Arkansas Youth Orchestra. He also played and toured with Adam's Road, a Christian band based in Orlando, Fla.
Stone did two studio albums with Adam's Road and found that he enjoyed studio work more than performing on the road. He started recording for friends in a tiny closet. His recording studio grew and moved to a bedroom, before he opened a studio on the second story of a Main Street building.
Stone, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, said he enjoys creating what has been imagined and making it better. He also likes to create music that can't be made otherwise.
Stone's current studio was completed in early December. It includes a recording room with a stage, several smaller rooms to separate vocalists and instruments such as drums or trumpets, and a control room. Stone hired a professional from Nashville to design the acoustics, and hired someone from Germany to design the control room so that it has no reverberation.
"Where you're listening always affects what you're listening to," Stone said.
For most modern music, individual musicians are recorded on their own and then the song is pieced together. Because Stone's studio is so large, and includes several rooms with glass dividers, bands can play together, which gives their music a more natural organic sound.
"There's no way to capture that in a bedroom recording studio," he said.
Some of the elements, such as vocals or trumpets, have to be split off on the smaller recording rooms, but the artists can still see each other and hear each other through headphones.
"The cool thing about music is it can bring people together," Stone said.
The first month the new studio was open, Stone brought in 10 to 12 churches for a worship night. They played music together and got to know each other.
The Silver Shakers, a female lead rockabilly band, recently finished recording their latest album at Stoneridge Recording. The album, titled "Barely Scrapin' By," is set to be released in August.
Lead singer Tara Norwood said they chose to work with Stone because of his reputation, gentle demeanor and easygoing nature. Stone's experience with working with bluegrass and roots music was a good fit for the band, she said. Her husband, drummer Matt Norwood, said that Stone approached them after they played at Pour Jons Coffee and Recording in early 2015. Stone invited them out for coffee because he wanted to sit down and talk so he could learn more about the band.
"He had a genuine interest in getting to know the human beings behind the band," Matt said. "It was not a sales pitch."
The band took off faster than expected, and people assumed the band had been together for a long time because they sounded like they had. However, they didn't have any consumer offerings. Stone helped them video a show in Fayetteville, then record their first album in the spring of 2015.
"We were very nervous about it," Tara said. "It was my first time recording, and it was kind of like picking a comforting presence rather than coming across someone we didn't know very well."
The Norwoods said the recording process needed to happen very quickly because they wanted the album to be ready for a tour in France during the summer of 2015. Tara said that Stone was extremely patient with them as they worked to record brand new songs they had just written.
"He stepped up to the plate in terms of our specific needs as a band," Tara said.
Recording in the studio was "as close to a live experience as you can get without being live," according to the Norwoods. Tara was isolated in a vocal booth, and the drums and guitarists were in other rooms separated by a partition. She explained that if everyone is in the same room together, there is no possibility of editing later. By being in separate rooms with headphones, there is still the possibility of editing, and the band can play together as if they are live.
"It's really cool," she said. "It's the best of both worlds."
Stone has also started to build a small amphitheater behind his studio where he hopes to host concerts with crowds up to 200 people. He would like to begin holding concerts for high school students.
Stone's new location is right across the street from Siloam Springs High School, and he has been hosting high school hangouts that allow teenagers to come into his studio and jam. Many of the students had never played together outside of band. Stone splits them into two groups, one that writes lyrics and one that writes music, then puts them together. Stone said it's really cool to watch the student's reaction as they come together. He enjoys seeing kids that don't usually have the opportunity to play together take off with it, he said.
General News on 06/29/2016