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Carl Bahner | Recording Studio A&R

@carlbahner

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I help music producers & engineers find great artists and build fulfilling and sustainable careers.
Say hi I won’t bite (maybe)
@welcometostudioland

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This week I have @carlbahner on to talk about his new venture @homegrownapp.io and how it helps music producers and mixing engineers do better work for their artists!

Catch the full episode on @homestudiohangout
Wherever you get your podcasts!

#musicproducer #homestudio #mixengineer #homestudiorecording #podcast

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What happens if a CRM actually REWARDED YOU for doing the boring tasks that help you grow your recording studio business?

StudioLandCRM is the admin tool for neurospicy creatives. Go to our bio to join the waitlist today.

#musicproduction #recordingstudio #homestudio #musicbusiness

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The first time we did £100k in a year from music production, I thought I’d feel like I’d made it.

I didn’t. If anything it just made me want more. Felt less like a finish line and more like someone had pulled the curtain back and shown me how much bigger this could actually get.

A few years on and I’m building my fourth business now, @welcometostudioland , with the absolute dude that is @carlbahner . First year nearly complete, and I already know we’re hitting six figures. Want to know why I’m so sure? We’re running the exact same playbook that built our music businesses. Same systems, same marketing, same way of selling, same thing of building an offer people genuinely want.

That’s the part that gets me. It was never luck, and it was never about being the most talented in the room. Get those pieces right and it just works. Then it works again. We’ve each done it a few times over now and it’s become a bit of an obsession to share it.

So what does that mean for you? Loads.

Say you want £3k a month from your music. If your main package sits around £750, that’s four projects. Four. And it gets better, because those four don’t need to be four different people. Look after one artist properly and they keep coming back. So really you’re talking 12 to 15 people across a whole year to be pulling £30–50k+ from music. That’s not some fantasy that can’t happen from creating your offer and helping artists/bands make music.

Tell me your number in the comments, the monthly income that’d let you go all in on music, plus your offer and I’ll run some numbers for you to make it feel more real.

And if you’re already earning £1k+ a month from production, mixing or mastering and you want to double down, comment ‘StudioLand’ and I’ll fire over what you need to make it happen.

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lol sorry Carl 🥲 (but thanks for the references)

📸: @zaaachh

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Most producers chase one-off projects. Pitch, deliver, get ghosted, repeat. The producers I work with stopped doing that two years ago. They run retainers. I call it the Gum Membership Model.

£1.5k to £2k a month, recurring, sometimes from clients who barely message them.

Here’s the template.
Two paragraphs.
You DM it to a past client who hired you once, lost momentum because life got in the way, and went quiet.

Paragraph one: ‘Hey [name], quick one. Since we wrapped [project], I’ve been building out a monthly retainer for a small group of artists I like working with. Four tracks a year to keep up the momentum and build the audience and playlist placements (Spotify loves artists with momentum!), unlimited revisions, priority turnaround. [£ price per song]. I’m capping it at four artists so the quality stays where it needs to be.’

Paragraph two: ‘There’s 2 spots left starting next month. Want a first look before I open it up? I’d love to run you through what it looks like if momentum is what you’re after to grow’

That’s it. That’s the pitch. The trick isn’t the price, it’s the scarcity line at the end. ‘Two spots left.’ ‘Cap of four’ ‘First look.’ Take those out and the conversion drops 70%. The artist isn’t buying tracks, they’re buying their place in the room.

I’ll DM you the full pricing strategy video. Comment Pricing below. No optin, no pitch, just the link.

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NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO - “Slopywriting” (n.) using AI to write your website or social media content, then unknowingly posting clichés, filler, or generic and unnatural phrasing.

Most music producers and engineers are doing it without realizing it… and it’s making them all sound exactly the same.
In this video I break down the AI clichés showing up on studio websites everywhere - so if your website is full of this stuff, you’re not alone. But making some small tweaks can help you “cut through the noise…”

…except don’t actually use “cut through the noise” because that’s another overused AI cliché that I forgot to mention in the video lol 🤷‍♂️

Want to learn how to actually stand out as an engineer or producer? The branding, the positioning, the client-getting side that nobody teaches you? That’s exactly what we build inside StudioLand.

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Most audio engineers spend years sharpening their craft and almost no time learning how to actually turn that craft into consistent income.

That’s where we come in.

StudioLand helps audio engineers, mixing engineers, and producers build the systems that turn great work into a real, sustainable business. Client acquisition. Positioning. Outreach that doesn’t feel gross. Follow-up that stops you from getting ghosted.

If your calendar’s been quieter than it should be… the link in our bio is your next move.

#audioengineer #mixingengineer #musicproducer #studiobusiness #recordingstudio

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Put up a new Substack about my upcoming EP and the beginning phases of creating it. If you’re interested in reading more, I got a link in my bio⌨️🎨🎧

Also, stoked to share the track listing! Major thank you to @bomcd @karagreskovic @elliotjamesmulhern @carlbahner for contributing their brains and talents to these songs. Out May 21st✌🏼

#wordsandcolors

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Comment ‘Register’ to join in on this freebie! No idea when the next one will be, we just felt like it, so grab this opportunity 🙌🏽

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So cool to be included in @lusciousjackson ‘s Substack article today featuring their favorite artists who have captured them over the years. I did these drawings in the dark in the packed audience of their reunion show at @uniontransfer all the way back in 2013 - definitely a drawtography deep cut! You can also swipe for pics from my 2017 solo exhibit at @bsquaregallery - it was all of my fave drummer drawings, so I called the show “EPIC DRUM SOLO”. Of course, I featured my portrait of @kates66 !

#lusciousjackson #kateschellenbach #uniontransfer #dianeroka #drawtographer #drawtography

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Between April of 2024 and October of 2025, I worked on some new songs for an EP alongside my brother Bo McDowell. He created the music, and I would take anywhere from 1-3 months — in one case a full year — to write lyrics and melodies. Then we would connect in person to record them at his apartment in Sacramento.

It’s been one of the longest processes I’ve experienced surrounding a single project. Though it might be considered “small” to some, the reality is that creating this EP has been one of the biggest mental challenges I’ve had with music and writing, during a time that has also been challenging personally.

A lot has changed in my life since the last time I’ve been a part of a music project. Making music, like many other things, is very personal for me. Relationships within music are personal. Life, consequences, reactions, hurt, can all be personal. But when we fall into a habit of taking everything personally, it gets really difficult to move around freely in life. This is my attempt, my movement, my push towards and away from comfort and familiarity. And my release of some things I’ve taken personally for a long time that no longer, and probably have never served me.

Recently I was told, “You can either be at peace with yourself, and at war with the world. Or, at peace with the world and at war with yourself.” I just hope to create sounds and words, and moments that help us all get through the wars we experience, and can connect moments of peace and reflection too.

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@sleephouse | IS THERE ANY COMING BACK? | 2026
It’s always an honor to do the art and visual direction for another @sleephouse release. This time around I wanted to focus on something analogue in a time so heavily diluted by AI and technology, my goal was to keep the digital aspects to a minimum (even the fonts are handmade)
We took some photos from my family photo album and started experimenting with them via cyanotype and this is what we came up with. Something about the title and content of the record these images stuck out to us and have us something as intriguing to look at as it is to listen. And it feels totally at home with the rest of the discography.

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