I never wanted to have one of “those” Nashville recording studios, I was just into sounds and collecting guitars. Back when I was on the road it was pre eBay, so I was the guy that was at pawn shops and I just started kind of collecting with the money I was making on the road, just piece by piece. That was intentional, but what was not intentional was in you know the late 90s early 2000s kind of right when I was transitioning into trying to make music a full time deal, Pro Tools got cheap enough for guys to start using it the way that we're all using it now. It started with “man I'd love to be able to just like mic up an amp and record guitar for people, and man it'd be great if I could do a good acoustic vocal, man if we just had three mics we could do a drum kit you know” and then it just kept building and kept building till now.

There were some bigger steps along the way. I bought a house in Berry Hill in 2004. There was a little nine hundred square foot ranch that wasn't worth anything because the zoning had changed from residential to commercial, and it was at the end of a cul-de-sac so you couldn't really have a business there. It was a call center before I bought it, so there was a phone jack every like 12 inches. I was like man if we could just figure out how to use this wire. So that was like well I'll put my Pro Tools rig in here, by that time I was in Pro Tools, and I'm just gonna use it to cut guitar for people and then slowly build a studio.

Having a recording studio space just naturally moved it up a notch because I actually had a place to put stuff with it. Then in 2009 I moved into an actual studio on East Iris that was closing down, and was built by some pretty amazing people. It was just the right fit at the right time for what I was doing and has been a good home since. 

Read about how Paul Moak balances life outside the studio.