Today we’d like to introduce you to Wil Reeves
Hi Wil, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was raised in St. Louis and graduated Kirkwood High 1996. Before getting into recording sound and music, I played in a handful of bands based out of Columbia, MO, where I got a degree in Industrial Engineering at MU. Early aughts I abandoned Industrial Engineering degree to live and tour with my bandmates in Bockman doing mostly weekend warrior type performing. We made a lot of memories and toured a couple times to the west coast. I got into recording some time in 2002 when my friend Joe Stickley started writing songs and wanted to make an album. We spent a day at a “real studio” but realized that we didn’t know what we really wanted out of the sounds or if what we were producing even sounded good. At that point Pro Tools (recording software DAW) was becoming accessible at the consumer level, so I pooled my money together with Joe and the guys in Bockman to buy a simple Pro Tools recording rig along with some mics to capture sound. We would borrow equipment from friends when needed and just dove in. The rest is history, as they say. For me it was the sort of life changing milestone that severed my life’s timeline into life before recording, and life after. I often think to myself, “what was running through my head before I got into recording?”, because since then it has occupied such a large part of my daily thoughts and existence. Music was already a huge part of my life, but now when listening to music I was also dissecting it, wondering how the sounds were made and getting inspired to experiment with making my own sounds. Along the way I began to write and sing my own songs, writing/singing with Bockman, Penny Marvel (what became my solo project), and another group called Cabin Sessions. Getting to record the bands that I was a member of wasn’t just a catalyst for me to later become a professional recording engineer, it was the ultimate education in learning how to problem solve as well as interact and communicate with others about sound and production.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There’s always struggles, but the struggles were also the fun parts and your best teacher. Narrowing the scope of my struggles to recording, there’s such a vast array of things to consider when trying to produce a song. The never ending struggle is getting a song to sound the way it does in your head. When recording anything you are essentially faced with a series of problems you have to solve. For example, getting sound to travel from a guitar (that’s in tune with good intonation) through a cable into an amp back into one or more microphones through a mic preamp(s) and then into a computer or onto tape is your first hurdle. There’s already myriad aspects of that signal path that can either go wrong or affect the outcome of that sound. You can go online and read the forums where people argue all day about the “proper way” to record an electric guitar. The real magic happens after you’ve tried all the “proper” methods and built some muscle memory for what actually seems to work. Struggling along and doing it the “wrong” way was probably the best teacher I ever had. It even yielded some pretty cool sounds at times in the form of little happy accidents that add intrigue or something fresh to the recording that wouldn’t have been considered otherwise.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My specialty these days is as a recording engineer and sometimes a producer at Centro Cellar Studio, in Columbia, MO. Since 2002, when I started recording, I slowly began working with bands outside of the ones I was playing in, recording them in basements, kitchens, family rooms and wherever we could make it work. Doing that for long enough allowed me to continue improving my craft and slowly build a reputation via word of mouth to the point that I wanted to buy a house with the intention of turning it into a recording studio. In 2006 I bought the house where Centro Cellar Studio is currently located. Here it’s important to note that I had the support of a great community of friends/musicians who helped me build the studio in various stages along the way, which is who I refer to when I say we. The first thing we did was tear out and vault the ceiling in the back room of the house to create a good acoustical environment. Later we converted a detached one car garage into a taller live recording space linked to the house. In late 2009 when I found out I was going to become a father, we decided to get the studio out of the house entirely and added another room onto the current detached live room. From about 2006-2014 we slowly built and morphed the studio into a more functional, and professional space. Looking back, I was probably a little crazy and in over my head taking on the projects that I did, but I had great friends with the same gleam in their eyes that supported me and took the many leaps of faith with me along the way. I’m most proud of of the fact that we all built something together that still exists, still brings me joy and helps other make music.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was a pretty active kid involved in sports, loved getting dirty outside and gravitated to thrill seeking activities like snowboarding. I also took my walkmen with me everywhere I went whether on a skateboard or bicycle. I can’t say that my tastes in music stretched terribly far outside of top 40 radio until maybe middle or high school when I discovered older bands like Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and some underground music in the Fugazi scene. I grew up in suburbia and wasn’t really able to seek out alternative sources of music discovery until I could drive, at which point I could head out to record stores that had more eclectic offerings. But my headphones were always one of my favorite companions because they blocked out the outside world and allowed me to exist inside of whatever my latest musical findings were. I hadn’t yet started listening to music to understand how it was made. It was purely for the transcendence it brought to me.
Pricing:
- $50/hr for any service. Recording, mixing, mastering, playing an instrument part.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://centrocellarstudio.com
