- How This Cheap $10 Dollar Mic Catapulted Me To New Heights
You’ve got to start somewhere
I recently was going through some of my old data cd’s that I had burned to keep backups of from back in the day. I came across this one particular cd that had some of my very first recordings on it! Talk about going back in time! As I began listening to them isolated in my studio with no one else around I was overcome with embarrassment due to how terrible they sounded. The recordings were distorted because I recorded to loud, The volume of the vocals was inconsistent due to me moving around while recording. Half the time I was rapping off beat, I was gasping for breath from rushing my rhymes and my words often lacked pronunciation. It was terrible and I hated everything about it! I covered my head with my hands and laughed in disbelief wondering how could I have ever been proud of this garbage? As I muscled up the endurance to continue listening to my epic fails the memories began to come back to me.
Don’t forget where you came from
it was 2002, I was a 16 year old junior in high school and knew absolutely nothing about recording and mixing and nor did anyone else that I knew at the time. All I knew was my friend gave me this cheap $10.00 microphone that came with his Packard Bell “remember those?”, and I had stumbled across a recording program called cool edit pro that just came out and CD burners recently had hit the market as well. This was when Napster was popular and everyone was starting to realize that they could start making their own CD’s.  This was a gigantic turning point in history that would completely change how we make and share music and I had no idea of how empowering it would be and consequently make the music industry inferior of it. All I knew was I could record vocals while also playing a beat over my stereo system in the background and run all of that into my computer and later burn it on CD.
The rest is history
Next thing you know other highly skilled rappers in my school caught whim of what I had figured out and they asked if they could come over and record sometime. These guys were local celebrities in my eyes and I felt truly honored to have this opportunity. We hit it off great and having these rappers over to record after school became a regular occurrence. At times there would be up to 8 people crammed into my little room and they would just go back and forth rapping, it was incredible. Shortly after I would be welcomed into their rap group and would begin to sharpen my skills as a rapper quite abruptly. This gave me tons of experience, street credit and respect and opened many doors for me in the future.
Hind sight
After reminiscing on all these memories I no longer had any feelings of embarrassment but rather of accomplishment. In the beginning I was beating myself but I didn’t consider that I have been working relentlessly on my craft for 11 years since then. I have an astronomical amount of knowledge and experience that I have gained within that time and have also been able to upgrade the quality of my studio equipment since then. At the time I was simply making the most of my resources with the knowledge that I had then. And till this day I am still working the same way, making the most of what I have and that is nothing to be ashamed of. I took a cheap $10.00 mic my friend had given to me and made the most of it. This seemingly insignificant microphone that was broken and had to be rigged up with clothes hangers and electrical tape in order to stay up literally catapulted me to new heights and opened doors for me that otherwise would have never been opened. As silly as it may sound, this Microphone has played a huge part of where I am today. I still keep it tucked away in my closet as somewhat of a trophy. It’s a humbling reminder of where I started and how far I have come since then. Not losing sight of where you started will show you how much you have really grown. It’s not about what you have it’s about what you do with what you have. Be content with where you are but not stagnant and complacent and make the most of it, you may be surprised with the results you get. If you enjoyed this article on How This Cheap $10 Dollar Mic Catapulted Me To New Heights and would like to stay updated on future posts please CLICK HERE.
