I talked with studio owner and sound engineer Michiel Cornelisse (1971) about what it means to not only own a studio but also how he got to where he is, how he sees his career and how he thinks of success
Michiel is the owner of Blaisdell studio in Groningen, the Netherlands. He started fidgeting with audio engineering in 1984 when he was 13 years old with very little knowledge and in 1999, he took over Blaisdell studio where in now he makes his mixes and masters for his clients.
I asked him: “how did you start in the world of music, sound, and studio work?”
He responded: “when I was six years old, we had a piano at home that we inherited from my father’s side and, as a six-year-old I loved to just play around on the keys, it was just something about the harmonics interacted with each other.
I also always like to put the frequency knob of the radio exactly on the right frequency so it would sound perfect.
When I was eleven, I had my first ‘paid’ gig at a bar in the second town over from where I lived, where after the set we went around with a cap and people gave us money!
Also around that time I saw a video documentary called ‘prisoner in the street’ by third world and that was a trigger moment, I thought: ‘I want a career in music’ through those experiences I came in touch with the tech side of music, recorded my own demo take of my band and through not only playing for people and being asked by other bands to do their sound, I eventually landed at fairly big bands.”
One of his projects took six whole years to finish, it was an album that he written, recorded, mixed mastered and everything attached, by himself together with a friend. He told me “The album ended up not amounting to anything, I didn’t even care if it was released in the end. But the things that I learned in those six years, the people I met and the techniques I learned are all thanks to me putting in those six years to make that album”
He told me he never expected or admired to be anything, and how the only thing he wanted was to have something to do while living in a small village and, “as a technician you get paid, as a band member you don’t (or at least less)”
he never did things to make money, but he did need money to live, he told me “if I weren’t getting paid to do this job but were given enough to live, I would still be doing this”
When I asked him what his definition of success is he said “success is what you yourself seek, being seen as someone with a lot of money doesn’t do me much. For me success is when I get paid enough for what I need, and I am contempt with the work I do. This also counts for clients, I don’t want to work with people who don’t know what they want to do, good people are good musicians. You can be a ‘successful’ musician, but an awful person and in that case, I wouldn’t want to work with you.”
A piece of advice he passed on to me was “always* say yes” “let’s see what happens” he said “golden opportunities come out of the possibilities you pave yourself,
but stay aware of what path exactly you want to tread, because one possibility can be ‘video technician’ in a company that pays well but it might not be what path you want to take.”
Also, he gave the analogy: “jobs are not like rungs of a ladder they are more like a couple of shelfs with different decorations on them. You can put me behind a sound console for Ed Sheeren, or Metallica and I would be fine but, I don’t like that world, that group dynamic, so I chose not to”
I realized you don’t admire a career when you start, but only when you look back. You could want to go to the top of the mountain, but you can only see the steps it takes to get there when you are at the top.
“Hone your skills and use them when you need them.” He said “if you hide from the possibilities, you won’t get the opportunity. It’s rarely ever, someone makes a song, and they get picked out to be a star. It’s more likely to go ‘I know him who now does this for this big thing, and he asks me to help him… etc.”
“Realize what your values are, find the people that share those values and be open for the chances that comes with that.” He said “one thing I regret was that I was to loyal to a certain group which put me off from trying to go a different way, follow a new path if you see fit, and don’t be blinded by the romance of career stories”
Blaisdell-studios: https://www.blaisdell-studio.nl/
third world, prisoner in the street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfp_aZ_TDQc