Amber and Brandon in the studio
We wrote and produced all of our music in this studio. It's really just a bedroom in Brandon's home.
We began producing music in January 2022. We have been writing music together since the late 1980’s when we were both in high school.
In 1997, Brandon was diagnosed with Cerebellar Ataxia. A degenerative medical condition that causes atrophy of the Cerebellum in the brain. Doctors say there is no cure. The best analogy I can give is that this illness is like being staggering drunk 24/7 without the ability to control bodily movements including balance.
13 years later in 2011, Amber was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Fibromyalgia. It has progressed to a severe level and taken away her ability to do many everyday functions including playing the violin and viola. Like our song I’ll Try says, “It feels like I’ve lost all I’ve ever known”.
It’s interesting for us to see how our writing styles have changed over the years. Destiny and My Only Dream were written in the mid 1990’s before we had chronic illnesses and physical struggles. Now that we have these different challenges, our recent music comes from a new perspective and understanding of just how difficult life can be. To us, the message is deeper and more meaningful.
Why did we write this music? We did not do it for the usual reasons. For years we have lived with the illnesses mentioned above and the hardships they created. Hopelessness and despair were overtaking our lives. The music is our way of trying to counteract this. Our purpose for the music has evolved. We want it to help others get through life’s many challenges. Our music is a bright light for us, it gives us hope and we hope it can do this for others as well.
The Home Studio
We had to learn how to record, mix and master the music on our own.
In January 2022 we began working to create our first album. Little did we know how big of an undertaking this would be. It took many hours to learn the software and hardware required.
We could only work 2-4 hours a day because that was all our bodies could handle. While we were learning new technology we were also writing and arranging new songs. After 3 months of work, we started recording in April 2022. Amber was an instrumentalist so learning to sing was a new challenge. 30 years as an orchestra teacher gave her the confidence and skills to teach herself. Brandon’s 25 years of computer IT and music technology was invaluable to the process also.
By May 2023 we finished mastering our 12 songs. Mixing and mastering was not really fun, but we found some joy anyway. In the future, we hope for a better and easier studio experience as we have over 50 songs left to produce.
From June to September 2023 we created a lyric video for each song as well as 4 content videos. In October we realized that the music would sound better with the help of a professional sound/audio engineer as we don’t have the equipment (it’s very expensive) nor the expertise to get the radio-ready sound. We were fortunate to have Beau Vallis (grammy nominated engineer) assist with the final mixes and mastering. He was amazing to work with.
And a very special thanks to Elissa Haut for designing our album artwork and Campbell 12 logo.
