My archives page celebrates my great luck in finding a niche in the development end of the music and recording business. I was a staff engineer for Elektra-Asylum Records from 1976-79, and for Warner Bros. Publishing from 1979-84. After that I ran a room for Rick Rosas aka Bass Player Rick, and later for David Weber at YoDad Productions, both really artist’s rooms. Development was demos and pre-production recording, a part of the business that has disappeared. The big record companies used to have available budget money for the companies hear new acts as they were developing. Demo recordings were done to sell acts and to sell songs, per-production versions were done to refine the material and performance before making the final investment in a record. Song demos were a special challenge. Most of the time writers wrote enough arrangement to make the demo recording a scaled down model of what the finished record should sound like.