If you reach Academical Village People James Gammon and Mike Duguiso's voicemail, you'll hear an animated jingle, sort of a hybrid of "Doe, a Deer" and a Mentos commercial. Ask them to play it for you, and they'll oblige, grinning enthusiastically but with slightly sheepish eyes.
They're serious about their music. They're also serious about recording their music, and in September 2002, Gammon, a fourth-year College student, built AVP its own recording studio. In his apartment.
The idea came from former music director Mark Manley, who had purchased all the needed equipment and then conveniently graduated, depositing the duties onto his successor, Gammon.
Gammon toiled tirelessly, improvising as he went along. Meanwhile, his roommates, fourth-year College student Daguiso and now-president of AVP Matt Chick, nodded their approval and traipsed along, minding their own business.
"Nobody understood what I was doing," Gammon said, smiling.
First, he glued foam to the walls to prevent echoing. But the foam fought back.
"It kept falling down," Gammon said. "Apparently foam doesn't stick to anything." Once he discovered the secret to affixing the foam, he moved on to a more demanding material: Rubber. This he used in strips to fill in the cracks of doors, also for soundproofing.
Next, he mounted pieces of wood to the walls to transform the shape of the recording space. This was important; acoustically speaking, a rectangular room is bad news. Finally, after one month of labor, the studio was complete.
The final product was a marriage of expensive, high-tech professional equipment with the quaint resourcefulness of the college student. The recording area (i.e., the hallway where Gammon had mastered the art of foam-gluing) contained headphones and a microphone. The other part of the studio was Gammon's bedroom. This was the control area, consisting of a large desk with two Macintosh computers. On one of the computers was installed a sophisticated program called Pro Tools, which is used by most professional recording studios.
The trouble was, no one knew how to use this high-tech computer software. Manley didn't know -- someone had told him what to buy, so he bought it, and cheerfully bestowed the honor of figuring it all out on Gammon. Though Gammon had previous musical training, his expertise did not extend this far. "I had no experience with any of that," Gammon said. "I had never even used a Mac."
Because it was situated in the main hallway, which contained the doors to all the bedrooms, the studio posed a problem when people wanted to go in and out of their bedrooms and someone was recording at the time. "You would be stuck in your room for long periods of time," Daguiso said.
And then there was the singing. "You try to take a nap and then you hear, 'ooooooh,'" Daguiso recalled, laughing.
The studio was a prudent financial investment. In truth, Gammon explained, "The basic idea was to save money." And save they did. Some scraping was necessary at first: To build and furnish the studio cost between $5000 and $6000, so all the members of AVP contributed money, some asking their parents for loans.
But the studio has more than paid for itself.
Since its founding in 1993, AVP has released an album every one to two years. Recording costs are high; a professional recording studio typically charges $60 per hour. After record sales, the group usually comes out even, but now there's room for profit. At home, studio time is free.
And according to Gammon, the results are professional quality. Because AVP did not skimp on purchasing top-quality equipment, the results have also been top-quality -- just as good as you'd get in a real studio. In fact, one of the songs from the upcoming album has been selected to be on a collection of the best professional and collegiate a cappella groups on the East Coast, called "Sing."
Despite the advantages, only a handful of collegiate a cappella groups in the entire country have set up their own studios. One of the primary reasons is that few students have the necessary skills to independently operate the software.
Fourth-year College student Emily Mollick, president of the Silhooettes, said she felt the skill required would make such a project extremely difficult.
"We've never really thought about having one," Mollick said. "With the turnover rate, it seems like it would be a really huge project."
She also said the financial incentive would probably not be enough to get her group started.
"Financial matters are a huge concern, but it's a double-edged sword -- is it going to be money or convenience?" Mollick said. "In the long run, [having your own studio] would be more convenient."
Mollick said the Silhooettes have been very pleased with their professional facilities in the past.
Gammon himself is surprised at his success.
"It doesn't make sense to me how I learned this stuff," he said. "I was pretty much thrown into it."
Virginia Tech's "Juxtaposition" is one group that has its own studio; they assisted AVP in setting up.
That's the other end of the homemade studio bargain: The music director/producer has many additional responsibilities. In June, Gammon spent 10 hours a day for four weeks editing the album. "I had to learn as I went along," he said.
After the editing stage was over, the album was ready for mixing.
To do this, Gammon went to California to work with a cappella "guru" Bill Hare for one week. Finally, the album was complete.
But these tasks were not much of a burden to Gammon
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