Lonnie's Farm Recording Studio

02/21/2025

Found some ancient photos. This is the control room of the first recording studio I opened. It was 1988. I was a teenager. It was located in the back of a building at 23 West Washington in Millstadt Illinois. The front of the building was occupied by ‘One Stop Video’. Before I moved in the band Oktober rehearsed in the space. Great band. The rooms had plywood floors and masonry walls. I used a sliding glass door turned sideways for the window between control room and live room. The ceilings were nice and it sounded lively. The control room was small, 3 people could fit and they had to stand. The studio was a reel to reel multitrack tape setup. A band could record 8 tracks and I sometimes used SMPTE to synch midi to the multitrack tape machine on track 8. That would give bands 7 tracks on tape, and all the midi synch sounds they’d want. The mixing console was a Fostex. Sometimes I’d chain mixers together to get more channels. There were three compressors, 2 Peavey and 1 DBX, and one Realistic Stereo Graphic EQ. The Yamaha NS10 speakers in the photo I purchased new in 1986. I still use those actual speakers (just mixed a song on them this morning). After tracking, songs would be mixed down to a Tascam stereo D.A.T machine. The D.A.T was cutting-edge tech at the time. Sometimes I would mix down to a 1 inch video tape machine I’d picked up from a scrap sale at a local TV station. The top floor above the studio was an open room the size of the entire building. Residents of Millstadt would gather to throw Horseshoes and drink beer in the winter time when it was too cold to throw outside. It was a popular place. When i wanted to watch a movie I’d walk to the front and pick one out. A lot of bands recorded there and some great memories are best to not advertise.
Today, The ‘Premiere Academy of Dance’ is housed in the building. I haven’t been inside since I moved the studio out in 1991.

Premiere Academy of Dance

02/14/2025

Ahna Schoenhoff released her first single today. Much congratulations l
Ahna was also a guest on Rock Paper Podcast with Shane Presley. Link here: http://www.rockpaperpodcast.com/episodes/episode-1100-ahna/
Ahna has more singles that will be released throughout the year, stay tuned.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1itWyiJFwkk7I5u9S7fnz7?si=8w4j9iYkSwi3c_td9OCtDw

02/13/2025

A pleasure to work with Gary McClain & Craig Billhartz in the studio. Gary McClain, a member of The Guild, a St Louis based group active 1968-1976 who also included members Michael McDonald, (from St Louis, vocalist for the Doobie Brothers and backing vocalist for Steely Dan), and Tom Kelley, from Indiana/Illinois, who was inducted into The Songwriters Hall of Fame for co-writing five #1 hit singles with Billy Steinberg, including "Like A Virgin" (for Madonna), "True Colors (Cyndi Lauper), "Eternal Flame" (the Bangles), "So Emotional" (Whitney Houston) and "Alone" (Heart)”I'll Stand By You" (the Pretenders), Tom Kelley attended college at Eastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale before dropping out to pursue music. Gary McClain, along with teaching music and writing songs, has helped launch the careers of many young musicians and artists throughout his career.

01/23/2025

01/16/2025

songwriters Tracy Lowe and Tony Vrooman of the legendary Vitamen A band on some 24 tracks tapes. New music? Maybe. definitely be a dream come true for fans

Vitamen A

01/13/2025

Kim and Jeanette of KAINOA GIRLS.
New EP soon

01/11/2025

12/24/2024

Merry Christmas!

Spoken like a true musician:
Lonnie's Farm Recording Studio

11/22/2024

Tuna Fish can Fuzz. Its fuzzy.
!

11/19/2024

Ahna Schoenhoff in the studio recording some killer tracks. These songs sound great. Can’t wait for her to release them.

11/06/2024

Today i did mic work on one of our Sennheiser MD409-U3’s. The foam on these degrades from age, gets sticky and tends to mess up the diaphragm/capsule. Sennheiser stopped making these mics / capsules many years ago because of high production costs and lack of sales to justify the labor envolved. They replaced this mic with a cheaper to produce look alike that sounds not so classy. These classic 409’s are exceptional mics on a lot of instruments. They have a 700-1k eq attenuation and good null points being a cardioid. Pink Floyd used 409’s on live vocals at many shows in the early years. A lot of engineers love them on guitar cabs. I cleaned the diaphragm and replaced the foam surround. Hopefully we get many more years of gorgeous sounds from this classic.

www.lonniesfarm.com

11/04/2024

09/14/2024

Drew Weiss and Emilia Higgins. Emilia released another new single a few weeks ago on Apple Music and Spotify. Instagram Emilia attends college at in Tuscaloosa.

07/29/2024

07/19/2024

The Bottlesnakes have released their second album and we're psyched to share it. No physical copies yet, but you can listen or purchase the digital thing on Bandcamp.
Pretty dang proud of this thing. 11 original tunes of varying styles and moods.
Besides Nicholas Pence and Ethan Leinwand, the album features the drumming of Del Robles.
It was recorded by Don Bailey at Big Finger Records.
It was mixed and mastered by Gary Gordon at Inside-Out Studios.

11 track album