Courtesy / Studio Portland
Ordway, in the background, is in The Studio Portland’s control room looking into where students are getting hands-on experience in sound equipment in the “live room.”
Updated: July 19, 2021
Songwriter-sound engineer applies the lessons of Nashville to launch music studio in Portland
Courtesy / The Studio Portland
Ryan Ordway, in the foreground, accompanies a student musician (not seen) during hands-on training on sound equipment during the past weekend’s first program of his newly established Let’s Record ME at The Studio Portland.
A songwriter and music producer who's worked in some world-famous recording studios is now developing a production and training center in Portland.
Ryan Ordway and his wife, Emily Wedick, debuted the operation last weekend when they launched the first class in their training program, called Let’s Record ME, at The Studio Portland.
Located at 45 Casco St. in the city's Arts District, the studio has added Ordway’s professional-grade sound production gear to its existing equipment. Ordway is offering hands-on classes for would-be producers, as well as services including music production, mixing and engineering; video and podcast production; gear reviews and music industry promotion; and sound design for film, TV and commercial use. Services are offered across all styles and levels of music.
The Studio Portland is the name of the production operation and Let's Record ME is the name of the training program offered with in The Studio Portland space. Both are for-profit companies. Creative Portland, the city's nonprofit arts agency, is serving as the operation’s nonprofit fiscal sponsor for a fundraising drive, which will provide financial assistance for students to participate in Let’s Record ME programs.
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Band tours
Ordway is an audio producer, engineer and songwriter with over 20 years of experience touring, producing, songwriting and writing ad jingles and TV theme songs.
Born in Los Angeles, he grew up in Wolfeboro, N.H. He started playing guitar as a teen, inspired by his uncle, Danny Wilde, a Houlton native and co-founder of the Rembrandts, which had one of its biggest hits in the 1990s with the NBC "Friends" theme song, "I'll Be There For You.”
“I’d turn on MTV and VH1 and see my uncle and think, ‘Wow, that’s so cool,’” Ordway told Mainebiz. “That triggered me to jump into this career.”
After high school he moved back to L.A. to develop himself as a songwriter and guitar player. After a year or so, he decamped to Boston, which became the home base of his band, Oddway. Ordway was its primary songwriter, guitarist and bandleader.
The band did a couple hundred shows per year from 2001 to 2007, including three national tours. Traveling by 16-passenger van with a trailer to haul their gear, the band played a lot of colleges and bars. Ordway also taught guitar lessons in Boston for many years, teaching as many as 65 students per week.
Song-writing success
Around 2007, Oddway broke up. Ordway subsequently cut an EP record that landed him a publishing deal. Since then, it's also resulted in numerous song-writing contracts.
Today, his catalogue of music is licensed in over 13 countries, and across platforms including Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu. His songs have been featured on NBC shows including "The Office" ABC's "Happy Endings", FOX’s “Raising Hope,” SYFY’s “Eureka,” Warner Brothers “Felicity,” ESPN, NESN and Comedy Central.
His song in “The Office,” for example, occurs during a bar scene. (The music isn't the well-known piano tune that starts each episode.)
“That’s the trend — whenever a show needs a song for a bar scene, that’s when they call me,” he said.
Ordway characterizes his music as “Amerikinda" — some rock and roll and some modern hints.
“I’m in the vein of Tom Petty meets the Beatles,” he said.
“When you hear Ryan’s music, it feel very familiar,” said Wedick. “It’s almost like coming home to somewhere you’ve never been. And he experiments with synth sounds. Sometimes his songs take an interesting turn.”
Ordway then invested in equipment to open his first recording studio, in Wolfeboro, with a business partner, and continued to give music lessons.
The studio generated a lot of demand from the get-go.
Wedick said that other studios might offer a sound engineer but the recording artist would need to outsource other aspects of the recording, such as instrumentals.
By contrast, she said, Ordway brought engineering as well as his own multi-instrumental and songwriting talents to the table, which allowed him to “elevate” ideas brought in by recording artists.
Clients were local and regional acts.
A couple of years later, he invested in more gear and a larger space in the nearby town of Gilford, N.H.
“That studio was a step up,” he said.
Rolls Royce of gear
In 2015, he was selected for a free six-day session to record two songs with Ken Scott, a British producer, at Blackbird Studio and Blackbird Academy, a Nashville, Tenn., studio complex founded by sound engineer John McBride and his wife, country artist Martina McBride.
Scott’s client list includes the Beatles, Elton John and David Bowie.
“It was incredibly intimidating,” recalled Ordway. “I walked in the room and they had a film crew around us. There were students from Blackbird Academy watching us record. Ken Scott goes, ‘Mr. Ordway, would you mind playing us a tune?’”
Scott produced Ordway's song "Easy Street," which was featured in a video tutorial called “Getting Started with Music Production.”
Ordway also had the chance to experience the high-end gear the McBrides had at Blackbird. The centerpiece was a type of recording console made by Automated Processes Inc., a manufacturer of recording studio equipment commonly called API. The McBrides’ console, said Ordway, was the largest API console ever built.
API, dating back to the 1960s, is the “Rolls Royce” of analogue recording consoles, he said.
“The flavor and color — everything is blended together better,” he said. “It captures the energy of the band. A lot of the records we all grew up with — you’ve been listening to API.”
Ordway was hooked by the API he heard at Blackbird.
“I call that my six days at college,” he said of the training he received on the console.
Shortly afterward, Ordway and Wedick decided to move to Falmouth. They bought a farmhouse there, built a studio in the farmhouse and bought an API 1608. With cables and other gear, the investment was about $200,000. They ran the studio for two years, then closed it and sold the property when the pandemic hit.
The gear went into a storage unit. Just a few months later, Ordway went to Portland to try to find a space where he could set up the studio again.
“Ryan said, ‘I’m going to Portland to find a studio that’s worthy of this level of equipment,’” said Wedick.
Properly built studio
Ordway was put in touch with David Hembre, an architect who also owns 45 Casco St., a former school building that dates back to 1899 and is near Maine College of Art.
Courtesy / Loopnet
The Studio Portland is at 45 Casco St., a former school dating back a century and now housing a variety of offices and studios.
In addition to Hembre’s offices and spaces occupied by tenants, the building houses Studio Portland, a recording facility established in 1986 and purpose-designed with acoustics in mind, with sound control features such as floating floors and amenities such as a green room, large recording and mixing rooms, and an existing collection of recording gear.
Clients over four decades have ranged from national acts such as Rod Stewart, Ray LaMontagne and Charlie Musselwhite to local acts such as Rustic Overtones. The studio has been used for voice-over work for the award-winning TV series "Schitt's Creek."
“It’s a properly built studio,” said Ordway. “I was thinking, ‘This is an amazing spot.’”
The studio operation “was in a lull” but the space was ready to go, he said.
Ordway and Wedick, who now live in South Portland, established a partnership with Hembre, installed their gear, and began rebuilding the brand for both audio production and hands-on training.
“Weekend Warrior Audio Production Camp” for high school students was the first course, held last weekend.
Other programs, for high school students, adult musicians and home recording enthusiasts are designed to offer practical experience in recording and mixing in an acoustically tuned environment.
Leveraging Ordway’s connections in the industry, the courses are designed to bring in guest teachers.
Marketing
The couple is in the midst of working out a marketing plan. That includes rolling out press releases through Portland marketing specialist Kast Inc., plus social media, radio ads and word of mouth.
“Everything so far has been without a marketing budget, but through word of mouth,” said Wedick. “We’re excited to put our resources into focused marketing and see where it can go.
The Weekend Warrior class and an upcoming five-day audio production camp, each taking up eight to 10 students, were both three-quarters booked.
“These first two classes will be a test run,” said Ordway.
Starting in September, he expects to have more courses of varying lengths in place. The goal is to be able to sponsor 50% of their students through the fundraising partnership with Creative Portland.
Students so far are coming from southern Maine, but the goal is to also attract others from farther away, said Ordway. Education programs will likely make up about 70% of the business and professional services 30%, he added.
Referring to the Grammy-winning producer of Michael Jackson's hits, Ordway said, “Who knows? The next Quincy Jones might be right here in Portland.”
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Anonymous
July 19, 2021
Sounds like a great project! Hopefully we will be in your neighborhood on tour and can stop by!
John McBride
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