My Move to Portland! — Zach Bloomstein

On February 22nd, I moved from my hometown of Boston Massachusetts to Portland Oregon. The move had been in the works for well over six months and we had been talking about moving away from Boston for years. I love Boston and it was an amazing place to grow up, go to college and start my career but I felt stuck being in the same place for so long. I had been visiting friends in Portland every chance I got and I fell in love with the city. It has amazing music and art scenes and the people are unbelievably nice and welcoming. In March of 2020 when we went into lockdown I had months of recording sessions cancel on me almost overnight. I panicked, I have a lot of overhead renting an apartment and a studio space and I had no idea how to make money. Live sound had always been a saving grace for me in the past before I was able to go full time with studio work but without concerts, I had no idea what else to do. After a few weeks, the remote work started coming in and I realized how much of my work was and could be remote. I worked steadily throughout the summer into the fall mostly remotely and I loved it. After a while, I started to realize I would still be able to work and do what I love every day in a different city. I have been working out of 37ft Productions for the better part of 7 years, and I have been a partner there since 2016. I love that studio, it was the best place for me to learn and hone my craft but I did want to see what lay beyond those walls. I started to look into what It would be like to rent a house in Portland and build out a mix/mastering room there.

Moving across the country isn’t cheap or easy but I was surprised at how well it worked out. I had been toying with the idea of driving out in a rental truck or an RV with a trailer to take my gear and apartment with me. After years of touring in bands, I realized I did not want to be on the road again. It was fun when I got to play a show every night with my best friends but I didn’t want to do it without playing. I decided to use a sound company called Sound Moves to get my gear out there. They were amazing, I shipped two large flight cases packed to the brim with gear speakers and cables out. They arrived fast and completely undamaged. I can’t recommend them enough, if you ever need to ship instruments or gear anywhere for sessions or concerts definitely get in touch with them.

Setting up my room here in portland was a crazy learning experience. I had been working primarily out of the same room for almost 7 years. I know my room in Boston like the back of my hand, I know exactly how it sounds, and I’ve learned to work with its anomalies over the years. The first thing I did here was set up my speakers without any treatment in the room and listen to some music. I immediately knew that I was going to have some problems primarily in the bottom end. I had ordered some cheap panels on the internet that arrived just a few days after I did. I was in the middle of a ton of projects throughout the move and I didn’t want to have too much downtime before I could start working again. I put up a few corner traps and some panels on the side walls to try and grab some early reflections. They worked out alright but they didn’t help too much with the bottom end. I was losing a lot between 50hz and 100hz, some pretty important stuff. There is a large window that takes up almost the entire right side of my room so hanging more panels wasn’t going to work. I decided that id need to build some stands to put panels on so I could have them on the right wall in front of the window. I built the stands out of 2 by 4s and I used some wall hangers I had leftover from the panels I ordered online. I ordered some Owens Corning 703 from ATS Acoustics at a really reasonable price. I was able to get 6 24”x 48” panels for $75, a fraction of what I paid for the premade ones. I was able to cover the panels in fabric using an adhesive spray. When I build more ill definitely be building frames for them but these are working out great for now.

After I had my new panels up I was still having some problems with my low end so I decided it was finally time to get the matching sub for my speakers. I have a great sub in Boston that pairs with my Dynaudio BM15a’s. My Neumann KH120as are my primary speakers here and even though they put out a lot of low end I needed some more to be able to accurately know what was going on. Neumann just released a sub called the KH750 with DSP built into it. You’re able to use the DSP in the sub on your main speakers as well and since it also acts as a crossover It was a no-brainer for me to order one of these. Within minutes of setting it up, I knew it was going to be a lot easier to work in here. I did some listening and was super happy with how it sounded. I shot the room using Neumanns MA1 measurement mic and I was amazed how much the sub helped with the cancellations I was having. Neumann has software that pairs with the DSP in the speakers via ethernet. It allows you to change up the “recommended” curve quite a bit. I had never used DSP for room correction in my own setup. I tried Sonorworks but really didn’t like what it was doing. I’ve always been a believer in treating the room before resorting to eq and I feel like I did that to the best of my ability. I’m in a rental so there’s only so far I’m able to go with properly treating a room. My next studio will definitely be in a place that I own so ill be able to approach it differently. This room is going to continue to evolve, change and improve for quite a bit but I’ve been super happy with the mixes and masters I’ve been doing in here when I take them out.

The Portland audio community has been incredibly warm and welcoming to me since I got here. I reached out to Larry Crane at Jackpot! Recording and Justin Phelps at The Hallowed Halls and both welcomed me to the city with open arms and are allowing me to freelance out of their studios. I’ve already booked a bunch of time at both for records ill be producing in June. The city has an amazing music community and I’m so excited to be able to go out and see bands as soon as the pandemic is over.

I learned an immense amount throughout this whole process and I’m continuing to learn more every day. I was initially very nervous to start working out of a new room that I didn’t know but I’m happier than ever with the work I’ve been doing in my new room. I feel freshly inspired living in an amazing new city. I had been delaying leaving Boston for years out of fear. I’m also extremely lucky to have such a great studio partner that’s allowing me to retain my partnership in the business, ill be traveling back to Boston once a month to work on projects there for the foreseeable future.