This morning we want to offer a plug for our friends at Weathervane Music. The brainchild of Philly producer Brian McTear and his high-school friend Bill Robertson, Weathervane is a non-profit “new music incubator” which represents, in our view, a unique and innovative model for advancing independent music and supporting the local community from which it springs. Here at Master Sound we’re similarly committed to nurturing and promoting local artists—and to enriching and supporting Hampton Roads’ diverse music scene. That’s been an essential part of our mission from the studio’s inception back in 1981.

What Weathervane’s model ratifies, more than anything, is the role that an inventive production house can occupy in the broader culture of a community. The organization’s flagship “Shaking Through” program provides emerging, independent artists an opportunity to document their work and to share the process of a song’s development—from gestation and fruition—with fans around the world. And their Weathervane EDU initiative, launched in 2015, provides instructional materials in audio production and recording techniques to secondary schools worldwide. (Weathervane EDU maintains partnerships with schools from New Zealand to South Africa to New Jersey.) Weathervane also distributes a podcast series, provides occasional recording workshops at their home base, Miner Street Recordings, and live-streams myriad events and sessions (of both tracking and mixing).

So, in keeping with this post’s title and intent—a studio “PSA”—we’d encourage you to check out and support Weathervane’s efforts. And we’d also urge you to hit us up for your local audio-production needs. Any region depends on energized organizations—both traditional businesses and non-profits—for the maintenance of its culture. The Master Sound ethos is allied with Weathervane’s—to provide a resource for local, independent artists’ development and to enrich the distinctive culture of Hampton Roads. We invite you to be part of our mission.