Working to salvage some homemade beats, Thaddeus Moore sat at his soundboard with two hip-hop artists behind him.
Mike Schmidt hovered over his portable production station, playing back his beats as Roman Rocha rapped live. They wanted to hear how the lyrics and the beats ultimately would mesh once Moore had the beats properly balanced.
"Bring it, like, way down first," Moore told Schmidt. "Try that, and now let me hear the kick drum with it.
"That's way better."
Moore still had four hours left on his 12-hour work day. As the owner and sole remaining founder of Sprout City Studios, Moore, 30, has patched together a livelihood around music.
He's a studio engineer and producer. He teaches a sound engineering class at his studio through Lane Community College. He mixes sound for live shows around the state. And he rents rehearsal space to bands.
Now, his humble studio is celebrating a benchmark by hosting 10 concerts to mark 10 years in business. The first show was a late addition to the series: the Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers' appearance Sept. 14 at the McDonald Theatre.
You also could call it the Five Years in the Black concert series.
"I kind of Forrest Gumped my way through it," Moore said of his early days, when he and a couple of partners decided to lease a deteriorated West Eugene warehouse space. "For the first five years, I didn't know if it was going to be here from week to week."
The partners' first task was to repair extensive water damage from the sprout-growing operation that had occupied the building before it became a headquarters for local bands.
"We signed the lease and started tearing out walls," said Moore, 20 at the time. It soon became clear his partners had different ideas for how to use their improved space.
Eventually, Moore said he was the only Sprout City pioneer still involved in the project.
"I've had a lot of really amazing things happen to keep me going."
Today, the business pays for itself and contributes to Moore's ability to buy a home with his wife, Emily Downing-Moore. The concerts, he said, are a way to thank the hundreds of people who have recorded, rehearsed or used Sprout City's engineering ser- vices.
Engineer becomes a producer
At the 10-year mark, Sprout City has captured the sounds of such greats as Eugene residents Thomas Mapfumo, the Zimbabwean national treasure, and Frank Black from the Pixies.
In addition to Moore, three other recording engineers work with artists.
Moore has gained a reputation as a solid engineer with a good ear. And although he has done some production work already, he is interested in becoming more of a producer.
"I enjoy watching an artist become the artist they can be," he said. "It's one of those invisible, thankless jobs, and I am glad for it."
Four-year Eugene resident Charles Thompson, who is best known as Pixies frontman Frank Black, started working at Moore's studio after being caught behind a vehicle at a stoplight that was marked with Sprout City logos.
"I started there first, and I was happy so I haven't continued my investigation," Thompson said of his short quest to find a local studio to work on some tracks for "Bluefinger," which he released Sept. 11 as Black Francis.
Thompson will be billed as Black Francis when he performs as part of the Sprout City series on Oct. 5 at the WOW Hall.
"He is a good engineer," he said. "He has good ears, and I like the way the tracks have been recorded.
"I haven't even involved myself in that aspect of it that much. When you trust the engineer (you don't have to), which is good for me because I don't want to think about technical things."
Thompson said working with Moore is pleasant. And while Sprout City is not cheap, he said the rates are reasonable.
"The biggest surprise for me working in his studio is how booked it is," said Thompson, who came from Los Angeles. "We are not exactly in the middle of music central here in Eugene.
"Sometimes, I book studio time when I don't even have anything planned and just hope I have my artistic thoughts in order when I get there."
Master music mixer
Moore figures he's been able to succeed where others have failed by being completely dedicated to the studio and getting more savvy with the business side of things.
He is passionate about music, and his artist list shows he has no genre boundaries. Moore works with folk and hip-hop artists with equal attention to detail.
Local singer-songwriter Tyler Fortier moved to Eugene in 2003 to study sound engineering at LCC. He met Moore soon after, and when he was ready to work on his first studio product, Fortier tapped him to produce and engineer the album: "When the Sun Hits the Water."
"As a producer, every song he hears he has at least five different parts that he hears on top of it that's not being played," Fortier said. "He's got all these lines figured out on top of acoustic guitar. ... A bass or cello player would come in and he would kind of hum the parts."
Moore, who plans to stay in Eugene, is always reinvesting in his business, acquiring more gear and tinkering with studio acoustics. But it seems it's his personal touch, as much as his technical one, that keeps his schedule packed.
"I think the main thing is people like to be comfortable when they are trying to express themselves musically," he said.
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Thaddeus Moore may be only 30, but he's been the driving force behind Sprout City recording studio since its beginning 10 years ago in a dilapidated west Eugene warehouse.
