Trevor Baron is a piano and theory teacher with years of experience and the creator of Illustrious Sound—a blog-style magazine and video journal shaped by student questions and a love of learning. He shares tools, reflections, and experiments from his own path into music production and home recording.
Letting the Studio Become Something Else I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but it’s worth saying again: I never planned on doing as much experimenting and exploring during my studio redesign as I actually did. At the outset, the goal was fairly simple: Redesign...
Choosing Gear: Different Philosophies, One Studio Designing—or redesigning—a studio is a big undertaking. There’s: Planning Buying Wiring Testing Rewiring And then doing it all over again It takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money. Because of that, the...
Making Space Without Custom Prices When I started redesigning my studio, one thing became clear very quickly: Space was going to be the limiting factor. Not inspiration.Not gear.Space. Stands, racks, and shelves became essential tools—not just for organization, but...
Patience as a Design Tool If I had to do this entire studio redesign over again, there’s one small thing I might change. I would slow down. Not across the board.Not in every decision. But specifically in how I approached building and finishing certain elements of...
When an Idea Starts to Take Shape Have you ever had a moment during a studio design—or redesign—where an idea you weren’t even sure would work suddenly begins to click? Where you can almost see it forming in real time? For me, that moment came from something...
When to Put Down the Measuring Tape and Just Try It During my studio redesign, one idea kept resurfacing again and again: At some point, you have to throw away the pen and pencil, put down the measuring tape, and simply try things out. Planning a studio—especially...
How Your Perception of Your Studio Changes Over Time It’s interesting how your perception of your studio can shift as you move through the process of designing—or redesigning—it. In earlier posts, I talked about how the idea of building a hardware-based studio took...
When Looks Get in the Way of Function One of the issues I repeatedly stumbled into during my original studio design—about a year earlier—was placing a synth or a piece of gear somewhere because it looked great, only to later realize it was completely impractical to...
Imitation, Inspiration, and Making It Your Own Imitation is often said to be a form of flattery. When it comes to studio design, I think that idea fits surprisingly well. I’m probably not alone in occasionally going online to look at photos and videos of both home...
Finding the Layout That Feels Right During the course of my studio redesign, I moved just about everything—often more than once. That process kept pulling me back to memories of my original, software-based studio, and how different it was from what I work in today....
The creative divisions of Bach To Basics Inc., each rooted in music education and inspired by the interests of my students—from teaching and publishing to recording and studio learning.
Live online piano and theory lessons for students of all ages—personalized and taught worldwide via Zoom through my teaching studio, Bach To Basics Music. Visit Site
My independent music label for sharing recordings, creative experiments, and behind-the-scenes studio work—often tied to lessons in recording and music production. Visit Site
A blog-style magazine for home studio learners and curious creatives—featuring real-world tutorials, tools, and discoveries inspired by my students and teaching experience. Visit Site
A personal space where I share my work as a composer and orchestrator—alongside study notes, sketches, and insights into learning music through composition. Visit Site
Educational resources and sheet music for students and teachers—designed, tested, and self-published based on real classroom and studio use. Visit Site
Each issue of Illustrious Sound brings together the blog articles you see here into a curated, downloadable PDF magazine. Whether you’re a music teacher, student, or just love learning about the creative side of music and audio, this free magazine is a great way to dive deeper. No email signup required—just click and enjoy.