Welcome to the music site, where you can find information about my other side: music
There have been two constants in my life.
Photography/video and Music.
How it started
When I was leaving school, it was no real surprise that my first endeavor was a recording studio in Emmeloord.
Together with a friend, we ran Royalty Street Studios for a few years before closing the doors.
It’s the place where I learned to work with a console, tape, and, of course, loads of mixing and mic-ing techniques.
I started teaching guitar when I was 17, like most kids, to pay for my hobby… buying guitar gear.
At that time, I had a strong focus on the basics. In all honesty, I was not a shredder (in that time, almost a problem), but I did know how the modes worked and could get some interesting sounds from them. And theory is always important.
Because there was no internet, my information came mostly from American and German guitar magazines and, of course, the famous REH guitar videos…. OMG, I watched them a lot.
My first real concert was Monsters of Rock in Galgenwaard, where I went for Poison and was literally blown away by Whitesnake and….. STEVE VAI… never before had I seen such a performance, and almost supernatural accuracy, no note was missed, and the performance from the whole band was flawless. Sorry for Aerosmith, but something like that you cannot top 😀
My favorite bands in that era (and still)
Queen (always nr 1)
Def Leppard, Poison, Whitesnake, Dream Theater, Malmsteen
But although I loved those bands, I really fell in love with a flexidisc from Flexible.
My life changed; it was like seeing Queen for the first time at Life Aid and realizing “this is my band forever”.
Vai and Satriani dominated my walls, and hours were spent with the book from Passion and Warfare.
And as Vai says….”you never fail when you see something that doesn’t work just as the next step.”
Thanks, Steve, I’m now 55 and still trying to learn from the book 😀
Life starts
When the studio closed, I moved to another town with my now wife, Annewiek, and we started a Computer Company.
Teaching guitar stopped slowly, and the guitars went to the attic.
Sometimes things change in your life that literally change everything.
For me, that was picking up photography more seriously and shooting models.
I loved to dive into the theory of light and color.
At that moment in time, our Computer Company added a Home Theater branch (which we still run). For the Home Theater part, we flew to the USA in 2001 (yes, 9/11, we were there) to get my ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) certification.
So it was not long before some people asked me if I wanted to teach a workshop about lighting.
Seeing that I loved teaching guitar, the whole idea was to do it once.
And that… went a bit differently.
A few years later, I was asked by Scott Kelby to join KelbyTraining (now KelbyOne), at that moment as the first European instructor, which was terrifying. And even after working with them for all these years, I still feel honored to be part of that elite group.
And now music….
Photography gave me a lot of options for my creativity, but music and especially guitars still lit my fire.
When Scott Kelby heard an old demo of my band, Royalty, he invited me to play with them on stage for one song.
I could borrow a guitar to practice.
I don’t think he realized I had not played in over 17 years.
Well, he did find out because there was blood on the guitar, I think, when I gave it back the next night.
As expected, I was happy most people were really relaxed, and it was later in the night……
But it did light my fire again, so back home I got all my old gear from the attic and started practicing.
Corona
Just when I thought it was going ok and I was at my old level of playing, Corona changed the world.
I was totally lost.
Teaching two workshops a week, doing lectures for Photoclubs, and all trade shows were cancelled.
So what do you do….
I wrote a new book, recorded a few instructional videos, including an 8-hour Photoshop/Lightroom course.
But after that, we were only 2 days in…. (ok, I love humor) it was about 6 months.
So without feeling any guilt, I started playing every single free minute I had.
New Technology
Remember when I started with Music, the recording was on tape.
So opening Logic for the first time was AWESOME.
Unlimited busses, routings, and channel strips…. it was so much better than working with tape.
In the end, it just didn’t feel right.
So I ended up buying a small mixer, and eventually ended up with a Behringer X32, which I still use.
During Corona, I started recording one track a month, and quickly it became a great point of escape.
This actually made the decision to start this website easy.
It’s a way to give you an insight into vintage (often cheap) gear, but also modern gear, of course.
Share new material and, of course, post anything that can be interesting, including photos from my favorite guitars/gear and the stories behind them.
I hope you have a great time on the site and enjoy the music I create.
So where can you find my music?
I’m using Distrokid. I wrote a rather extensive review on them, which you can find here.
Including a discount code.
Distrokid works great for me and takes away a lot of hassle. I just want to upload my track and continue.
This means you can find my music on almost any streaming platform, just search for “Frank Doorhof.”
If you don’t like streaming services and want a bit more interaction, you can also find me on SoundCloud and BandLab.
I’ve included the links to Spotify and Soundcloud here.