They've got the music in them — and in their garage

While it may not rock you with "curb appeal," this cute, cozy West Seattle home has big time "reverb appeal." Lurking beneath the lines of this unpretentious, two-bedroom house is something that would make most musicians whistle with envy.

See the rugged touring van in the driveway and that nice free-standing garage?

Well, it's not a garage. It's a recording studio.

Willow Scrivner and Kevin Wood call it Little Pig Little Witch Studio, after one of her songs. This is hardly as spacious, fancy or gear-rich as some of the big studios around town (Litho, Orbit, Bad Animals, Jupiter, Egg, etc.). Yet it has everything needed to make a polished album: a "control room" with taping and mixing equipment, and a separate recording room with microphones, amps, speakers, a drum kit, guitars and room for three (four, if they squeeze; five, if they breathe rhythmically) musicians to rehearse, jam or record.

The music

To hear or read more about the music of Willow and Kevin Wood, go to willowsmusic.com or www.myspace.com/willowsmusic

Anyone with a computer and a few hundred dollars for software can make a recording that will sound decent on MySpace. But serious, audio-obsessed musicians looking to record — and sell — high-quality CDs usually look for more sophistication than computer programs like ProTools can offer.

At $30-and-up per hour, cutting an album in a professional studio can run into thousands of dollars. For unsigned, do-it-yourself musicians, setting up a pro-quality home studio is the ultimate fantasy.

"We just had a bunch of our musician friends over," Scrivner said, "and we were joking that we wanted to record, but studio time was too expensive — so we bought a recording studio!"

Fate brings a studio

Studio basics

Tips for setting up a home-recording studio:

• Before you throw a bunch of gear (and money) into a space, make sure it is soundproof — both ways, so you're not bothering neighbors, and so outside sounds don't "leak" into your recordings.

• Check out sites like www.tweakheadz.com/guide and www.soundrecordingadvice.com.

• Decide whether to buy new, or save money — but increase risks — by buying equipment over the Internet. You can save more than half off retail by buying used gear on the Internet, or you can go to a place like American Music in Fremont (4450 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle; 206-633-1774 or www.americanmusic.com) for monitors, mixers, recorders, microphones — and professional advice.

• If you purchase new gear, expect to pay at least $1,000 for decent equipment.

Theirs is an extraordinarily functional musical marriage. She is the creative force, a singer-songwriter who pens darkly surreal lyrics and sings like a pixie in a trance ("think David Lynch goes to Lilith Fair," one journalist wrote of her). He is a talented guitar player and great at the nuts and bolts: wiring, amps, recording levels and so on.

To say these two have come a long way is as understated as Wood's guitar playing. They now own a studio, but once lived in one — a studio apartment, in Fremont. "We were on the road a lot," Scrivner says, as her husband grins at the memory, "spending all this time in the van, so it seemed big to come home to."

Married in December 2005, they had just returned from their honeymoon and were tossing around where to live next — move to Manhattan and try to make it there? — when a friend passed on an e-mail: A drummer was about to sell his West Seattle home, featuring a recording studio, and wanted it to go to a fellow musician. "He really wanted a musician to buy it, not somebody who would bulldoze it and put up a garage ... "

The price was within their budget, so it was forget Manhattan. They bought the property, did some reworking on the house (painting, pulling up carpet, building a deck), then sized up the studio. Though it was already wired for electricity ("the guy did it right") and plumbed, "It wasn't a done deal at all," said Wood. "There wasn't any gear we wanted, and the colors — baby blue and mint green — weren't what we wanted."

Repainting in warm, creative-nurturing colors (burgundy and "praline" brown) was easy enough. Then came the beast: equipment.

On track for an album

These two decided early on to go analog over digital. Newer, digital-recording equipment probably would have been far cheaper, "but we wanted that round, fat, analog sound."

After consulting with musician friends and anyone he could find who was into audio gear, Wood put a wish list together and plunged into eBay. The big purchases were a Tascam ½-inch 8-track recorder and a Mackie 16-channel microphone/line mixer.

Buying used stuff over the Internet is always a risk, particularly with recording equipment. The mixing board had a loose-wire problem that a friend fixed. Overall, "I think I kind of got lucky," Wood says.

Now, nine months after the home purchase, the couple is preparing to start recording. By the end of 2007, they hope to have the first Willow — she goes by her first name only in her musical career — full-length album in more than five years.

The biggest luxury: being able to take the time to do it right. "We're not going to be stressed to get it done in five days," Scrivner said, recalling the intensity of her first album.

Has it been worth the time, the sweat, the money to set up a home recording studio?

While Wood, the realist, mulls over needed equipment and still thinks of this as a work-in-process, the fantasist Scrivner is beaming with possibilities and freshly minted memories. "I came home from work late a few nights ago, and Kevin was already asleep," she says. "I opened a special bottle of wine and came out here and played music until 4 in the morning ... "

Don't wake Willow. She's living her dream.

Tom Scanlon writes about clubs and local bands in The Seattle Times' Ticket section on Fridays. He can be reached at tscanlon@seattletimes.com