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Recording studio research


TVcasualty

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Nah man, Seagate's kaput. They're all about re-sampling every single drum hit in there, excluding the overheads of course (which are high-passed to such an extent that you only hear the washy cymbals anyway). That might seem harsh, but that's the way I feel about it. I hold a dim view of studios that sample drums for 'consistency' in any genre outside of metal; I like the minor inconsistencies in performance, it brings out the human element. While I think Seagate can be commended for their efficiency, it wouldn't do them any harm to slow the process down a bit and concentrate on getting good drum sounds as opposed to relying on ye olde faithful dry_kick.wav.

As much as I like the Archives album, the drums sound characterless. I think it's a shame because Iain's a great drummer. It'd be nice to hear someone playing the drums, rather than listening to what sounds like a martial arts sound track.

Having recorded with Robin twice, and continuing to turn to him for advice on all things audio, there's no competition in the North of Scotland, more so given the fact that his new studio opens very shortly.

I couldn't agree with you more, Ross. The Seagate drum sound is used for everything and it's rotten... but it is still leagues better than anything in Aberdeen!

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Bet that made the capsule implode, pricey! As for your straight to tape point, agree absolutely, with the caveat that valve mic pre-amps and desks in those days had great tone, but, as you say, not without a dude with a clue. Mind you the tales of trying to get get distortion when those lab-coat engineers were in charge; "This equipment no longer functions correctly" etc

Ha. classic tales. The old gear is great. I have a studer J37 from abbey road that i used all the time to run finals masters through. It took away all that digital glassiness, added fantastic warmth and made everything sound louder. 2 inch tape is now a bit too pricey to use for that now but i have a tape emulator that does almost the same thing.

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Aye, their hard drives rock.

Haha!

I think the rooms in there are actually alright; it's all the more baffling that they continue to use samples. I guess it's quite a 'current' trend.

I think a U47 might sound alright 1-2 feet out front of a kick, but I don't think it's capable of handling the SPL inside a kick drum.

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Interesting debate - well partially, anyway!

Hi! I haven't been here for over a year, but I'll get stuck in anyway -

To the OP, as you may be aware, we run a studio near Inverness and I have been working in this business on and off for 40+ years. Last year, we recorded and also did the editing, mixing and mastering for ten full length, commercial CDs. Not one of them was rock music.

Not one!

Four classical, two jazz and four traditional.

After those, we also did some film pre-production and two hours of TV ads.

There was some rock work of course, but it was not much and mostly short and fairly hectic sessions. You can pretty much say that the rock recording business has all but completely collapsed. What little business there is, does to London and New York, because that is where the management and agencies are.

Very, very roughly - to record a rock album costs 10,000 (mates rates, swapping favours, etc.) or 25,000 if you do it by the book, pay full rates to session musicians, pay for the two, three or four engineers you will need.

There are four stages to making a CD, tracking, editing, mixing and mastering. Tracking usually takes place in a studio like ours, but with additional overdubs (often using professional sessions guys) done in home studios, or smaller rooms. Editing can be done just about anywhere, even on a laptop with headphones. Mixing has to be done in a good mix room or studio control room. You need top class engineers and monitors for this. Mastering is done in a dedicated mastering studio by someone with oodles of experience.

So far, so good. The problem is (for rock) that a band starting out just does not have 10,000 or anything like it. So they go to a demo room and bang out something rough. After all, they just need that demo to get gigs and the venue owners are well aware of the problems that a young band has to face. In many ways, they prefer the grott-demo, as it gives them a more honest idea of what they are going to get!

Once that band has used that demo to get a few decent gigs, in particular, to get a showcase gig at one of the bigger festivals, they get seen by all the management and agency people. If they are any good, they will be picked up and signed up. Then the agency will want them to use a studio that they have a relationship with and they will have to use engineers and producers who will insist on using their favourite studio. The act seldom gets to choose the studio!

We have three or four people who come to us like that, all of them based in London. But TBH, that is hardly enough to support a business and it takes years to build up such a set of relationships.

When the act is really big and successful, they build their own studio which can double as a rehearsal room and is also tax-deductible. So even when they do have real money, you still don't get them as customers! The more successful producers and engineers all have their own studios as well.

But I absolutely agree with all those who have said that Aberdeen is lacking a decent studio - but then, since CaVa sold their main room, so is Glasgow!

You might like to take a look at audiotalk.org for more info on running a studio, but - as the man said earlier on - the biggest problem for all the smaller studios that try to make a fist of it on a limited budget, is all the other smaller studios.

So my advice to the OP would be, by all means go for it, but don't imagine that even one-tenth of your turnover will be rock. But a nice, big room and a great piano and you could be giving us (and others) some serious competition!

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Very, very roughly - to record a rock album costs 10,000 (mates rates, swapping favours, etc.) or 25,000 if you do it by the book, pay full rates to session musicians, pay for the two, three or four engineers you will need.

This is simply not true anymore. We've just done a 10 track record with pre-production, production, engineering, mixing and mastering and it will cost us, all in and mates rates, around 1000.

And before you say, "aye, but that's not a proper hifi record", just wait til you hear it.

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Some good posts but ultimately you need funding/capital to create the desired standard.

There is, however, nothing in Aberdeen that can caters for even the 1k market. There are definitely enough people to support this I think though so any Aberdeen studio has to be designed for this job.

Interesting discussion, keep on going...

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This is simply not true anymore. We've just done a 10 track record with pre-production, production, engineering, mixing and mastering and it will cost us, all in and mates rates, around 1000.

And before you say, "aye, but that's not a proper hifi record", just wait til you hear it.

I thinkit really depends what you're wanting to get out of a recording, and type of music etc, tbh Papercuts and Lime by Jo was done in Cava before it closed and didn't cost much at all, but that was just a guitar and vocal, Overtaking on a Bend, was recorded at Ford Lane Studio's down South and cost a hell of a lot more - though that included - recording of 22 tracks, and about 10 musicians etc. I will be interested to hear what your stuff sounds like, as I would generally agree than nowadays it takes a lot more than people think to do an album properly - 10k doesnt sound too unrealistic to me, but that might include producer etc etc - and thats why imo many local albums never sound as good as they could.

That's not to say thats the way with all local bands but in quite a few cases you hear something and it seems to be the recording that lets the band down, and there also seems to often be an attitude in Aberdeen where people sometimes seem to accept that this is OK because its a proper recording, sometiems I don't think Aberdeen acts maximise themselves in the best way possible.

Cheers

Stuart

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There is, however, nothing in Aberdeen that can caters for even the 1k market. There are definitely enough people to support this I think though so any Aberdeen studio has to be designed for this job.

No-one has mentioned the Mill Studio at Crathes yet, is it still being used? In the 'old days', it was the place to go for any recordings, either demos or more professional releases - has it been superseded by the rise of Tom's/Foyer/wherever cheap deals?

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1,000 CD? Well, yes, if you take payment in kind. But if you are to stand some kind of a chance against the big boys, you will need the best arrangers, session players, editors, mix rooms and so on. The quality of the audio does not cost that much, but the quality of the arrangements, orchestrations (in the broader sense of the word) and good session people are what makes the difference between success and failure.

You can make a CD for absolutely nothing if you have access to these people and we do that sort of thing all the time - "I'll swap you a week's editing, for a week in the studio!" You can even make whole feature films this way, if everybody is prepared to work for points - and that happens, to a limited extent, quite often! Though, even if you are working with services 'in kind,' you still have to put a value on them.

But I wish you every success with your CD - the Scottish music scene certainly needs a shot in the arm - and I hope one day to be able to hear it.

As for the viability of a studio in or around Aberdeen - hmmm . . .

The big problem for the old studio scene or market is that they relied largely on the rock scene and that is gone. The labels are just not doing those large 'forgiveable debt' development deals any more, where a band could spend a month in a studio and the A&R guy would just drop by now and then to see what was coming out of all that. The labels are now distributors only and expect a musical act to come ready made, complete with large fan-base and several CD's worth of original and good material.

But back to the idea and viability of a studio around Aberdeen - The one thing that EVERY studio needs and is ALWAYS short of is space. If you build an 80 sq m room, you will wish you had 100. If you build a 100 sq m room, you will be wanting 200! When you remember that there are only three or at the most four studios in the whole of Scotland with a live room of over 50 sq m (roughly the size of a largish living room!) you begin top realise just how poorly Scotland is served, as far as recording studios are concerned.

The equipment that goes into a studio is cheap and getting cheaper (and better BTW!) and even a budget set-up like a power-Mac with Logic and 24 converters would be perfectly acceptable today for nearly all professionals. And I picked up a perfectly good 48-channel AMR studio desk (vintage 1990) for just 240 a week ago! We shall be using that for our new 'overflow' room.

The problem is the building. Unless you have a large barn with no neighbours that you are not otherwise using and you do not have to push that mortgage rock up a hill like Sisyphus every month, the sums involved may be too large for the turnover you can realistically achieve.

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But if you are to stand some kind of a chance against the big boys, you will need the best arrangers, session players, editors, mix rooms and so on. The quality of the audio does not cost that much, but the quality of the arrangements, orchestrations (in the broader sense of the word) and good session people are what makes the difference between success and failure.

That's assuming the artist,can't arrange and orchestrate their own material,there are countless artists who do everything themselves.I think the difference between success and failure is good tunes well recorded,done in whatever style.:up:

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Good post above.

I guess the industry has changed so much and so quickly that the old ways of working are no longer the ways in which studios can make consistent money. I was reading an article from the LA times saying that many of the studios in the city were either going out of business or being taken over by individual artists to use for only their own projects. Possibly a case of head in the sand hoping that all the changes would blow over?? The guy being interviewed had adapted his business strategy and was surviving well enough.

The Mill is still a studio and still relatively good as far as I'm aware but don't know much about it now. I did a recording there several years ago now (well 10years) and it was decent enough, still enjoy listening to it. Exile has a good reputation and is proactive locally. We're recording there at the beginning of March. I think that the pricing here is good in relation to the quality of the productions I've heard and the unlimited mixing Mark is willing to do for you. The only problem is that it's out of the way, additional cost comes from travel or if you want/need to use the accommodation. That would certainly be one benefit to a city based studio, no travel for local artists. I think that cost is a major factor for groups deciding to record and where. I remember not much longer than 4 years ago the mountain to climb in order to save enough to record at Tom's or Vision was enormous for us.

I still think that a competitively priced place in town would do well.

What is the Byre's pricing policy like? Do you have different packages and pricing for recording signed and unsigned bands? I guess much of your time using your studio for other purposes, you mentioned film pre-production and TV ad production. Do you have to go out and find that work and pitch for it, or are you approached because of your reputation?

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I must admit I had to suppress a shudder when I read 'session muso', not that they don't have their place, but lets face it, very few of them are in the Bobby Keyes/Nicky Hopkins league of skill plus vibe.

Or to put it another way, listening to most shit made by the session legions is dullathon, or in Doric, Dull...Aa thon.

Yeah yeah orchestras etc blah rhubarb, Jimmy Page blah solos by Steely Dan,Lukather blah, I said Most.

@Byres - I thought you said at first it was OK if you had a big Bam somewhere, also possibly true, bit of muscle to 'discourage' complaints.

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I still think that a competitively priced place in town would do well.

I doubt you can make the city centre studio business model fly. The costs of the building would kill a demo room stone dead.

We do not do visual work - I was referring to music for ads and films. We used to do videos, but demand was just too low and we could not get good freelance camera people. We are reviewing that position and may invest in a hi-def set of cameras, but TBH, demand remains very low for quality product. I might be tempted to go in for digital film, when that technology comes of age, but until then, it's a case of wait and see if someone comes beating the door down.

We do not differentiate between unsigned and signed, as all labels expect the artist to pay for recordings anyway.

As I stated above and it bears repeating - nine-tenths of commercial studio recording is NOT rock-pop or even anything like it. Music for gaming, films, TV and advertising is the largest segment, followed by club-based stuff like pipe bands and choral societies. After that comes classical and jazz.

The flood of rock-pop stuff you get to hear is centred around a handful of producers and studios in New York, LA and London and most of it done in the private suites of the better producers and engineers.

Targeting a studio at rock-pop is to target a market that hardly exists and what little there is, is nearly all demo work and therefore very price-sensitive, which in turn effects profits.

And like it or not, no profits, no studio!

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Guest Tam o' Shantie

Radio rock might be recorded in NY, London and LA...

Are you trying to say that there aren't tens of thousands of bands in the UK who don't have the desire, need or means to spend 10,000 recording an album in any of these three places?

I think you're taking my 'high quality studio' comments too seriously. I'm talking about recording the kind of album that might be released on an independent record label in the UK (of which there are many hundreds), and which might sell a few thousand copies. Robin Sutherland's in Dundee has recorded many full-length EPs released on legitimate labels (for example Gravity DIP). Take Tellison's first album for example. I recall Robin charged something like 2,000 to record it, and it was mixed elsewhere at a cost of maybe a further grand. The recordings from this album were used on the soundtrack to The Inbetweeners (Channel 4 cult comedy show, 500,000 DVDs sold), repeatedly featured on XFM & Radio 1 etc. etc. the album sales figures I have no idea about, but I do know that the Gravity DIP pressing sold out (probably 2,000 copies) and it was later repressed on Banquet Records.

These figures may not dazzle you if you're used to dealing exclusively with major label and broadcasting clients, but my point is that a small, one-man operation in Dundee can provide a full album recording for between 2 and 3 grand which is good enough to be played alongside the 'big boys' as you put it - so to say that the only people paying for studio time are A) the ones who can afford to spend 10k on an album recorded in NYC or B) 'local band' who want to spend 50 on a demo so that they can get a gig at the Malt Mill is simply not correct.

BTW, no disrespect to your opinion - I just think it has been skewed by the type of business your studio deals with. I have actually recorded there with another engineer and it was a fabulous set up and a very fond memory. You still got the big dogs?

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1,000 CD? Well, yes, if you take payment in kind. But if you are to stand some kind of a chance against the big boys, you will need the best arrangers, session players, editors, mix rooms and so on. The quality of the audio does not cost that much, but the quality of the arrangements, orchestrations (in the broader sense of the word) and good session people are what makes the difference between success and failure.

.

I'm sorry, that's bollocks. My fellatio skills aren't worth a grand.

Seriously though, that is nonsense. You only need arrangers, session players etc if you are not good enough to do it yourself. Working with a good producer should be enough unless you are trying to polish a turd.

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Dogs - yes. They're lying on their beds and snoring loudly and farting copiously as I speak! You would imagine that they would be outside,playing in the snow, but Great Danes don't seem to 'do' cold and wet!

"You only need arrangers, session players etc if you are not good enough to do it yourself."

Well, from Rogers and Hammerstein through to Lennon and McCartney, they all used arrangers. Most of the great classical composers used arrangers and orchestrators to take something they had banged out on a piano and turn it into a full-blown orchestral score. And there are very, very few bands that just never use session musos.

Altogether, there is a vast array of weapons that any musical act needs to get ready to do battle. Fan club. Website. Marketing and mechanising. All that used to be done by the labels and now all that infrastructure has been taken away.

But we are getting away from the original point - is a studio somewhere around Aberdeen a viable proposition?

I believe that, for the right person, who is both close the the local music scene and also understands the business and the technology right down to his or her fingertips and also has access to the right location (building!) and at the right (low!) price, the answer could be a tentative 'yes.'

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There used to be one under the arts centre,AMEK Einstein,ADAT 24trk,Quested monitors...etc.Went out of business!The young engineers there went on to work for Sarm and Real World studios.There is a big difference between orchestral session players and "contemporary" session players like Ian Thomas and Steve Pearce,you only need arrangers if you are adding a score to your tracks and lets face it,how many up and coming bands have the budget for that?

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what i feel is needed in the places around aberdeen, is an atmosphere that makes you want to record and write, as i have recorded in Toms and MV and i just haven't felt right doing it,

you feel rushed and that the engineer just wants you to get it over with.

So a place with an awesome atmosphere would be what i think is needed.

You can take as long as you want, as long as you're prepared to pay for it.

The reason you might be feeling rushed is because they are budget studios. I call them budget not because of the (relatively speaking) low budget for studio equipment. It's because most people who record there are on very limited budgets.

Most people underestimate the amount of time required as well.

Engineers will try to keep the session moving fast so that the project can be completed as close to the budget as possible. You never know when a problem is going to arise so you've got to be on top of things from the off.

If you want a more relaxed session tell them that's what you want and wave some wonga in front of their face.

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Dogs - yes. They're lying on their beds and snoring loudly and farting copiously as I speak! You would imagine that they would be outside,playing in the snow, but Great Danes don't seem to 'do' cold and wet!

"You only need arrangers, session players etc if you are not good enough to do it yourself."

Well, from Rogers and Hammerstein through to Lennon and McCartney, they all used arrangers. Most of the great classical composers used arrangers and orchestrators to take something they had banged out on a piano and turn it into a full-blown orchestral score. And there are very, very few bands that just never use session musos.

Altogether, there is a vast array of weapons that any musical act needs to get ready to do battle. Fan club. Website. Marketing and mechanising. All that used to be done by the labels and now all that infrastructure has been taken away.

But we are getting away from the original point - is a studio somewhere around Aberdeen a viable proposition?

I believe that, for the right person, who is both close the the local music scene and also understands the business and the technology right down to his or her fingertips and also has access to the right location (building!) and at the right (low!) price, the answer could be a tentative 'yes.'

A lot of good points made. It's not the cost of gear so much as the cost of the right people to use it and arrangers, session players, producers. These people cost serious money.

i have two live rooms here in Lossie. one is 45 square meters the other is 50 square meters and i'd love them both to be twice the size.

I record a lot of rock here, mainly because i have no serious competition in moray. There was rise to red in inverness but they were so bad, disgruntled clients came to me to have their mixes doneproperly.

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