Studio / recording space experiences

[venusian]

There was somebody on yakyak moosicians who was involved with a small recording studio, maybe a community one? Somewhere in the North of England? Memory like a cullender, me.

A friend of mine is thinking of starting a community mini recording studio and I'm trying to (a) help, (b) slow him down and (c) find out which chasms of mistake he's about to fling himself into. Interested in minimal kit levels, prices, occupancy rates. Everything really.

Help?

[rowan]

Hmm.. If it was me [those facts could fit some reality], it was literally half my life ago.
I only volunteered so didn't get involved with the real business side of it but I'll try to brain dump some random memories:

The steadiest income came from hiring out rooms for band practices & we also had a big storage room people could store kit in for a small fee.

The daily admin side of running a studio is basically to run a diary:
Who's booked in for what and when.
Get one of those A4 hardback annual diaries, with a day per page and an attached ribbon bookmark.
[Or do it on the computer if you prefer, I only just thought of that.. Working in IT, I find pencil & paper preferable for these things].

We had a main recording room with an adjacent control room + window. There was a further small room at the back of the main room which we sometimes used as a vocal booth. We had wooden shutters for the insides of each window which we'd fit when any loud recording was going on.

There was a 24 track mixer, a rack of various dynamics processors & effects [noise gates, compressors, delays, reverbs, multi-effects units and so on]
I think there were 12-15 mics knocking about, mostly SM57/SM58 dynamic mics and a few C1000S condensors, plus the odd special like a bass mic.

Do not allow any food, liquid or smoking in the control room and put a massive sign on the door saying so.

Be aware of your neighbours, how far the sound reaches, the planned working/practice times & whether or not you'll get any opposition in those windows.

Get dedicated volunteers [like I was ] who want to get into sound engineering. They can open the place for bands to get their kit or practice, help out with lugging stuff about, cleaning up after people & start to learn about everything else along the way. You can reward them with time in the studio when there's nothing else going on.

Make sure you have several floor standing fans [and a couple spare for when they break down]. And loads of mic stands. And gaffer tape. And 4-way adapters with long flex.

If you or a volunteer can do some basic electrical work you can save a fortune, running & wiring your own cables with the best plugs & lengths you need. On my first day I was given 2 broken mics, I knackered one of them by accident but managed to salvage bits from both to get a decent unit. I wasn't impressed with my clumsy performance but the guy was over the moon. As far as he was concerned he had to replace 2 mics, now it was only 1: Every little helps.

Try to have some mobile ability - a smaller portable mixer & suitable multitrack recording equipment.




I didn't really mention much kit - I'm too out of the loop on modern stuff. I mentioned a couple of old mics which may no longer be in favour but even if superseded, you can get good results with them. You'll still basically want a selection of dynamic & condensor ones.
Probably all recording's easiest with laptops, SSDs & decent ADC/DAC cards these days? When I was working in the studio, they were just transitioning from multitrack tape to HD based.

[RiK]

There was somebody on yakyak moosicians who was involved with a small recording studio, maybe a community one? Somewhere in the North of England? Memory like a cullender, me.

That was (o)(o)..

[WiteWulf]

Insurance and extremely sturdy doors, windows and locks. Studios are prime targets for theives and I’ve seen too many go under because they couldn’t afford to replace stolen gear. Do not scrimp on this!

[venusian]

Thanks Rowan and WiteWulf, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. My friend has lots of enthusiasm but little (actually none at all) experience. Maybe too much enthusiasm.

Will be passing it all on.