Starting a studio: Premesis

[mattisfrommars]

I'm nearly finishing my penultimate year at uni and after I graduate I want to start up a recording studio. Over the next year I'm going to be working my ass off to get the gear together for a pretty basic studio with the intention of expanding everything later. But the one thing I have no idea with is how to get the actual building.

Do I just find a property for rent and spendspendspend to get it acoustically treated and sound proofed? Or would it be more financially viable to find an existing studio which can be rented out?

 

[professorlamp]

Why dont you do it in your house?
sacrifice one of the bigger bedrooms , or look at making one room smaller and expanding the other one?
Either way that'll save you buying a completely new building

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I'm battling the same situation here. I've sent inquiries of a couple of warehouses, but unfortunately the rent has been way over what I can afford. Paying those rents for about three or four years I could have already paid for buying the building, so I think I'm going that route. That way I'm facing less of a financial suicide if things go to shit, too, as I can always sell the building.

 

[TheDriller]

Good thread,
This is relevant to my plans for the coming years too, also wondering if many people rent spaces or just go mad and buy property and so forth.
how does one handle serious acoustic treatment in a rented space?

 

[Wolfeman]

Good thread,
This is relevant to my plans for the coming years too, also wondering if many people rent spaces or just go mad and buy property and so forth.
how does one handle serious acoustic treatment in a rented space?

It all depends on the land lord when it comes to renting. Some will let you go all out and modify walls and everything. Others won't let you put a hole in the wall, so you have to make do with traps on stands, foam stuck to the walls, etc, gotta work with what you can.

A few of the studios around here that are in rented buildings let the guys go as crazy as they want, so long as they remove everything if they leave. Or else it all gets torn down and thrown in the garbage

 

[Jahbulon]

I'm currently in a similar position. I usually record at my band's practice space, but it has to be at crazy hours of the night when no one is around. I was thinking of going the route of buying a house with a decent sized basement or detached garage.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

It all depends on the land lord when it comes to renting. Some will let you go all out and modify walls and everything. Others won't let you put a hole in the wall, so you have to make do with traps on stands, foam stuck to the walls, etc, gotta work with what you can.

A few of the studios around here that are in rented buildings let the guys go as crazy as they want, so long as they remove everything if they leave. Or else it all gets torn down and thrown in the garbage

True. One warehouse owner I talked with was totally fine with building new rooms inside the space, but unfortunately the rent was about 3400e per month, which is a lot more than what I'm looking to spend. It's a shame, the place was otherwise pretty much perfect.

 

[nwright]

If it were me, I'd start small. Either try to find a studio at which you can freelance, or buy a house that would allow you to build within that, either detached garage or basement, or just convert the house itself...perhaps similar to what Sturgis uses (although I don't know much about his studio other than it looks like a house, haha).

I've been toying with the idea of buying a house to use as a "studio". Around these parts a house can be had pretty cheap these days, and since I won't be living there, it doesn't have to be huge. You can buy 2 bedroom, 1000-1200 square foot houses for around 20-50K pretty easily. All in (taxes, insurance, etc.) it would be comparable to renting a rehearsal space for a band, and much less than renting space for a studio IMO, and you'd have free reign to do what you want. May not be perfect, ideal room construction, but with time, patience and planning, you could make it work.


Bums me out, my grandma had a small house in the city I live that she inherited from her mother (my great grandma). It was around 1000 square feet main floor with a full finished basement (well, cement floors and cinder block walls, but waterproof). Needed a bit of updating and a new roof. She held on to it for about 10 years letting my aunt live there. My aunt got married about 5 years ago and the house was left empty. The house was paid off, so to avoid another year of taxes and insurance, she sold it to a property buyer for 10K...I was furious when I found out, as was the rest of the family. My mom and dad had even said they would have paid half the cost for me to buy it and build a studio. 2 bedroom house, with a living room, kitchen and bath. The configuration would have been perfect for a control room and 2 tracking rooms with the ability to have been able to see both tracking rooms via windows to the control room. With current rates and the house appraised value (roughly 40K), I could have loaned out for more, fixed some things and had some interior work done, for around 200-300 month @ 30 yr fixed rate...Still hoping to find something like this at some point...Although my wife wants me to convert our detached 24x30 garage to a studio space.

 

[James Murphy]

Studio Businesses are a waste of your time and money.... everyone and their mother's gardner has a "studio" now, and no one cares.... market yourself as an editor, then engineer, then mixer, as your skills improve... THAT is the way to get started these days.... seriously, unless you can do it up like Eddy (Rawmachine), no one will give 2 farts under a wet blanket about your home/warehouse/grandma's basement studio.... it's YOU that matters.

sure you need a space to work, and you can do that at home in a fairly modest space if you like.... because without a drum room, you can put more of what would have been construction money into good gear and learning. And when you market yourself and not a studio business, you don't have to have an impressive looking space to move forward more quickly. also, focusing on YOU in your efforts to build a skill-set and reputation is conducive to getting better and making career progress, whereas focusing on your studio space takes the focus off you and your (hopefully) special qualities, and leaves you squarely in the realm of the boring and mundane... cuz everyone has, or can get, the same shit you have and throw up some foam and call it a studio.

when you start getting engineering inquiries... just rent a drum room then do the rest in your own space... that's my advice, unless you just happen to have loads of cash lying around that you'll need to build a drum room, and/or incredibly tolerant neighbors/family.

no one's going to talk about your studio in the end... they are going to talk about whether or not you can do the job.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

when you start getting engineering inquiries... just rent a drum room then do the rest in your own space... that's my advice, unless you just happen to have loads of cash lying around that you'll need to build a drum room, and/or incredibly tolerant neighbors/family.

no one's going to talk about your studio... they are going to talk about whether or not you can do the job.

Very true, and that's what I'm doing at the moment, but I've recently had to turn bands down because there's no decent space available to use. It seems I'll be using some local school's "studio" (which probably consists of an untreated music class room and an old PC if it's anything like the other school facilities I've seen) for my next two bookings because of this, and I'm not all that thrilled about it. There's nothing wrong with working with what you can get both space- and equipmentwise, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to improve things.

 

[Felix Neumann]

It would be great owning an own place to record the drums properly, like Oz or Lasse and lot of other well experienced guys here. This is a dream, what is worth working for! I look around for a nice building, too, so this is a interesting thread for me. In my case, this wouldn´t be just a studio, this would be my guitar school (I have about 80 guitar students meanwhile). Although I like the place, where I am (not all too much phasing problems with the drums), but there is too little space for recording whole bands and guitar lessons with groups. If I´d find a good place, I´d definitively look around for an acoustician or an acoustic student to help me furnish and treat the premises.

 

[nwright]

It would be great owning an own place to record the drums properly, like Oz or Lasse and lot of other well experienced guys here. This is a dream, what is worth working for! I look around for a nice building, too, so this is a interesting thread for me. In my case, this wouldn´t be just a studio, this would be my guitar school (I have about 80 guitar students meanwhile). Although I like the place, where I am (not all too much phasing problems with the drums), but there is too little space for recording whole bands and guitar lessons with groups. If I´d find a good place, I´d definitively look around for an acoustician or an acoustic student to help me furnish and treat the premises.

I think even if you take James' comments (which I think are VERY valuable and true), you could still dream and work towards the goal of having a full on killer studio, it just wouldn't be as immediate, as risky, and as expensive from the outset (IMHO, anyway).

James' advice was probably the best I've read on this thread, at least it makes the most sense to me.

 

[TheDriller]

+1 to James,

Golden Advice

 

[Felix Neumann]

I think even if you take James' comments (which I think are VERY valuable and true), you could still dream and work towards the goal of having a full on killer studio, it just wouldn't be as immediate, as risky, and as expensive from the outset (IMHO, anyway).

James' advice was probably the best I've read on this thread, at least it makes the most sense to me.

No question, James´s advice is good, I did not disagree actually. I talked about my personal goals and plans. It´s always bad pumpin´a lot of money into nothingness.

 

[nwright]

No question, James´s advice is good, I did not disagree actually. I talked about my personal goals and plans. It´s always bad pumpin´a lot of money into nothingness.

I wasn't saying you disagreed, just adding comments to your post. Just to clarify, I wasn't arguing!

 

[Felix Neumann]

I wasn't saying you disagreed, just adding comments to your post. Just ot clarify, I wasn't arguing!

Alright dude. I wasn´t arguing, as well. Peace bro

 

[Joematthews]

1000-1200 square foot houses for around 20-50K pretty easily.

It's astonishing how house prices differ, you can't buy ANYTHING for that over here in the UK, even the most run down and shitty of houses in the worst of areas are double that price. If only

I think one of the problems is finding somewhere small enough to be economical that you can buy on its own. A warehouse is too big for a project studio hence the high cost. A project studio doesn't need to be huge, you could build a very workable studio in 500 square foot space, even with provision for nice acoustics (soffit mounting and Large amounts of bass absorbtion etc).

I'm a keen amature at designing studio spaces so this kind of thing really intersts me.

 

[LeSedna]

If I had to record a drumset, I would do exactly what James has said : rent a space. There must be a repetition room, a local association, with a decent room to record in, almost everywhere not too far. You just need 2x8 in interfaces, a good laptop, a decent set of mikes.

 

[James Murphy]

to clarify LaSedna... when i said "find a room", i meant an existing studio business with good gear and decent sounding live/drum room.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

to clarify LaSedna... when i said "find a room", i meant an existing studio business with good gear and decent sounding live/drum room.

Like Polygone studio for stay on South France environement