May I be so bold to present my new studio ideas

Having run a vintage analogue studio for 15 years I have seen the business change a lot. This has become increasingly a niche area. Recording budgets even for established bands have been slashed. So I have decided to change with the times.
I have started a service whereby musicians can upload their music and have it run through my collection of vintage analogue gear and then have it uploaded back to their own private FTP folder.
It is all in very embrionic form at the moment but I wanted to put it past you guys to see if there was any interest in this kind of thing or whether you had any suggestions. I love this forum and feel comfortable here. It has helped me tech all my gear and keep me afloat.
Obviously it is never going to replace the experience of attending a session personally but I think it would work particularly well for musios who mix "in the box" and would like some analogue summing and colouring to help their music along without the expense of hiring a studio per se.
I will charge for my time however long it takes to complete a task and some extra for hosting the file transfer services. But I want to point out that this could be very cost effective especially if all you want to do is put your "virtual" mix through a console etc. This could potentially cost as little as $100. You can get as detailed as if you were hiring any professional studio - eq, compression, reverb etc. It can be as deep as you like.
http://www.tardis-studio.com
I have taken a lot of pride over the years in helping people achieve their dream sounds and will take this attitude into this new venture. Testimonials and customer satisfaction are of utmost importance in this game.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

Hi,

 I would say that running stems would be both quick for you, and best bang for buck for clients. You enter into a greyish area as far as compression is concerned, unless attended imho. Or else, you will have muchos two-ing and fro-ing. Especially with inexperienced folk who have little clue about what is gonna happen in mastering. You could easily run two or  more different mix or drumbus comps at the same time giving two or more options at the same time. Also, with your fabulous desk, even flat they will hear a difference. I would also be running mixes through a choice of your fab tube pres with suitable attenuation, They will definitely here the difference then, ill warrant . . .


  great idea, but why not incorporate mastering as well, kind of a one stop shop . . .


    Best of luck,


      ANdyP


ps awesome setup btw . . . .

Hi,


  also, running stems give the client the kudos that it is still *their* mix, and you are free from all of that argie-bargie . . .

I think this is a great idea and hopefully it can help out struggling studios with another route for revenue.
One way to avoid back and forth might be to suggest clients mix with the unprocessed signal in their DAW. For instance, to avoid clients coming back to ask for "a little less reverb" or "a little less compression" - send them a signal to mix with the unprocessed until they get the sound they want. 

Thanks guys good points

  great idea, but why not incorporate mastering as well, kind of a one stop shop . . .

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I have never really looked into mastering - I was always considered it another discipline but it might be worth a look at.

One way to avoid back and forth might be to suggest clients mix with the unprocessed signal in their DAW. For instance, to avoid clients coming back to ask for "a little less reverb" or "a little less compression" - send them a signal to mix with the unprocessed until they get the sound they want. 

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Great idea - kinda parallel compression.

  also, running stems give the client the kudos that it is still *their* mix, and you are free from all of that argie-bargie . . .

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I hear you brother.

Regarding compression - I would not mind giving clients say 3 different variations. As long as they can give some details - fast release/slow attack. As you will see I have a lot of vari mu compressors and they are kinda one trick poneys.
Another idea would be if they have the PLUGIN I could copy the settings onto the real thing.

Any ideas how I could advertise this service. How can I get it out there to the IN THE BOX musos?? Most of my clients over the years have been bands who still need the REAL studio experience. Advertise in SOUND ON SOUND??

Rockin the vintage rotary studio phone...

It would be pretty cool to take a Neve plugin with all of your frequencies across every track, use that as a recall sheet/template and then have you put it through that mixer. I could see being interested in that...

The parallel thing might not work so well because of delay. Every time I plan on using that trick, I ping the original track with some 0db pink and line up the signals manually. I dont trust the timing compensation on my native system at all.

where did you get that 350 2 track?

    parallel idea would work, but youd have to send dry mix through same da-ad chain at unity

It would be pretty cool to take a Neve plugin with all of your frequencies across every track, use that as a recall sheet/template and then have you put it through that mixer. I could see being interested in that...

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yeh that would be cool but does anyone have that plugin? can anyone do a screen grab for me??

where did you get that 350 2 track?

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I am an Ampex nut. I have built a few machines over the years. Preamps are sourced and reconditioned as good pairs - then transports are put together with the best parts I can find. You need 50HZ capstan motors for UK. The technology is relatively simple to get your head around.

You could of course offer realtime service. unicast Audio Visual to your client: show your tweaking as video and take audio from AD and get realtime feedback from your customer

Here is business idea that I can't take further so might as  well share it:
Put digital controls into your vintage gear (or a robot to turn knobs and push buttons) and provide interface for clients to tweak themselves and directly hear the result. Charge by minute or hour or whatever and sell usage time on each apparatus. You could sell time on echo chamber if you have one (no robots or fancy digital controls needed!). Take advantage of current technology I think controlling analog gear with computers could bring extra money to the table.

tmuikku said:

Put digital controls into your vintage gear (or a robot to turn knobs and push buttons) and provide interface for clients to tweak themselves and directly hear the result. Charge by minute or hour or whatever and sell usage time on each apparatus. You could sell time on echo chamber if you have one (no robots or fancy digital controls needed!). Take advantage of current technology I think controlling analog gear with computers could bring extra money to the table.

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I would do a web interface, give them control of PT and on the receiving end, have someone manually change settings. The playback stream would be a technical hurtle...

I would do a web interface, give them control of PT and on the receiving end, have someone manually change settings. The playback stream would be a technical hurtle...

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Yes that is the general idea. Technology is not good enough to warrant investing in live streaming of playback as audio is being processed. It has to get a lot more detailed to convey what a Neve etc is actually doing to your files.

At this point there is an element of trust implied. Just like the online mastering services. Customer testimonials would be essential.