Your studio: Do you make a living? Or is it strictly personal?

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bobschwenkler

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
483
Location
Olympia, WA
The world of DIY is getting bigger and bigger it seems. A lot of you have built some really amazing equipment.

So what do you do with it all? Are you making a living (or wanting to)? Or recording for personal/non-commercial reasons?
 
I make my living as a musician and writer who sometimes mixes & produces too.
Have done that since i was about 19, so 30 years now !

My studio is not a commercial "for rent" deal, it's where i write and record, sometimes with
artists and /or other writers.

I could do with another place to work as "home" is not always the perfect scenario but having said
that, lots of people really like the fact that they can work without "studio pressure" and seem more
relaxed in my place with a nice cup of tea :)    ( no red recording light syndrome )

Marty.
 
This is my studio:

www.metrosoundstudios.co.uk

its my own studio, but I get mates and such like come in to use the studio for a bit of rehearsing or if they wanna record.

But I think the term 'make a living' out of a studio (especially a local one in any town) is a thing of the past.

Any pennies I make invariably gets spent on more preamps for my 51x racks, or my next compressor build anyway.

Earlier this year, I bought two Soundtracs consoles. So its just an endless hole in which to pour money. Studios are simply the worst example of a 'business' model you could possibly find!

equipment is fucking expensive
the cost of building the studio in the first place (mine cost around £20,000)
the market is pathetic (bands simply don't want to go into studios to record like they used to... they only wanna track drums then do the rest in their bedrooms)
The rates that you can realistically charge out at (tops £180 a day in a local studio)

Simply mean that you would need bands in EVERY SINGLE DAY to justify it. Which is unbelievably hard work. Even £180 a day only grosses you less than £4000 a month. That's only an average salary in the uk.


My mate Win down at Black Wookie in Brighton said to me, that bands only wanna do singles nowadays... what's gone is the block week bookings to record a whole album. Those days are simply over for a lot of studios.

Sorry to be so negative, but its much better to build a studio for your own love (by firstly saving the money from a more reliable 'proper' career) and then pay outright for your studio. Then build on it over the years.

Metrosound has the following:

2 soundtracs consoles (an MR and an FM) which sound the bees nees and aren't a million miles short in sound of a neve or api in my opinion
2 racks of 51x modules (which i've built over the years with a bit of help from Jeff and Cemal) (16 CAPI modules - basically an entire CAPI front end - 26's, 28's, 312's, 312DI's)
Currently building an 1176 clone
I've managed to buy all the mics I need - U87, a pair of 103's, 57's, 58's 414xls matched pair, Audix d4, d6, beta7, beta91, se1a, se3a, km84, and i'm currently building a U49 clone - all which i've built up since finishing the studio in 2003
An i7 hackintosh with 32 gig of ram and an absolutely kick ass array of drives (SSD's for sample libraries and main system)
Amps, drums and all the rest of that shit. You name it really

Basically what i'm saying... is that i've spent a small fucking fortune on my studio over the years...

If I was running it as a business, I just don't see how anyone could make any decent money out of it nowadays.

Matt
 
I'm strictly personal. Music was always my passion but it was never allowed. At 33 y/o I finally found something I enjoy other than music. After endless day jobs, 5yrs in the Army, a lil tech school and a few years taking random classes, I'm in paramedic school and loving every crazy minute of it. Saving lives and chauffeuring junkies is great but music will always be my deepest passion. I'm looking forward to putting together as many of these kick-ass projects as I can. Thanks in advance, everyone, for any patience w my imminent newb-ness. :)
 
Mine was personal, then went commercial, supplementing my day job income till I just couldn't stands it no more now it's personal again. Though going commercial burned me out and now I write code which it prolly gonna drive me back to music someday.
 
At first it was for me, then because of certain gear lusts it became pro, then I'd had enough of that (And "that" is a very loaded word in this context) so I kissed the fun money goodbye and am back to using what's leftover for my personal jamming and waste of sectors. And with that am back to begging my wife for gear money again.  8)
 
I am former military and been playing guitar keys for ever (I am 50) so from the 70's I guess. :)
I just moved from a basement studio to a John Sayers design studio couple years ago. What a change acoustically.
Room within a room concept from the ground up. Been collecting stuff since 15 years and then started to built couple years ago
as I couldn't find what I liked. I have a part time job plus studio. I am pushing toward the studio work more and more.
So yes, the studio is a commercial one, recording various artist locally and from outside more and more in many style.

-marc
 

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