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