#990099 - 05/26/05 04:57 PM
The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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?
Bill Dooley
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#990101 - 05/29/05 04:21 AM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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CWHumphrey
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Registered: 05/31/01
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Loc: Los Angeles,CA,UNITED STATES
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Ok Bill, I'll play....
As you know I used to do the tech. thing for Larrabee on staff so many years ago. Then I hung up my soldering iron and got to the business of engineering full time. I don't step into too many studios these days, and most certainly not very many of the bigger places.
What does the future hold for the commercial studio? How will any commercial music studio stay afloat in this present climate? How will control rooms change (and I'm talking the big rooms) to stay competative?
Inguiring minds want to know.
-Carter
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#990102 - 05/31/05 12:04 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Carter,
The trend that I'm seeing is that, it's not that big rooms have fallen out of favor, paying big money for big rooms has fallen out of favor.
Many studios will be able to stay afloat by reducing their prices and survive by cutting expenses and re-structuring debt. In order to cut expenses, studios will not be able to provide the same level of service that they previously were known for. For instance, your starting salary at Larrabee is probably more than any chief technical engineer makes in L.A. right now with the exception of two that I know of. Most places are using freelance techs and it's not the $75/hour freelance scene that was around up until two to three years ago.
In 1991 when I started Brooklyn Recording Studio with Freddy DeMann, we saw the need for that studio as a way for client's be able to track and mix at a top of the line facility, but be able to save money for that, by doing the overdubbing work which was traditionally 60-70% of the total studio cost of a project and reducing that to 30%, without compromising the audio integrity.
It was a very effective concept for a relatively short time. From 1991-'93 overdub work brought in about $1,200/day and we were booked 300 days a year. By the middle of '93 the top rate I was able to get regularly was $700/day. However, we were always able to get more money for mixing even though we had a crappy automation system. With upgrades and did some console mods and were back up to $1,200/day because we became a mix studio. Further upgrades (adding 40 inputsto the 8078) increased our revenues above $1,800/day.
In my current mastering room I can tell you that 60% of what I get in is done entirely in project studios. About 40% is mixed in traditional professional control rooms.
At least part of every project is not done in a real recording studio.
That work is gone. We should all forget it ever existed.....I have.
Bill
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#990103 - 06/12/05 02:00 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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Edsel
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Will surround sound ever catch on?
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#990104 - 06/12/05 04:00 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Originally posted by Edsel:
Will surround sound ever catch on?
I'll read a little into your question. Do you mean, will surround sound for music (audio only) releases ever catch on?
In that case, my opinion is not until surround can either be made more portable (i.e; inexpensive surround headphones and portable players). Or until all network and cable television starts broadcasting in surround as federally mandated and more people upgrade their home systems. Having a stereo only fomat in a surround world will make stereo only releases vanish faster than mono did.
Just my opinion though...
Bill Dooley
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#990105 - 06/29/05 09:53 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Awaiting more questions.....
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#990106 - 07/09/05 01:42 AM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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fasttraxx
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bdbklyn,
How can a smaller comercial studio survive with this price gouging $15hr to free home studio, or should I say home computer mentality? Most bands around here don't want to spend money and seems to rather go to a buddy's home studio knowing the quality isn't as good, but are willing to settle for less becuase of cost. I charge $35-$60 depending on the service and I have two studio's. Studio A = Pro Tools HD, 2" Ampex, mic - pre's, etc... $55-$60hr.
Studio B = Digi 002, and less outboard gear and mics $35-$45hr. I mean man it's getting tough around this town.
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Bill
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#990107 - 07/09/05 01:52 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Just getting tough? You've been lucky.
Don't you know there's a revolution up in this mutha?
Seriously though, if you don't have the dough, $60/hour is just as expensive as $200/hour.
Also you have to figure, that at your rates, it could cost someone easity $6K to $10K for a ten song demo quality recording. At that price point they can get that amount financed at any music store (if their credit history is acceptable) and put their own studio in a spare bedroom or garage. You can't compete with free. You can compete on quality, if you can demonstrate it.
That task is becoming harder and harder to do as the mp3 generation is becoming your client base....
Hold tight.
Bill
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#990108 - 07/09/05 08:02 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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Matt.Hepworth
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Bill, do you feel that incorporating an analog multitrack recorder can be a niche? My studio is a project studio and my clients come in for me, rather than my gear normally, but with all the studios around being completely computer based, do clients care about analog enough to give me a leg up? Or would I be better off investing that money in preamps and mics, in your opinion?
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#990109 - 07/10/05 11:07 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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My opinion......NO!
Figure out what your maintenence budget is going to be. It's not going to be a new machine so it's going to be a little dodgy, unless you have a watchmaker on staff not to mmention the price of spare parts especially for the mechanical stuff.
When PT HD was introduced, I set up and attended three shootouts around the L.A. area primarily because the studio the I was running had such a large investment in Apogee AD 8000E's. We shot it out against eveything with live bands in several locations. It beat everything out there hands down with the 192 converters and no external word clock. You didn't even have to be in front of the speakers. You could hear the difference from the doorway. Analog was dismissed immediately. As I didn't do the alignments at two other studios and was never really sure of what I was hearing I did a third one at Extasy with everything calibrated exactly.
All the talk about analog this and analog that.
If you wanted to see me cry in the studio you should have been there on my first 24 track session in 1976 and been in the control room when the band came into hear playback. It was not what had just gone to tape. 24 Track 2" at 15 or 30 ips sounds like poop. Don't bother.
Now a 16 track 2" sounds terrific in my opinion as do 1/2" and 1/2" two tracks.
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#990110 - 07/26/05 08:08 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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qtc3
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I've been working towards building a studio and it occurs to me that something home studios cannot do is good location recording. Is the market for a good mobile recording system (truck based) better than the market for a small commercial studio? If it makes a difference, this would be in SE Michigan.
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#990111 - 07/27/05 01:09 AM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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I'm not sure the market would be better in your area. You'll have to do that research.
Personally there is nothing more fun, gratifying, nerve wracking, and frightening than recording live music shows. It's a complete rush.
I've done a substantial amount over the years, esecially while at Record Plant in the late'80's where we had two full blown remote recording trucks.
If you read Chris Stone's book Audio Recording For Profit: The Sound Of Money, he talks extensivley about satellite, mothership operations. The down side of remote recording is that at best you are only going to work a couple of days per week throughout the year. Although it is fun, it's hard to make a living only working a couple of days a week. Think about constructing your studio, instead of in the traditional way, make it portable. Keep all your gear in real road cases and do the wiring and interconnects with multipair cables and conectors.
It's no more expensive to do that than a traditional studio buld out.
Pick up a cheap used bakery type truck (the Record Plant trucks were 29' and 31' bobtails and too big to get close enough for certain venues) do a little sound insulation...(probably more than a little and I'm making this seem simpler than it really is, after all you'll need power interconnects, airconditioning etc)and you can do remote recordings and mix them at your studio.
I actually have a business plan to do this very thing...somewhere...
Create key liasons with local radio and TV stations, comedy clubs and music venues With most of the live broadcasts I mixed for MTV and Global Radio network I basically fed the broadcast truck a stero mix of what I was mixing.
Good Luck
Bill Dooley
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#990113 - 08/18/05 04:19 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Please ask again
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#990114 - 08/23/05 08:01 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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RaGe
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Is building and gearing up a "recording studio" still tax deductible? Think L.A lawyer hobby.
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#990115 - 08/24/05 11:17 AM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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My understanding is that it is tax deductible as long as long as you are producing or intending to produce income with the studio. At some point in time your deductions will be disallowed if there is not sufficient income produced against the deductions that you take.
It may be more beneficial to just take the deduction for the space as a home office.
Bill Dooley
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#990116 - 08/25/05 09:35 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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Jazzman
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Bill, if you were once incorporated, then lost the incorporation due to income to a studio, could you incorporate under the same name, or did you loose that forever under the same name?
Jazzman 
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#990117 - 08/29/05 12:46 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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bdbklyn
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Was the corporation a self proprietorship? How did you lose your corporation?
Bill
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#990118 - 08/29/05 10:00 PM
Re: The magic 8 ball awaits your questions......
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Steevo
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Originally posted by bdbklyn:
Was the corporation a self proprietorship? How did you lose your corporation?
Bill
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I still have it set up and ready to go right along with my DAW multitrack.
