Is this the end of recording studios?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ธ.ค. 2024
- Recording studios have been going through some...things. Advancements in home studio equipment have made it easy for new music producers to get into the game, and major recording studio have had a hard time making it work in the new music business.
In this video essay, we deep dive into some of the factors that have put a lot of mid-sized commercial studios on the ropes, and what the future of music production looks like to me.
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#musicproduction #recordingstudio #producer
Over the years I have learned that when you study sound engineering, mixing, mastering, sound equipment, recording techniques etc. and do all that yourself - you are capable of reaching unmatched quality and personal signature. Relying on others at any stage of music production means that your music is being shaped according to someone else's standards. That may be absolutely fine in some contexts, but for me personally the point of making music is exploring my inner self. Which is why really I appreciate the modern state of music production technologies.
I totally get that! I love taking a song from start to finish, but there are lots of people who have zero interest in touching a DAW too and I'll gladly take their work on haha
I'm actually a studio designer for a living...I'm busy but I also do other types of acoustical consulting (beyond just pro rec studios). Atlantic (as an example), is now back to having their own studios. Great vid...I'm gonna sub.
Thank you! Glad you’re staying busy!
i went to MI and got fed into the LA studio world after graduating. Lasted a whole three months before i quit, seemed like i was expendable and undervalued, and so were the studios. Most clients came in to do videos for clout, narcissistic supply and posterity, or to party, while real artists did things at home. All the studios i worked at are now either out of business or use the space for podcasters and parties while their $1m+ worth of equipment just serves as a prop or backdrop.
Makes sense to me. It is a nice backdrop though!
When did you attend MI?
I run a commercial music studio I'm busier than I ever have been. People are more than willing to pay money and I highly recommend starting a studio right now.
Honestly my experience doesn't match up with this video.
As I'm booked around the clock months out with almost more work than i can handle all the time.
I'm also starting to expand and bring more engineers into the business.
I think what's happening is if you're not adapting to the current situation as a studio, you're going to be left behind.
What area are you in? And what genres do you work with? I’m not saying that nobody can run a studio anymore, more so that smaller ones or ones whose overhead goes out of control will struggle while the “main one” will do well. At least where I live I’ve seen us go from probably 15-20 good studio options down to maybe 7 over the past few years, and maybe 1-2 new ones have popped up (only counting big ones where a full band can record easily). Congrats on being fully booked, that’s not something a lot of people can say (if you need any remote stuff hit me up lol)
All of your sound examples if you're at checkmark are not live band type records. sounds like you mostly do midi hiphop type production, you can do that in a tiny closet of a room.
Share clients 😂😂😂
@@j.charleshiggins5503 exactly right, I specialize in vocal recording mixing and mastering. There's enough studios in Albuquerque that record bands. They get their stuff recorded. Then bring it to me to get finished at a better rate. I do quite a bit of song production from the ground up for my clients as well. I do a lot of single things like guitar recordings and localized instrument recordings. Also I wouldn't recommend doing it out of your house because I have people coming in day in and day out. It wouldn't feel very professional if it was out house. Also who would want that many people they don't know coming into their home.
THat's fantastic. I must say , in recent times, you sound like a rarity. I hope your run continues.
Thanks for your insight; I own a commercial recording studio in Los Angeles. Recently, I have seen a shift in my studio business. Less of the one-time clients who only want to record vocals to a two-track and then mix 3 songs in a 2-hour session. To a return to album-building projects. And bands that want to record live in the studio to make a *"Record"* - I am more than optimistic that this model will become the new future. It's like the 70's are here again. Where clients want to *NOT* record at home. They want to come out to a vibey-ass, old-school studio that has great tools and gear that they can't get at home or don't need to have at home all the time. It's a new revolution of Gez Z kids wanting to make records "Just like Grandpa made, back in the day" - I'm good with that. "Rock On" People!"
Glad to hear that!! Orlando is a lot different than LA if I had to guess, seems like it’s going the opposite but we also have a lot less full time original bands than LA. More cover groups etc
@@AdamSliger Yea, It's different here, for sure. I'm from NOLA, and LA is different. But I am enjoying making records again. I appreciate you. Keep up the great work.
Thanks, you too!!
I'm in Oz and not seeing any signs of that....yet. I hope that what you're saying becomes contageous. I started doing sessions in 72 and made a consistant living from it up until 10 years ago.
@@RodneyMcMinge I am still making my living making records. I'm not wealthy by any monetary standards. But I am rich AF because I have a job that I LOVE. I mean who else gets to listen to music all day long every day and get paid for it? I was doing a session today with a famous guitar player from the 80's and he is still killing it on guitar. The tone I got with just two microphones was insane. And I thought to myself, "I am the luckiest MF on the planet right now." Everybody should love their job this much. There would be no wars or sick people. We would have world peace! - I know - Too far, right? Well, it's still cool as F*ck! Happy Mixing, everybody! 🤘
I have been recording since 1972 and I still record at my home and as far as I can tell nothing has changed in the music recording industry or the home recording products. The only thing that has changed ,but were talking about 35 years ago already is that the home recording hobbiest doesnt have tape hiss to deal with. There has always been new styles of popular music, roughly about every decade. With todays popular music being mostly electronic or sample based , producing it has never been cheaper. Wether its recording a folk singer/acoustic guitar or electronic it all comes down to talent and creativity. If you have that and you stick to it you will make it. Cheers
Talent and creativity are what really counts for sure! Cheers!!
Yeah, the business evolves like any other industry. As one era ends, another begins. Id much rather be a producer today than in the past as the technological bar to entry is low and anyone can make a record. Everyone gets a “shot” at it now. 😊
@@Abe_Stewart_Music oh for sure, but at the same time it does really suck to have a brick and mortar studio and then close it because you're caught in the transition period lol.
This might be my new favorite video of yours! You're the perfect person to talk about this
Thank you!!!!
I saw the writing on the wall a while ago and now have a facility outside Nashville that's predominantly a rehearsal studio with recording services offered. I have four rehearsal rooms - Studio A through Studio D. Studio A doubles as a live room when recording. An smaller room adjacent to Studio A was repurposed as a control room.
That’s pretty sweet! I did a lot of rehearsals in my studio even though we didn’t advertise it much. Lots of tours start in Florida so the demand was pretty big.
You’ve touched on an interesting subject that I’ve pondered with a lot of my colleagues. I have been recording music professionally for 38 years. I am not a musician. I’m a professional engineer. I have owned for commercial recording studios. I currently own A commercial studio and I deal with acts from all levels. Famous people and not so famous people. I can tell you what I see is a lot of the problems and see if what you agree with and what you don’t.
1. Rent - This is the first problem. You should never rent. Always own the Real Estate. When you are a renter, your rent can go up for a lot of different reasons that are completely out of your control. When you do improvements to a space that money is thrown away. When you rent or lease a space if you leave, you have to return the property back in the condition. It was in when you rented it so you have to tear out all of the improvements. However, if the owner decides he likes your improvements and says that you can leave them. It now has become an asset for him and not for you. but you were the one that paid for it, so that money is gone. If you own the real estate, those improvements become an asset for you. Construction cost to build a studio or three times what it cost to build a normal house. When I built my current space, I could’ve paid cash and built three rental houses for what I put inside of my studio. So building the studio may not be the smartest thing from a business standpoint, but it was definitely a passion. When you own the building you get to call the shots. If it’s going to cost you $2000 a month to rent a space that $2000 a month makes much more sense to be captured and put in your own pocket instead of someone else’s. It’s going to cost you money to have a space whether you buy or rent so you may as well buy. If you were going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do internal construction, and add tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, why not save up several thousand dollars to use as a down payment and just buy the space? You’re going to have a monthly cost of either paying rent or paying a mortgage either way. So why not buy yourself the control of owning the Real Estate? I bought my current property in 2013 on an owner contract and I only have to work one day a month to cover all of my studio overhead and I own the building, all of the equipment is paid for, and so is the construction. Most people follow a passion to build their recording studio, but they leverage themselves far too heavily. Owning the real estate means you own the improvements, you also capture the equity you build up in the value of the property, and you capture the property as an asset that increases in value for you not for somebody else. I’ve seen so many people try to start Studios and they just do everything the wrong way because they are passionate about doing music. Don’t let your passion rule your common sense. Own the Real Estate.
2. Technology of Home Recording . I see technology for home recording as a both a blessing and a curse. It has made it so Musicians can practice their crafts and improve their playing as well as their recording abilities just like I used to do with cassette four tracks back in the 80s. However, one of the problems with this is that now everybody thinks that they are Producer and everybody thinks that they are a musician and everybody wants to be heard. So now because of services like distro kid and Tunecore, everybody has access to distribution so the Internet gets flooded with so much bad music that the good stuff has a hard time rising to the surface. Every piece of good music is swimming in a sea of crap or mediocrity. It used to be that the record labels were the gatekeepers of quality and the radio stations were the taste makers. Now it’s all changed and there are no gatekeepers. There’s so much bad music out there that the good stuff struggles to rise to the top. Just because everybody thinks that they can record it doesn’t mean everybody should.
3. The music industry has changed. It’s been flipped upside down from what the model used to be. It used to be a band would put out an album and then go out on tour to promote the album sales. Now that’s reversed. Artist will put out an album to promote that they’re going out on tour and hoping to have people show up at their live shows. Since the advent of music streaming and downloading, nobody is willing to spend money on Music anymore. It’s sort of like porn. Does anybody pay for porn? Not that I know of. Most people also don’t pay for music so this hurts the revenue streams of the artist and the record labels which translates into smaller and vanishing budgets for the commercial recording studios, and if the studios are leveraged, and have two large of staff, or have too high of overhead then they are just trying to survive from one simple project to the next.
Thanks for the insightful comment! Personally rent and overhead was our biggest problem. Our rent was a bargain at $1440 considering the size of the space, and they always wanted to raise it to around $1700. We were lucky because the build was basically done by a different studio before we opened, so all we had to do was floors, paint, and acoustic treatment on the walls.
The digital stuff is indeed a blessing and a curse, but I found it to be more of a curse with regards to quality of music. Lots of our projects became recording just drums or vocals for a project that was done at home otherwise. It was a little frustrating to record amazing drums for a few days just for the band’s “producer” member lay down mediocre DI guitar and bass over it, mix it themselves poorly etc.
The industry is just a mess at this point imo. Like just about any industry the money has found a way to funnel itself towards the corporations, with a handful of “petite bourgeoise” who get paid enough to not ask questions. Such is life I suppose.
Number 2...is a real number 2. This aspect has been getting up my nose for a long time now. Too much access to toys can be very detrimental.
I think it's a net loss honestly - it's great for artists to have the flexibility to create music wherever they want without having to be tied to one location, but there's also a lot to be said for being locked in a studio for 8-10 hours a day for a week to several months just working and working on the record you want to put out. It's really one of those "streaming killed everything good" type situations.
I think that’s fair! Lots of great music being made but it also does feel pretty disposable in a way.
There’s always been disposable music, only it’s now on the surface and is more ubiquitous. In the past, popular music - the music above the surface was way more eclectic - now one has to dive deep to find it, it’s still there and as eclectic as ever in fact there’s something for everyone, you just have to dig. The biggest problem with studios is the cost factor because there is NO RECORD COMPANY SUPPORT FOR NEW ARTISTS!!!! You have to have at least a hundred thousand fans on social media before a company will even look at a new artist. The idea of building an artist - and paying for studio time - has long since gone the way of the Dodo:(
Yes. One of the losses most keenly felt is bands recording originals that are well-rehearsed before recording sessions.
Very refreshing takes. Feelsbadman but also good things can still happen, great video
Thanks man and yes indeed does feelsbad
Its time spotify starts sharing out the money fairly, which they don't at all. That is the elephant in the room. There needs to be a connection between the money paid by a listener and the music he listens too. If, lets say a lover for a beautiful produced jazzy singer songwriter listen to the one album 10 times a month, the artist should be paid 1 € for each play (minus a small fee for spotify). My teenager son listens for his monthly paid 10 € a 1000 times to a hip hop act, per play that hip hop act should earn 10/1000 € (minus a small fee for the service). As of now the whole system is in favour of music for English speaking teenagers ... If the money paid by a user would be connected to the music he listens to the whole system would be fantastic. You could pay your rent with a 1000 monthly listeners. You wouldn't end up shortening your songs, because of playlist compability. The whole trickle down economy would work again. In the long picture I cannot see a system work that puts all those artists in a position of modern slavery.
Nothing to disagree with here!!
there is no product you can sell for 1/4000th of a cent and expect to turn a profit
Where i'm from, due to conversion rates and the economy being SORT more okay back in the EU ( Take that with a CHUNK of salt ), i like the fact that home studios can churn a profit, if the approach is correct. There's a studio in a city south of me, that is still active today, and, as far as i know, pretty much started like any one of us watching is grinding out to do. Getting some starting stuff, watching a lot of "How to" videos, maybe getting some courses on Udemy or whatever, and just going to town with it. He inspired me to take on a similar road.
that's awesome!
I am so happy to have my bedroom studio available 24-7, having invested less than $10,000. I could spend the next twenty years producing the hundreds of songs I've written up to now, to say nothing about the new songs I'm writing every month.
Pulling up to a big room studio with my band would certainly make a wonderful video, but my norm revolves around constantly accessing my own studio.
Same, I love living at my studio. But there will always be artists who don’t want to self-produce!
There are at least two that I think are important to survive: Welcome to 1979 (Nashville) and The Lullabye Factory (Amsterdam)
Keep analog alive (and tape)! ✊
The infamous SM7b isn't $500. 😉
Now you can spend the price it would cost to record an album at the studio on your own home studio and pop on a free TH-cam tutorial.
For sure!
Started with teac 144 1980
Pro tools 1998. Video 4 yr later.
We owned 60x30 x16 ft high.
When they come in see what they know its for real. Gets things done. See why few make it. Yeah it had stairs 🙉
That’s wild!
Most recording studio's I know are doing just fine. Some are even hard to book because they are so busy..
What area are you in? I’m in Florida and I would say my experience has been the opposite
I'm in the Netherlands, Utrecht. So indeed, could be quite different situation from where you are@@AdamSliger
Glad to hear they’re doing well there!! Maybe I’ll come visit haha
@@AdamSligerI would recommend leaving Florida if you're trying to make a living recording music. It's a cultural dead zone. I know a guy who moved their studio from Jacksonville to Chicago and is now doing very well.
@@joeMW284trust me, I'd move if I could lol. I'm doing fine with recording from home and doing sync, so it's not dire by any means, but if i wanted to have a commercial space again it wouldn't be here.
Great clip. I must confess to laughing a lot at the glut of recent vids talking about speeding up the flow, or recording process. This makes me ask myself, honestly how full are these guys books ? I think we all know the answer to that.
If they’re that full and need to rush, they’re probably undercharging (which I understand due to all the factors in the vid lol)
I think better home studios and with nice analog summing box and a enough cheper decent 73 channel strips are great. Build a live room in a garage and your set
Yeah nothing wrong with a home studio at all! I’m working out of one right now!
the answer is .... yes ... it's only just begun
record companies kept big recording studios afloat , artists never paid for the recording, but paid back the label, so if the label takes away growing artists this days and just sign TH-cam sensations then the whole flow of getting artists into the studio multiple times to grow them has dropped to one album then moving onto the next trend, and record producers in this new fast-food style of music labels do the bulk of pre recording work in their home studios all digitally based,
Yeah, artist development isn’t what it used to be. There will be more and more one hit wonders as this continues.
Great video. So relatable. Sad the good days are behind us. Being in a space with musicians and collaborating.
unless you are playing live gigs you can forget it, only commercial artists at the top can make money selling their tracks, A I will also have a massive impact on music production.
Yeah, gigging is a huge part of surviving as an up and coming artist!
This is more of a bookmark until I get a chance to actually watch the vid, but as somebody who just quit everything to get into music full time (I'm 35, so this is the irresponsible decision of an adult and not a teenager) it's actually fucking daunting.
I'm moderately competent at engineering my own stuff, and some stuff for others, I'd like to get some practice in, doing scut work for a local studio, and maybe getting some off peak board time if literally nobody is using it after hours, and literally couldn't get a single e-mail back or call returned except from one studio, and they want me to pay *them* an hourly rate for the chance.
This isn't even a "They heard my shit and didn't like it", I didn't even get that far with it. How the hell is anybody supposed to work in this field anymore if nobody is taking apprentices or doing internships?
And away from the engineering side, and more from the artistic/producer side,
The recording studio as a concept isn't even remotely dead. My production partner, my music friends, all of us would generally love to work in an actual studio. The pricing is fucking ridiculous and prohibitive unless you're making like $70k+ a year.
120$/hr is literally my entire rent for a month in 8 hours. I get that people need to eat and we actually wanna make money off of this shit, but what kind of inane thought process is "I'd rather charge $120/hr and maybe get one client a month) vs "I'd rather charge $20/hr, and actually work".
Maybe there are genuinely some areas where there is no interest, but I can assure you it's alive and well in the midwest. But until studios accept that 70% (asspull number) of their potential clients are significantly under the income level that studio managers think they are, there's gonna be a lot of randomly open and shut studios.
I understand that you can go to college/university and learn audio engineering and music production, and while I couldn't fathom a guess what the ratio is between "Formal Education" based engineers vs Self Taught, but the reality is, music production, engineering, .etc can all be learned from TH-cam and other resources. The information on how to do these things is already out there, and every year new crops of artists and engineers further refine their tutorials, and explanations of such. The era of recording studios is not over, but the era of running one and getting paid like a lawyer / doctor is. Once those in the field start to accept that they're probably only gonna make 20-30$/hr, and maybe $40 on the high end, and the ones who refuse to accept that die out, you'll see a whole new crop of Nu-Studios pop up, that while maybe not as nice or fancy as NRG studios or something, will be very efficiently run, and very affordable for modern new artists.
I think you raise some good points. The rates thing is tricky. Charging less per hour to work more doesn’t always work out when overhead is only going up. If you take the average commercial lease’s monthly rate and divide it by the number of hours someone can reasonably work in a month, you’ll realize that $20/hr just isn’t gonna cut it. You’ve got studio rent, internet, power, insurance etc to cover PLUS all of the personal bills. If you can go get paid $18/hr to go work somewhere else and pay $0 in overhead, you’re just gonna do that.
@@AdamSliger why would you lease or rent space for something like that? and 20$/hr * 24hrs is about $3,360 a week pre-tax. I admit I have never ran my own studio, but it feels like to me if your overhead is over $6,000 a month you're probably doing something really wrong.
(I am operating under the idea of a space with two people able to handle running it for the space of about 12hr shifts. And considering I just quit a job where I was already working 12hr shifts every day, that's nowhere near as daunting to me as it is to maybe others.)
1: I think you’re overestimating demand. There’s no way to stay booked for 24 hours every single day. The napkin math I’m doing is starting with $1500/mo rent which if you divide that up by 40 hours a week you’re looking at close to $10 a working hour just for rent. Then all the other bills on top of that would just totally eat your margin.
If you’re not renting then are you imagining this being a purchased building instead? Or are you running it out of a home?
@@AdamSliger My reply seems to have vanished.
Project studios have been a thing for a long time. 1/4" 8-tracks didn't kill the recording studio. Adats and Mackies didn't kill the recording studio. The ability to run a DAW on an average home computer? That killed the recording studio.
It certainly didn’t help 😂
that and "bedroom pop" and "tame impala recorded everything with one microphone" bs like that. basically gave us pretty lukewarm wallpaper music for the past 10 years
@@ab8817 i do love me some bedroom pop though
@@AdamSliger yeah nothing against the genre itself, but its easily replicated and over-abundant. about 10% of the genre is actually good.
Yep…Apple and the internet tech have changed the whole Music industry not many people can make money..it has to start and be sustained by the individuals desire to keep working and loving the craft of making music.. I am taking online production classes at Berklee college of music after being forced out of my 28 year day job during Covid.. I am on a very fixed income. But I have never been more content and happy, I now have the time to work on my music. So I am broke , old but happy.
Glad you’re enjoying your new path!!
I went into a studio to record my last album: was treated like shit by the producer and it cost me thousands of dollars and got me a bland, clinical sound
Ugh I’m sorry you had to deal with that. The worst
Mullet. Check! Hawaiian shirt. Check! Hipster stash? Check! 😂✌🏽
Do I get a prize? 😂
i'm 18 and just use my laptop and i go straight to spotify, i dont need no boomer studio LOL.
Honestly true lmao
Another factor to throw in is Atmos. Ghats gonna put a lot of engineers out of work.
What makes you think that? I haven’t put much time into Atmos stuff.
I think Atmos will be laughed at a few years from now. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but I think it total overkill outside of an art installations or action/scifi movies.@@AdamSliger
you have to think about how many ppl outside of engineers that even have any headphones that would even work with that and 99% of ppl dont have 6 speakers to listen to the music atomos has only ever been relevant in movies tbh @@muchomacho79
Like quad vinyl and super audio cd, most consumers will not invest in an atmos listening environment at home and ultimately will be considered a fad.
I'm definitely staying stereo.
None of the old business models need survive, and they wont. The future is diy, sure it means that there will be a bunch of crap but there will be alot more amazing music that will sound more creative than the hit factory bullshit that is the standard now. Even with AI all it does is raise the standard of what good quality is. People adapt, they have to.
facts
Here in Nashville (music city) down on music row in 2013 they tore down a lot of music row and built housing for trust fund college kids that go to Belmont.
From 2010-2013 I got to live in a house that Dolly Parton lived in when she was younger. Her and Porter Wagner lived there when they were together. He built a studio right next door it was called Fireside Studios.
I hated seeing all that history go. And not for the good either. Music row was so safe because all the labels were down there. You could see Taylor Swift walking her dogs walking and hanging out with Hayley Williams. I literally did many times.
So sad.
I was in Nashville a few weeks ago, first time since probably 2018 and the vibe was so different. Honestly wouldn't even guess it's a music city if you didn't seek it out.
Don’t they will bounce back since mot stuff done at home is absolutely rubbish.
I hope you’re right! A lot of great spots in my area are gone for good though
I believe, and hope so. When the barrier to entry is low, so it the quality of product that comes from it.
I still feel the music industry is going to shit because the listeners care more about showmanship than music.
That is how Bhad Bhabhie was able to sell. And actual good musicians are now only mostly found on TH-cam where there are a more mature audience (relatively, at least)
the industry is dying. it's over and it's never coming back.
The industry is not dying 🤣 it’s just changing. You don’t need a studio any more. Its like a library or the yellow pages. People can do it themselves now. Yes the studio might be dying, but not “the industry”.
Dude this video is 15-20 years late.. haha
😂😂
You might be better off inventing plugins, instruments, and tools for musicians instead of recording them.
I’m guessing sweetwater makes more than every studio combined sooooo I’d say yes haha
@@AdamSliger A lot of musician TH-camrs are going that route. Who got the money during the gold rush? The guys digging for gold? NO! it was the mining tool companies!
Facts lol I actually think I used that example in my Rick Rubin video
Nicely said. A real straight to the throat dose of reality.. it is a sad state of affairs but you
forgot to add in the 3 minutes of American Idol/the voice TV reality shows where even great artist and singers get exposed on a national level but for 98.5% of them Fades into obscurity after there 5 min of fame and seeing all those good artist on those shows has even watered down and diminished people’s appreciation for music artist in general… it like oh! You can sing and play the piano …so what, I would rather go home check my social media likes, watch free internet porn, masterbate , stream a Netflix show, smoke a joint then Fall asleep.. there are so many other options for young folks now to amuse themselves and for free or for very little money.
Good riddance to the studios. Why the hell should I have to pay thousands of dollars to record in a soundproof space. it's ridiculous that they charge those exorbitant prices just for a soundproof space when soundproofing should be in every house and apartment as part of the construction process. I'm trying to break into the music industry, not go deeper into debt. I don't need big commercial recording studios trying to take advantage of me and fleecing me out of the pittance that I have. And fuck the A-list artist that get to record at studios whenever they want, driving up the prices even more and making it even more expensive to record at those studios because they have millions of dollars to throw all around that smaller artists obviously don't have. They will never understand the struggles of an Indie artist because most A-list artists get to where they are by stepping on the small people.
I get you. Having been in a big studio, a home studio, and just about everything between, and you really don’t *need* a commercial spot anymore. But it is nice. I do wish that there was stability in the industry to allow for more midsized studios around the country, because I do think there are lots of artists who have no interest in producing themselves. In a perfect world it would be easier for everyone to make records in a space that suits their needs!