Choosing a recording studio

p2p

Hi

Has anyone recorded in Salt Recording Studios ?
Anyone know if its any good.

Looking to record 2 straight up rock tunes
and one that'll need a bit of production on it
perhaps even some electronica - blips and bobs

Can anyone recommend it or is there better
out there?

Budget is circa €1200 for 2 days/3 songs.

gibson

Elektra in temple bar do some good offers, my badn recorded our demo there and people thought it sounded cool. Theyd probably be into doing some production aswell.

bombidol

creamy sonic studios in dublin are one of the best around give peter a mail at petersl@eircom.net we recorded there a while back and its excellent

Giblet

If you could get a regular loan of a drum pa or a splitter I would invest that money in the BR - 1180 Digital 10 track, it only has two input recording though (hence the need of a PA for multi mike recording)

Class, and quality recordings.

3 songs for that amount is a bit on the expensive side.

p2p

Thanks for the responses guys..

Do you have a sample of either elecktra
or creamy sonic studios?

Something your band(s) did maybe, mp3?

As regards the home recording
theres a couple of reasons why we cant
do it

a.) no real technical expertise - i have a computer degree no sound degree

b.) place to record it - music = noise to (angry) neighbours

c.) production skills - although we know (roughly) where we're going with the stuff it'd be nice to get another/professional opinion

gibson

Ye I have the demo we recorded in Elektra on our site.
www.the-licks.com

Smiler

My humble opinion. Not fact


Elextra- Completly crap.
Sun - Can be okay. Depends on the engineer
Pulse/Engine Room - Great but pricey

Salt - Don't know to much but the dude that runs it (Frank I think) has been in the music scene for years

Trackmix - Good quality & I believe they go that bit further (Mastering & stuff).
Jam Studios Kells - Okay quality & cheap but to far to travel

Advarce - Cheap & good quality. Talk to "Tailor Made Project". They just finished an album there & it sounds great.

Creamy Sonic. Believe that it's very good P.C setup. "Otranome" have recorded some stuff there so talk to them

I personaly for your first recording would go down the road of maybe recording with a P.C setup like in Creamy Sonic Or Advarce.

If not I would recomend Trackmix. I've heard LOADS of good stuff coming out of them recently

p2p

Hey smiler,

I agree with you on a lot of your points.

Contacted pusle - no price on their site but its E750 a day
+ E300 for in house engineer.

Bit pricey alright.

So it looks like its gonna be either salt or traxmix.

What kinda engineers have they got in traxmix do you know?
Would they be able to add a bit of electronica to one of our tracks, want to make it a bit more experimental ..

Thanks again

Smiler

Hi man

Afraid I don't know much about their setup in there.

I know their recording to an Alesis HD24 Hard Disk recorder and the have a tape machine I think as well.

Best thing you can do is put up a post in the 'open mic' section of www.gigsmartireland.com , and there will be a load of replies I would say.

Most of the tracks I heard from there were from bands involved with Gigsmart

I think Salt are kinda old school, but apparantly a lot of top Irish acts have recorded out there. But if you'll get electronica stuff?
.....I dunno

Hope it helps

Creamy Sonic

Here is the website for Creamy Sonic Studios. www.creamysonicstudios.com it is not complete but there are pictures and gear listings. Feel free to contact me with further questions or if you would like a quote on a project.

Peter
petersl@eircom.net

dead air

AFAIK, Elekra is a very basic studio. I know Sun (same building) is closed right now for renovation, but I don't know if Elekra is.

shabbyroad

garbage in garbage out
don't spend money hiring a studio - invest in some microphones, pre-amps and a basic multitrack. learn to demo your band by yourself.
no amount of production or "good sound" is going to help if the songs and basic playing aren't up to much.
I've had a number of demos/album tracks come to my studio from "name" studios (including some mentioned above) and frankly they were tosh.
Spending a grand on equipment so you can make a dozen demos of the same song over and over until you have the structure and parts figured out is better than a vanity demo.
If you've demo'd enough and truly believe you need a producer then find one. Don't waste time looking for a studio to produce : would you go to to a woodyard to get a craftsman ? Any good producer will either have or will have access to a good studio that will help them get onto "tape" (or HD...whatever) the sound you're working toward.
Put the horse before the cart : write the songs, demo them (on the cheap), demo them again, and again... then find a producer who can make what you sketch in the demo into a saleable item.

Hint : get the CD-Singles of some of the Franz Ferdinand material. They've put demos on the "b-side" and they were recorded using basic equipment. The songs (whether you like them or not) work. *then* they went into a "recording studio".

Mrs_Robinson

Elektras back open! Sun is still under renevations but is goin to be finished soon! Elektra aint bad for bands startin out and wanna get a basic demo done! i shud know im in there all the time!
Pulse is good but like every1 said, very pricey!
Apollo, top of TBMC is ****in savage! not to sure about the price
Salt is good! i heard the engineer is supposed to be good!

but like Shabby said, it doesnt matter how good the studio is, if the song, band and engineer (nothing personal to any1), if it sounds crap, its crap! find a good engineer and have a good song to record and u can do a great job with just a few mics and a small desk!