Cheap Foreign Recording Destinations

teamdresch

Anyone taken their business overseas?

I'm looking into the possibilities on offer abroad for tracking.
It seems to be possible for example, to get a studio with a huge live room and a vintage Neve in South Africa for a low, low price.
Obviously that's quite a distance to travel - anyone know of anywhere closer to home?
Eastern Europe perhaps?
North Africa?
The Isle of Man?

studiorat

How cheap do you want? How much did your business shell out on your last project?

Unless you are booking an Orchestra or spending a few weeks there by the time you get there pay for somewhere to stay, travel etc. You aren't going to be saving any money. I have some friends who regularly go to Bulgaria to record, it's nearly always a technical/staff nightmare, and that's in the biggest studio in the country.

Let me know the prices of these studios and your travel and food budget etc. And I'll match it with the same spec in Ireland, with staff who speaky the language etc.

teamdresch

Well, I'll be engineering myself.

And the place I was looking at in SA has a vintage Neve and an enormous live room for about €150 a day.
I'm not aware of anywhere like that in Ireland, unless you count Grouse Lodge 'A' (and we all know how much that place costs).

This'll only suit a very specific type of project, obviously, and the cost of travel/food/accomodation is a factor.
No harm in having a little dig around though.

I'd be looking at someplace where I could get a very serious desk and very large live room(s).
This will be tracking only.

PaulBrewer

teamdresch wrote: »

vintage Neve

Of equal importance - Do they have a House Vintage Neve Repair Guy?
Even Air and Abbey Studio have constant Neve problems.

This is no reflection on the Neves themselves, but a 30 to 40 year old Class A console WILL have regular issues.

Give us a link to this studio.

PaulBrewer

teamdresch wrote: »

I'd be looking at someplace where I could get a very serious desk and very large live room(s).
This will be tracking only.

How large a room are you thinking?

studiorat

You'd better get somewhere that you can run back and forth between the control room and studio so.

Grouse lodge can be had at quite a reasonable rate actually, particularly for an engineer booking it. What I'm saying is if you start to transport musicians and gear down there it's gonna get really expensive. I dunno a flight to SA? €700 or so?

I presume you are taking musicians with you considering you're looking for such a large desk and room.

What sort of state is the Neve in? Will you be visiting the studio before you decide to book and pay a deposit?

frobisher

Don't mind the nay sayers! I can't imagine that the studio business is like many others and that foreign bargains can be found. I'm sure you're aware of the obvious pitfalls (and they've been pointed out above too) but if it works for you then fair play. Just don't do what The Happy Monday's did in Barbados!

PaulBrewer

And it would be a nice holliers !

Get an SSL studio at least they'll probably work better, and that's not as we're SSL guys here, we're Neve's too!

studiorat

Neve overrated IMO.

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

Neve overrated IMO.

A good one is a wonderful thing - rather like a older Mercedes Benz, if she's kept she'll run as new for a long time, but if she isn't you may as well be driving a Trabant .. The word Neve on it doesn't necessarily indicate how it sounds ...

teamdresch

studiorat wrote: »

Grouse lodge can be had at quite a reasonable rate actually, particularly for an engineer booking it.

I've found them pretty unmoveable on rates.
Perhaps it depends on who you are.
750 for their B room is not what I'd call a reasonable rate.

Anyway, obviously maintenance would be my primary concern, and obviously accomodation/instruments/flights are gonna be a factor.
All this I know.

Anyway, most likely the bottom line won't justify it, but for some projects if the difference in cost between home and abroad is small then it might be a lot of fun!

studiorat

The called me and offered me a good deal! €750 is quite a reasonable price considering the overheads involved with running a place like that. I've said it before studio rates have not moved in nearly 20 years.

Tis true regarding the neve maintenance etc, good for drums, not overheads, heavy guitars etc.
I prefer the ISA or 9098 or the G-Series mic amps for more acoustic stuff. I my experience of Neve I've found them to be not particularly "fast".

teamdresch

In terms of what other places have on offer in terms of room and gear, 750 is not good for their B room. It really is a tiny live room.
I guess if you factor in the accomodation and swimming pool it makes more sense, but I'd rather pay less for more without the slumber party.

Welease

Depending on how many musicians were involved and how long the project was going to take, it could definately work in some circumstances..

I spend two weeks in SA a couple of years ago, and it was unbelievably cheap.. 600 Euro per day price difference for a studio would go a hell of a long way in SA. To give you an example we paid about 100 Euro per night for the honeymoon suite in a 5 star hotel, a bottle of wine in the hotel was 5 euro, and eating out a top restaurants would cost about 30-50 euro..

frobisher

teamdresch wrote: »

In terms of what other places have on offer in terms of room and gear, 750 is not good for their B room. It really is a tiny live room.
I guess if you factor in the accomodation and swimming pool it makes more sense, but I'd rather pay less for more without the slumber party.

I'll take the slumber party if you're not using it.

teamdresch

Actually, I'd like to revise my previous statement.
The slumber party could be intriguing with the right kind of client.

eoin5

teamdresch wrote: »

Actually, I'd like to revise my previous statement.
The slumber party could be intriguing with the right kind of client.

<Obligitary Michael Jackson joke/>

PaulBrewer

teamdresch wrote: »

In terms of what other places have on offer in terms of room and gear, 750 is not good for their B room. It really is a tiny live room.
I guess if you factor in the accomodation and swimming pool it makes more sense, but I'd rather pay less for more without the slumber party.

750 is a shocking price to be looking for that! It's protools in a 2 car garage (or maybe Stable?) with a Neve....

PaulBrewer

Welease wrote: »

Depending on how many musicians were involved and how long the project was going to take, it could definately work in some circumstances..

I spend two weeks in SA a couple of years ago, and it was unbelievably cheap.. 600 Euro per day price difference for a studio would go a hell of a long way in SA. To give you an example we paid about 100 Euro per night for the honeymoon suite in a 5 star hotel, a bottle of wine in the hotel was 5 euro, and eating out a top restaurants would cost about 30-50 euro..

Get Married AND make a Hit! Class ...

johnnylakes

Have you considered hiring a mobile setup and maybe rent a house in the countryside in Ireland. Lots of big houses in the West (Connemara etc) that are empty this time of year. No distractions...you could even practice your archery cheaper than Grouse Lodge
Just a thought like.......

Seziertisch

The house in the country idea might not be bad, but be sure to check out the wiring/earthing before going there. You could find yourself in horrible ground loop/noise territory very fast.

To quote the late, great Warren Zevon:

"There ain't much to country living,
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood..."

These also happen to be the same ingredients found in great music.

godfrey

Seziertisch wrote: »

The house in the country idea might not be bad, but be sure to check out the wiring/earthing before going there. You could find yourself in horrible ground loop/noise territory very fast.

you're more likely to suffer these issues from a poorly designed & connected temporary setup than from the mains supply itself.

ADO

Seziertisch

Dunno about that. A lack of proper earthing is the cause of a lot of the problems home recordists encounter.

There is a permanent ground loop in the house I live in in Dublin. This is present regardless of whether I am using a number of pieces of gear together or just a guitar, a cable and an amp plugged in at the wall.

I talked with a friend of mine living in the country about his home studio set up. He installed a proper earth (a two metre steel bar buried in his garden) and hasn't had any problems with noise.

A lot of houses don't have something like this (either city or country), and add in a nearby electric fence or milking machine, together with other fluctuations associated with the local grid possibly being overburdened at certain times of the day and you've got a right noisefest happening.

PaulBrewer

Godfrey would have some experience in that area .... i.e. Remote recording.

studiorat

I had the craic out foreign this year. The voltage was 220v on a 2 pin system. What I didn't know was it was 110v on each leg, balanced power, very quiet.
But it also made the chassis of all the gear live, much to the amusement of the woman of the house...

Arabic for electricity is Doh BTW.

godfrey

Seziertisch wrote: »

Dunno about that. A lack of proper earthing is the cause of a lot of the problems home recordists encounter.

There is a permanent ground loop in the house I live in in Dublin. This is present regardless of whether I am using a number of pieces of gear together or just a guitar, a cable and an amp plugged in at the wall.

I'm in trouble already and I'm only trying to help
however, it's largely my fault, being the pedantic git that I am. you see, when you said 'ground loop', I posted an answer relating to ground loops, assuming you knew what it means. your house, or any other, cannot have a ground loop. it may well have an inadequate ground, or even a dirty mains supply. a ground loop is caused by the ground of 2 or more pieces of equipment being connected by more than one route. an example would be where the chassis ground and the audio ground are common on 2 pieces of gear, and therefore the mains ground and the signal ground are both connected together. by the way, it's quite likely than in addition to having a poor ground, you may well be experiencing noise induced by lighting (flourescent lights, low voltage lights which have notoriously noisy electronic transformers) or some other device.

I talked with a friend of mine living in the country about his home studio set up. He installed a proper earth (a two metre steel bar buried in his garden) and hasn't had any problems with noise.

assuming you're implying he had problems before this earth spike, then he had an inadequate ground.

A lot of houses don't have something like this (either city or country), and add in a nearby electric fence or milking machine, together with other fluctuations associated with the local grid possibly being overburdened at certain times of the day and you've got a right noisefest happening.

an excellent example but nothing to do with grounding, but in the case of the electric fence, a dirty mains supply caused by induction, and in the case of the milking machine, causes by an underrated supply. this happens a lot because the local transformer was rated for a lower load when installed, but then the power needs later become higher.

don't take any of this personally - but - terminology exists to describe specific conditions, and many people aren't using the correct terms to describe their ideas or problems. one that really bugs me in the P.A. world is the use of the word 'sub' to describe what is actually a bass bin, but that's for another day! I'm just trying to be helpful. as can be seen above, there are 3 examples of power-related issues, but only one of them is in fact a ground loop.

happy recording all ~

g

PaulBrewer

Told ya!

Good clear technical post Godfrey.

studiorat

Often heard ground loop/ground noise used to describe hums etc. While it's not specifically correct terminology it's often used to describe a symptom rather than an actual problem, usually a bad earth, so it does have it's uses at some level. Same with sub really while it might not actually be a correct designation it leaves little confusion as to what people are actually talking about, more so than ground loop even.

But down with that sort of thing anyway:D

Seziertisch

I stand corrected ;-)