White Room Studios

PaulBrewer

A customer of mine is planning building a music complex in (possibly city centre) Dublin soon.

His idea is a quality recording studio and some rehearsal rooms.

We're also toying with the idea of some 'White Room' recording studios i.e acoustically treated rooms with no equipment - a control room plus a vocal/whatever booth.

The plan could be the base for your musical endeavours long term, say a years lease or short term, perhaps by the week.

Is that the sort of thing that would appeal to you Phunky Cats?

madtheory

It's a lovely idea. Particularly the white room thing, that's very clever. It'd be wonderful to have creative types in the same building, helping each other out. I'd be concerned about profitability...

Take a look at Strongroom London, their bespoke thing is similar.

woodsdenis

madtheory wrote: »

It's a lovely idea. Particularly the white room thing, that's very clever. It'd be wonderful to have creative types in the same building, helping each other out. I'd be concerned about profitability...

Take a look at Strongroom London, their bespoke thing is similar.

I have seen this work in London, Scandinavia and the States. If the fit out is
right it can certainly work. It can be a great business proposition for those who rent aswell as the different skills there will generate business for each other.

At its best it works like a co-operative, with everybody completely independent but having the choice to use other peoples services if they want.

At its worst you have people who feel that they are the next George Martin/Trevor Horn, JJP or whoever and bitch about how X is getting all the work and how they should be, and go around telling other peoples clients how bad Y's mixes are. Unfortunately in my time, Dublin was a begrudger's paradise. I only really saw how REAL producers and engineers worked when I went abroad.

There has to be a spirit of everyone working together. In my experience of the recording scene in Dublin in the 80/90s this was certainly not the case. The amount of backstabbing done by certain individuals was bordering on slander in some cases. Hopefully this has changed. The only hope for any
kind of industry here is cooperation.

That being said of course everyone on this board is a model of what we all should aspire to.:D

Sorry for OT rant.

Denis

PaulBrewer

madtheory wrote: »

It's a lovely idea. Particularly the white room thing, that's very clever. It'd be wonderful to have creative types in the same building, helping each other out. I'd be concerned about profitability...

Take a look at Strongroom London, their bespoke thing is similar.

I visited there last year - and Gearbox too.

Both places use that template.

PaulBrewer

Just to clarify - this is only an idea at this stage.

No figures etc. have even been thought about.

frobisher

PaulBrewer wrote: »

No figures etc. have even been thought about.

It's on the figures that it would sink or swim. Personally, I love the idea.

Seziertisch

woodsdenis wrote: »

I have seen this work in London, Scandinavia and the States. If the fit out is
right it can certainly work. It can be a great business proposition for those who rent aswell as the different skills there will generate business for each other.

At its best it works like a co-operative, with everybody completely independent but having the choice to use other peoples services if they want.

At its worst you have people who feel that they are the next George Martin/Trevor Horn, JJP or whoever and bitch about how X is getting all the work and how they should be, and go around telling other peoples clients how bad Y's mixes are. Unfortunately in my time, Dublin was a begrudger's paradise. I only really saw how REAL producers and engineers worked when I went abroad.

There has to be a spirit of everyone working together. In my experience of the recording scene in Dublin in the 80/90s this was certainly not the case. The amount of backstabbing done by certain individuals was bordering on slander in some cases. Hopefully this has changed. The only hope for any
kind of industry here is cooperation.

That being said of course everyone on this board is a model of what we all should aspire to.:D

Sorry for OT rant.

Denis

I never really listened to Irish bands when I was growing up; in hindsight my reason was that their records never sounded as good as ones being made in the UK and the US. What you said would go a long way to explaining why this was the case; the sound of people too busy undermining someone else and sitting on their own little laurels to push their own game.

old gregg

short term space like that would suit me for a week or two every now and again.

hell, a quiet space to write/record/chill for a few days right now and I'd take it.

PaulBrewer

That's a pretty positive response -

Denis' points were particularly interesting from the community point of view - skills get shared and the quality of everyone's output goes up.

What would guys expect to pay for such a service , I wonder?

What does 'regular' office space go for? Would it be on par with that?

studiorat

It's unfortunately easier said than done. The problem is mainly trying to fill all the rooms at the same time. Fitting them out is pretty expensive, but then trying to find say a video guy and whatever a mastering dude etc all at the same time is a real hassle. I'm nearly always on the look out for people to fill rooms, one moves in another moves out. It also makes the business much higher geared than a smaller shop if it takes more than a month to fill a room it can spell real trouble.

Rehearsals tick over OK but it's a very different thing having rehearsal rooms and white rooms. The bands treat the place very differently than someone who works there.

At the moment we have 4 regular businesses, 2 studios a song writing room and a audio repair guy and 3 bands renting rooms. Give me the businesses any day, bands only ever leave a mess and are just too ****ing noisy.

We do have a studio going cheap right now as it happens!!!

woodsdenis

After reading my own post I think I was a bit harsh.I of course didn't mean everyone. I have the greatest respect for maybe 3 of the engineers of that period, all of whom are still on top of their game now and whom I still work with. Sorry guys I didn't mean to include you in with the other 90%. They know who they are.:D

What I said still stands. The other 90% spent most of their time sniping about everyone else. It was really a toxic atmosphere at times.

I did see the Cherion model first hand in Sweden and Norway. These guys were amazing. Producers, Programmers , Engineers, Drummers, Guitarists and yes even Bass-players all contributing to the final effort. You may have an opinion on the music, thats not really the point, the egoless work environment was very creative. This is of course a completely structured production company scenario but the work environment would be similar.

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

It's unfortunately easier said than done.

As is anything worthwhile !

I'm just back from visiting a new build studio in Nenagh that was built nearly entirely by it's owner from designs by Munro Acoustics.

Chris, from Munro was over doing test measurements.

Sonically, both subjectively and in measurements, I think it's the best control I've every been in in Ireland.

Progress can be made - it just take the right people and circumstances for it to happen.

studiorat

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Progress can be made - it just take the right people and circumstances for it to happen.

and the money. Don't forget the money. Large amounts of...

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

and the money. Don't forget the money. Large amounts of...

Those are the circumstances I spoke of !

Of note too is the studio was entirely financed by recording and gigging. No loans.