Originally Posted by: SuperhumanOk guys, this is a fairly unique thread... I need some genuine info and am not trying to take the piss or be smug...

I'm a property developer by day and a musician by night, I have just come across a building that I think would make an excellent pro-recording studio and am considering going for it. I've always wanted to own a studio (not necessarily be an engineer), I've been a musician for close to 15 years so this is not a pie in the sky idea.

I need to know from any engineers out there the rough cost of gear for a good quality studio (not a €1M Bob Rock setup). I can probably afford about €100K (close to $130K US) for gear and about another €100 €150K for the structural work (three phase power, soundprofing, structural work etc).

Also, if you know what you're talking about, what gear would expect/like to see in a good quality studio. There are not too many high end studios in my city so I don't have to comete with gargantuan budgets.

The building is 120 sq.m with four equal sized rooms, 11ft ceilings (that's very high), detached and block built on suspended timber floors. I take it that I may have to do work on the floors? The really cool thing is that this building looks like an old church (complete with statue of Mary on the outside wall), it was owned by a religious order and untill now has ben used as a community center. I'm thinking of having 1 control room, 1 room dedicated to drums and another for guitars and bass, then the last room could be for recreation and also have a vocal booth. Would a god studio need anything else? BTW I'm not to proud to buy used gear (once it has been checked by a professional).

If anyone has any ideas I would value your feedback.

Thanks

PS I'm going to post another thread asking for a list of dream gear for a pro studio

(note off the bat: i'm trying to list everything that comes to mind off the top of my head for a professional studio....you can take away and accomidate for your budget)


for a professional business studio, you need to think of a few things....first off: offices. you need a reception area, an area for the business manager's office, you need a room for the musicians to beable to hang out and take a break from recording(a rec room/game room/green room type area), a live room, an iso booth, and a drum room.

for gear: you're gonna wanna have nice gear and lots of lights because musicians like shiney things...ask anyone here, they all love joe satriani's chrome guitar. so, with that in mine, i'd suggest you look at getting a nice console(maybe pick up a used SSL G series?), a pro-tools HD system, and a mac G5 and the black diamond plug-ins package. you're gonna want a nice pre-amp for your microphones, need an amp for your cue signal, probably have a patch board to route all your offboard effects and processors, on the note of processors, i like the 1176 compressor/limiter(it gets 44:1 ratio....brick wall limiting and sounds clean), also like the manley massive passive compressor too, for delays/sound mod/weird ****ing noises you gotta go with an eventide processor because they're the ****, other reverbs and such are up to your own discretion(as is everything else here....i'm just going over the top and giving you a big list of things to think about and look into). microphones! you need a way to capture every sound 5 different ways, right? so you'll need condensors, vintage microphones, microphones in cardioid, bipolar, omni, and hypercardioid directions, need dynamic mics to get right up on the instruments and get in their faces, need ribbon mics to capture things in the warm delicate way that only a ribbon microphone can, and of course, you'll need a way to make sure all these mics stand up properly, connect properly, and maybe a DI box or three and a reamp box or three and turnarounds. reamping is great because you can capture a performance live and then send that same performance back out to the amplifier anytime you want as many times as you want into as many amps as you want after that and not get some pissy guitarist whining about playing that same lick for the 10,0000th time.


but of course these are just suggestions, observations and opinions, the final decisions are yours....but this the stuff i think about when i think of professional studios.



oh yeah, it might not hurt to have a 24 track tape machine if you can find one....even though tape is becoming extinct, it is still a very popular format with artists and can even be a commercial draw without even using it!


but that's just stuff off the top of my head....i tend to think big.