Record Plant Closing - My Commentary on Big Studios Closing

A great engineer and a great sounding room, is what is missing from most home recordings. When music became "virtual" it became virtually worthle$$. This rock era Boomer, feels bad for today's young musicians. Rock on!

While the whole bedroom producing thing IS cool and I agree, the multiple rooms going at one time is such a great thing for music creativity. Sucks these places have to close 😢

I was a professional photographer for over 25 years... The analogy between music and photography is exactly the same... back in the day, we used to shoot film and the number of frames per roll was limited - usually 36 frames for 35mm or 12 frames for medium format ... you HAD to make a decision before pressing the shutter and every frame had to count ... the difference between a professional and an amateur was that a professional would nail it 99% of the time with every frame and an amateur would nail it 1% so there was always a respect and even a mystique to shooting film ... now everyone has a camera in their phone and images are practically worthless ... substitute music for photographs and you have the same scenario ... the digital medium may have some great benefits but it has killed the golden goose.

I don’t think that big studios are done. They may be limited now but I don’t think they will ever truly be phased out.

I’ve worked in studios from NYC to Oahu and they’re great, but those gigantic speakers always seemed somewhat deceptive to me. Yeah, they sound amazing but when is anyone ever going to hear their music or anyone else’s on speakers that size? Loved the experience though, really makes you feel like a pro when the engineer has your song cued up on the Neve VR60 with Flying Faders, while the Studer 2 inch plays back this really warm and at the same time crisp sound. Great times. I was on somebody else’s dime so it was stress free. Even met a few superstars along the way. My favorite was Les Paul. What a sweet and humble man. Such an honor to converse with him. Felt like I was dreaming. Haha That’s just how it goes. The maintenance on those giant Neve and SSL boards can be very costly and the older they get, like all machinery, the more maintenance they need. I feel that if you have experienced people working in the digital realm, you can get excruciatingly close to the sound those boards offered up in half the time. No one’s going to pay a $275 per hour A-Room fee, when they can get a really solid sound at home, or when they can pay someone $50/hr in the box and get something that still sounds fantastic. That’s just not gonna fly in the current economic climate.

Also... people don’t buy records anymore... there is not “music industry” anymore...

Thanks for that! Times keep changing, makes me wish I took more pictures...

I don’t understand why they don’t try looking for the young talent

There will still be big studios for acts that can afford it. But there is definitely something magical about being surrounded by lots of gear, people who know what they’re doing… smaller budgets means smaller bands are going to smaller studios. Sometimes it sounds great, other times it sounds small because these bands/producers don’t know what they’re doing. Big studios will be where you can get those big sounds.

Love your takes on audio...i'm learning a lot. Hopefully this channel grows in to a Podcast.

It’s always been challenging for a large studio to operate in the black. Today without a real ”recorded music industry" selling music instead of renting via streaming services, it has become impossible.

Welcome to the modern world. Recording studios, are going to be scaled back substantially moving forward... just like car manufacturing jobs, and many other careers, that can be replaced by information technology. There are experimental music venues, which have no PA, the audience only has headphones for listening to performances. Just a matter of time before the concert speaker industry has to scale back or go extinct. Electro-Voice and QSC don't even make dual 10 or dual 12 line array systems anymore. The present younger generation, listens to audio through earpieces, tablets, and smartphones, so they are comfortable hearing crappy audio. Unfortunately there is, little to no need for, high quality recording studios, when listeners don't care about fidelity.

Sad to hear

Blame capitalism. Executives and shareholders are to blame. The infinite growth model. That isn’t how art works.

Sad evolution of our industry

I own a commercial studio (not in my home, but in a commercial,space). While it is sad places like Record Plant, and Power Station are closing, there are people like me that never have chased the big budget record company projects, but thrive anyway. I do a fair amount of national acts for music, but I also built. Y room for doing video, cd duplication (yes I still manufacture a couple thousand per month!), and performance production rehearsals. While the old school model is dead, the new world business model is “Own the real estate. Diversify your services, keep overhead low. Buy the best gear you can ALWAYS!” I realized several years ago that we’re moving towards doing more and more live drum tracking, guitar re amping, And vocal recording. It seems that most bands these days Have somebody in the band fencers themselves as a Producer or an engineer of some kind. What those people lack Is a large room to track live drums, Isolation. Rooms so that a band can play all at once, and a very expensive microphone locker. I sendout a lot of stems these days and my client Bass has become other engineers and producers, and not so much record companies or individual bands. So with my ability to do everything from videos documentaries in the style of music and have it all recorded with gear most people either can’t afford themselves, or would rather use the real version instead of plug-ins my studio is still booked seven days a week. But it Took a shift in thinking away from traditional recording, studio, business models. And it works great!

I got my start in the really big NY studios catering to the biggest stars of the time and I can’t say I’m sad to see those studios go. A lot of my favorite artists did their best work in small to medium studios, and when they “graduated” to the top flight studios the results sucked. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of bedroom productions either unless it’s the sort of music that doesn’t need an acoustic space bigger than a vocal booth. I’m a band guy and feel the biggest mistake going on today is bands not tracking live, but you don’t need a huge room for that. So Right Track, Power Station, Record Plant - not gonna miss them.

People commented on Joe Santriani messing up during a song. I like that because he shows he plays live. Shame how AI destroyed true music. I recall hearing years ago that blues band would rehearse then record live in the studio. I wish it was that way today.

Nothing like being in a real studio it’s really expensive also the difference Simple and plain

I was just randomly thinking about this and it’d be super cool if they could turn it into a museum or something.