What would you do?

[mwagener]

Hey guys and gals, I have been thinking a lot about moving WireWorld into the guest house on my property, and could use your input on this. The original plan was to build a whole new studio in a new 50X80 building (lots of $$$), but lately I am thinking of making it more of a mixing room with small tracking facilities.

Keeping the current state of the music/studio business in mind, is a big studio with a big tracking room still something you would go for or would a smaller well equipped mixing room with small tracking facilities for vocals, gtrs, overdubs, but no drums be sufficient?

My dream would be to have a monster tracking room, with a bunch of iso rooms where we could track the whole band at the same time. Is that thinking along the wrong lines according to where the market is today? Does anybody care? Obviously it would be a major investment, even with all the gear I already have.

The trend seems to be to mix more and more ITB. The projects I am working on lately (like The Rasmus from Finland) have massive track counts (over 120 tracks a song sometimes), too much to bring them all up on a console, so ITB mixing is a must for those. The labels also want tons of stems and mix passes for games and videos, so the workflow is quite different from what it was before. There are a lot of last minute recalls and changes, which are possible on a console setup but take a lot longer than just pushing one button in the PC. I still use analog outboard gear, looped back into Nuendo, but I'm thinking of selling a bunch of it and just keep a few key pieces.

Keeping in mind that there is a big difference in investment, do you think it would be sufficient to have just a smaller facility? I know, a lot of it is personal choice, but what are your thoughts on it?

[Sui_City]

Michael,

Let's just say that one cannot argue with that approach.

times have and continue to change. nobody will know that better than you.

good luck which ever way you go

[gainreduction]

Keep your own room the size more than 50% of your work requires and hire for the rest of the gigs.

If you spend more than half of your time mixing and overdubbing single instruments and vocals maybe the smaller guest house solution is right.

Don't you have a nice selection of tracking rooms in Nashville you can hire for the occasions you need a big room ?

OTOH, the slut within you WANTS to build the bad-ass house.

Tough decision.

[Paul_G]

Originally Posted by mwagener

Hey guys and gals, I have been thinking a lot about moving WireWorld into the guest house on my property, and could use your input on this. The original plan was to build a whole new studio in a new 50X80 building (lots of $$$), but lately I am thinking of making it more of a mixing room with small tracking facilities.

Keeping the current state of the music/studio business in mind, is a big studio with a big tracking room still something you would go for or would a smaller well equipped mixing room with small tracking facilities for vocals, gtrs, overdubs, but no drums be sufficient?

My dream would be to have a monster tracking room, with a bunch of iso rooms where we could track the whole band at the same time. Is that thinking along the wrong lines according to where the market is today? Does anybody care? Obviously it would be a major investment, even with all the gear I already have.

The trend seems to be to mix more and more ITB. The projects I am working on lately (like The Rasmus from Finland) have massive track counts (over 120 tracks a song sometimes), too much to bring them all up on a console, so ITB mixing is a must for those. The labels also want tons of stems and mix passes for games and videos, so the workflow is quite different from what it was before. There are a lot of last minute recalls and changes, which are possible on a console setup but take a lot longer than just pushing one button in the PC. I still use analog outboard gear, looped back into Nuendo, but I'm thinking of selling a bunch of it and just keep a few key pieces.

Keeping in mind that there is a big difference in investment, do you think it would be sufficient to have just a smaller facility? I know, a lot of it is personal choice, but what are your thoughts on it?

Hi Michael,
I am personally having the same dilemna. It's a tough one! I am leaning towards keeping a quality mixing and basic tracking room at home and then using flightcased mobile outboard to record in really choice locations, halls, castles (in my dreams) etc. when needed. It really is hard to justify the expense of a big studio in the current market even though I am so romantically attached to having it all under one roof. I hope the times change back but I believe that to be naive.
Cheers
Paul

[David-Morpheus]

equipment-wise I would go ITB with hardware inserts and maybe analog summing. do the most of work ITB but use outboard for the key tracks. much easier and quicker to recall than a mixer. you can use all the automation and features of the DAW and the summing amp let's you do parallel stuff OTB.

would keep the mixing room at a size to accomodate the number of persons that usually attend the sessions. and I would build a variable tracking room with a couple of ISO rooms with large sliding doors so you can either use it as a ISO or extend the size of the main room with keeping the doors open.

[Kris]

If it was me I'd go big... My FAVORITE part of the recording process is in the tracking/creating/producing stage... and though I may be off base here, my impression is that might be your favorite as well.

[Dirty Halo]

Because you are, well YOU (and absolute respect to your talents), understanding your world of "Wireworld" may be the best path to the answer.

Can you tell us a sampling of your last 10 projects?

ie.

1. Full band: Needed tracking through mixing.
2. Band came tracked only wanted me to mix

And so on.

I think in doing that, we (more importantly you) would see what YOUR world is asking for.

I wish I could say, do what you want and YOU of all people deserve that much, but I think your question is realistic and pragmatic...

So, the answer is what is needed (and of course, if that answer is what you want to do)

Man, I hope that helps you. I would love to think I could help YOU of all people (I don't really feel qualified other than the logic and exercise above)

Good luck whatever the answer

-andrews

[MIKEHARRIS]

There are lots of tracking rooms available for those times when you need...save your money...construction is always overbudget.

External summing with insert points would utilize all your cool outboard...maybe a mix (pardon) of SSL & SPL Mixdream

[reflexon]

Is there room on the property to expand the guest house? Might be a lot cheaper to do that than new construction. It would also be a lot less of a headache in terms of permits assuming the guest house is in good shape.. Maybe you could start with a mix facility w/ a few iso rooms and add a large tracking room on when you are ready or can't stand it any more. Or maybe just add it on from the start.

Just a thought.

[roscoenyc]

Originally Posted by mwagener

Keeping the current state of the music/studio business in mind,...... would a smaller well equipped mixing room with small tracking facilities for vocals, gtrs, overdubs, but no drums be sufficient?

So many really good tracking rooms in Nashville...

Mix room w tracking facilities sounds good....but I would suggest that the booth be big enough for drums just in case. It would most likely be a better sounding booth if it was larger. plus, as soon as you say "i can do anything but drums" you are gonna want to do some drums

[w2w]

Another vote for start in the guest house & watch to see what other changes take place in the market.

You will know soon enough if you miss or need the big tracking room.

Like a few others said,there are plenty of great tracking rooms close by.
You could be helping yourself,as well as a few other studios by working together.

Now is probably not the best time to start a new place from scratch with a big $$ investment.A few years could tell a lot & maybe save you even more $$ if things take a turn for the worse.(You can always add on,sucks to teardown)

Best of luck.

[patrox247]

I would say that you should make things as convenient and streamlined as possible. I have recently come to the realisation that the music business will most likely never bounce back in any real way (as a prominent media financial power) because to be quite honest music alone is just too boring from the perspective of kids (despite the quality). Audio without any other interaction is to the new generation of kids just plain archaic and can not compete with the new types of stimulation they have become accustomed to (you almost can't blame them for perceiving it's value so low because it does not provide any of the satisfaction that their senses demand).Anyhow.... this translates to smaller budgets and more home cooking type of recording. So in my opinion more than ever music is now completely a labor of love and so you might as well view yourself as a painter (or other type of artist) and find yourself a really comfortable place to make music. Having your work place on your property seems to make sense.

[peeder]

It's a supply & demand thing, and we're seeing a lot of the bigger tracking facilities go down (mostly due to real estate economics imo). Meanwhile everyone and their brother has a mixing rig in their house. So if I was able to own the real estate and finance everything then I think I'd have a long-term investment that would return more because supply will get crimped and I'll be one of the only shows in town.

IOW everyone is facing this same dilemma and you can be sure most of them are going to pick just having a little project studio. Real drums and real isolation and the whole band tracking at once with good sightlines and great acoustics is going to be a rarer and rarer commodity and I believe is going to have a huge comeback in demand but not in supply. Because everyone is going to be able to mix and use fake drums and fake pianos (even I can! ) but only a few facilities will be able to track everything real and real well.

So if I was in position to make a big tracking facility work economically I would do it and wait for the competition to die off and allow me to corner the market. There will always be a market for the very best, and tracking real instruments live is the very best. The barrier to entry for competition for a project studio is dropping while for a tracking facility it's increasing, and I think the profits will follow those trends as soon as everything shakes out in a few years.

[nobtwiddler]

Michael;
Same boat here also...
Just a few months ago I started thinking along the same lines as you.
Having many sleepless nights over which direction to go.
For me, having a large tracking room, with 2 iso booths, was the only way to go.
No consideration, and for years it was great!
It would be very hard for me to part with my existing space, as I've been here for 21 years.
But, I do not own the property, and the cost of keeping a 2 room plus 8000 sq ft. building is getting a bit much as of late.
So I too have been thinking of scaling down a bit and concentrating more on mixing, and overdubbing.

Oh boy, I fear another sleepless night ahead?

[LeeStoker]

Well the truth of the matter is people work with you because you are you and want what you give, reputaton, work ethic, past clients ect.

Unless you are independantly rich and money is not an issue I would keep things simple. I bet if you built a huge place that looked impressive you probably wouldn't get more work.

I'm finding groups aren't as impressed by "bling" as they are price to quality. If a group wants a big live sound do like you did in the old days rent a big room to track basics then back to your place.

I'm sure I speak for most here all our dreams as engineers and producers is to have the biggest sweetest room stocked with the most expensive stuff, this is the natural course of busines, to grow and expand but as you know we really can't because everyone has a studio now and will work for peanuts if they have to, sucks but that's what we have.

Working ITB is fast and efficiant and the recall is a no brainer. I enjoy working OTB too but some projects just don't work for the more work it takes to set up OTB.

You could sell half your outboard and put that money into a good invetment like updating something in your house, you'll always get a return on updates, or look into a rental property. You could move all the outboard you could't live without farther apart in the rack for "more breathing room" the racks will still look full and I bet no-one but us here would even know the difference.

No reason why you couldn't just have a mobile rig to bring into the bigger guest house to do some tracking as well. Just do some basic sound treatments in it and bingo 2 birds one stone.

[Drumsound]

I like the idea of doing it in stages so that you are not hit with a giant time and money issue. Can the current guest house be the starting point with additions later? Start with a nice sized control room and a good sized booth. Add on to the building after doing a few things. When you add on you can make the big live room and just frame out the isos. You could use them with gobos and what not and then finish them out after a few more porjects.

[picksail]

Since moving to the room in Hollywood two years ago, I've only needed to hire out a larger facility on one occasion-for grand piano.
Otherwise, we have everything we need here.

You've been here a few times Michael. I'm sure you remember the layout.

I guess it stands to reason that the only gear acquisitions for us this year were plug-ins.

Michael, if you plan to come out for NAMM we should hook up for a bite.

[Killahurts]

Michael,

Just an experienced word about having it on your home property. It's not just the industry/business you have to think about, but your personal (and future) life. Can you see a time when you won't really want to track bands on your property anymore, preferring to track elsewhere and then take it home for last OD's, or even just mixing?

Plus if you ever decide to move... man, I'm lucky that I love where I am because if I ever wanted to move, where would I work?

If you build a big $$ multi-room facility you have to pretty much continually support it with activity (people), but what if you just want some peace and quiet at home? Then you have to go buy another house somewhere, just to get away.


OTOH, you are a world class mixer, so what about a world class mix room?

One of those could be made as public or private as you like, when you like. You could have a small vocal/OD room, and a re-amping room, of coarse.

I dunno, I guess it comes down to how committed you are to being a full service studio, both now and in your future.

[pan60]

i will hang out, and see what everyone else say:(~

[mwagener]

Thanx everybody for your input.

Looks like I will go for a nice mixing/overdub room in the existing guest house space. There is room enough for overdubs and a drum room could be added down the line if needed. The drums could also be recorded at the bands rehearsal room, that's where they feel the most at home anyway. I would just have to travel with a few pre-amps of my choice and a small Nuendo rig.

I'll keep the old WireWorld for now and gradually build the new room over the next year. The equipment in the mixroom will be slightly different from what I am using now (console etc.), so the transition could go fairly smooth.

Killahurtz, I do understand your concern, but if you compare it to the situation I have right now, I leave home around 10 in the morning and won't be back until 9 or 10 PM most days, basically never see my better half. If I work here I could spend at least times like when the computer is backing up at home and just imagine having real home cooked meals at least once in a while. The way the property is set up, the studio would be far enough from the main house so that nobody would ever have to get near it.

Picksail, I will be at NAMM with the MW-1 box. I'll get to LA on the 14th and leave on the 21st, so yes let eat.

Talking about eating: Summer NAMM is back in Nashville in 2008, so we are going to have a BBQ at the "old" WireWorld on Saturday June 21st. If you're in town, mark your calendar and come on out. More info coming up in a separate post.

Thank you guys again for your thoughts, all great advice.

[LeeStoker]

When I wrote my Re: I assumed your studio was already at your home.

[Killahurts]

Originally Posted by mwagener

Killahurtz, I do understand your concern, but if you compare it to the situation I have right now, I leave home around 10 in the morning and won't be back until 9 or 10 PM most days, basically never see my better half. If I work here I could spend at least times like when the computer is backing up at home and just imagine having real home cooked meals at least once in a while. The way the property is set up, the studio would be far enough from the main house so that nobody would ever have to get near it.

Well in that case, ignore the warning and let me just be honest and tell you that I have lived and worked in paradise for the last 6 years. My studio building is 25 ft. from the back door of the house. The studio break room is not usually well stocked because my home is right there... I can come out here and review a mix first thing in the morning over coffee... if I have an inspiration, I'm on it in 5 minutes! Not having to drive is so huge, I can't even describe it. But the best part is.. Michael, you know my better two-thirds, so you can imagine the fun I'm having!

Oh yeah, and I can sit in the garage to reference mixes in my parked car.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by peeder

It's a supply & demand thing, and we're seeing a lot of the bigger tracking facilities go down (mostly due to real estate economics imo). Meanwhile everyone and their brother has a mixing rig in their house. So if I was able to own the real estate and finance everything then I think I'd have a long-term investment that would return more because supply will get crimped and I'll be one of the only shows in town.[...]

So if I was in position to make a big tracking facility work economically I would do it and wait for the competition to die off and allow me to corner the market. There will always be a market for the very best, and tracking real instruments live is the very best. The barrier to entry for competition for a project studio is dropping while for a tracking facility it's increasing, and I think the profits will follow those trends as soon as everything shakes out in a few years.

I'm making that bet, except for the part of waiting for the competition to die off...I don't think others need to fail in order for me to succeed. Check back in 2014 to see whether my 5 year plan worked or not...

Michael W: let me know if you want a tour when the facility is built...I think the market for educating people about the recording process is way underserved.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by Clueless

I'm making that bet, except for the part of waiting for the competition to die off...I don't think others need to fail in order for me to succeed. Check back in 2014 to see whether my 5 year plan worked or not...

Well if you own the real estate, then you're going to at least come out ahead on that side of things if the market for it goes up (and commercial-zoned property isn't the housing market remember).

OTOH if you put a studio in your house it might not help the value of the house much if any...the only people who would want that generally are music people, and there are only a few of those with big $.

Hmm...maybe make the control room convertible into a home theatre?

[roscoenyc]

Originally Posted by peeder

Well if you own the real estate, then you're going to at least come out ahead on that side of things if the market for it goes up (and commercial-zoned property isn't the housing market remember).

OTOH if you put a studio in your house it might not help the value of the house much if any...the only people who would want that generally are music people, and there are only a few of those with big $.

Hmm...maybe make the control room convertible into a home theatre?

Studio in the house is not exactly an oddity in nashvegas

[warhead]

I was relieved in many ways when Front End Audio expanded into a new building which had 2 rooms back to back that I could cheaply convert into a decent work space and move into. It's nice coming home and leaving work at work, after having the studio at home for years until now.

I keep a lean and mean setup, but I'm easy to work with so bands stick with me. You're Michael Wagener though! They will come.

Respek.

War

[stevep]

Originally Posted by mwagener

Keeping the current state of the music/studio business in mind, is a big studio with a big tracking room still something you would go for or would a smaller well equipped mixing room with small tracking facilities for vocals, gtrs, overdubs, but no drums be sufficient?

Well im probably the wrong one to ask..having just built a new room, but i say go for it ! and if you can, build it close to your home

I know your room wont be a commercial room , but it will be a your room, a place for you to make records that have your sound all over them.


As for the current state of this business,... this is now,.. but in a few years i see mid size rooms filling an important part in the recording biz

With allot of large rooms closing the rates for the ones left will climb and price out the project studio guys. the home studios will still need a place to track drums, acoustic instruments ect... in a nice sounding live room; thats key. the room

and soon i think people will tire of the plugin sound and want real gear, console, even tape. I already see it happening now

But its your studio, to work the way you want and designed for you by you

So why not build the room that is exactly what you want,
that will best suit the way you want to make records

Just a thought......

[superburtm]

THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR A BIG TRACKING ROOM..everything sounds better and it is more accomodating. But hell..your the expert. I understand needing to see your wife once in a while

[drBill]

Originally Posted by mwagener

Killahurtz, I do understand your concern, but if you compare it to the situation I have right now, I leave home around 10 in the morning and won't be back until 9 or 10 PM most days, basically never see my better half. If I work here I could spend at least times like when the computer is backing up at home and just imagine having real home cooked meals at least once in a while. The way the property is set up, the studio would be far enough from the main house so that nobody would ever have to get near it.

Michael - I think that says it all. Workflow and life take precedence over slut-ism. Being gone 12 hours a day 7 days a week isn't condusive to having a family or living "life" outside the studio. I have a room capable of drums in my "home" studio along with a 120 input console and PTHD, and I'd never go back to the "outside" room - even though it definately has advantages. Good luck with your decision. I'll try to stop by at NAMM and see the MW-1.

bp

[picksail]

All sonic debates aside, the single biggest difference between my workflow now that I'm ITB is that I can achieve more in a 6 hour session than I ever could in 12 hours back in "ye ole analog days"

This means I actually have a life and moreover, a better quality life.

I feel my life is much richer and more balanced than ever before.