£30,000/$60,000 to spend on a mastering studio?

[Riccardo]

You would spend that amount of money on the room alone.
There are quite a few rooms that cost more than that.
It really depends on where are you positioning the business.
IMHO you should consider allocating 2/3 of that budget to the room and go for basic processing capabilities.
Others might think differently.

[Gravity8058]

Originally Posted by Riccardo

You would spend that amount of money on the room alone.
There are quite a few rooms that cost more than that.
It really depends on where are you positioning the business.
IMHO you should consider allocating 2/3 of that budget to the room and go for basic processing capabilities.
Others might think differently.

I tend to agree, although - do you own the space your building in? If not then
it may make less sense to sink most of your money in construction.

[johnashmore]

OK thanks for the feedback guys.

Just to clear up though, this is not a real project and is just theoretical for a college paper, so it's not a real business venture.

Secondly, the budget does not include construction costs, it is assumed that a "good" room has been built properly with an architect and acoustician, but the acoustic treatment (like diffusion and absorbtion) must be considered in the budget.

Thanks,

John

[lucey]

Originally Posted by johnashmore

Secondly, the budget does not include construction costs, it is assumed that a "good" room has been built properly with an architect and acoustician, but the acoustic treatment (like diffusion and absorbtion) must be considered in the budget.

That makes it a little confusing ...

[tomdarude]

a good mastering room built out by an acoustician won´t need anymore acoustic treatment !!! that´s why you integrate them into the building/planning process!!

have you ever seen a mastering room full of panels or with foam all over the wall ??


It can be done for 25.000,- € or less (with some panels, near/midfields, plugins & few bit´s outboard) IF you have an engineer with GOLDEN EARS, TASTE & EXPERIENCE...I´ve seen it.

so here´s what i´d tell your teacher´s:

This paper is bullshit!!!!

The built out of a studio mastering studio will be focused on the room acoustics!!!
heck, they even might incorporate the choice of monitors into the design, go figure.

the eqipment list will be a VERY PERSONAL decision of the mastering engineer. ALWAYS !
how the hell could a college teacher judge your choices of mastering equipment ?? it´s personal preference!!
how much does he know about building a mastering room?? (has he built 20+ highend rooms in the last 30 years of his life??...no? ...so how can he judge your decisions)

what´s the sense in this kind of paper?
doin a mastering suite from the ground up I´d do 3 things:

1) if I want acoustic advice I´d ask different studio-designers, compare them and make a (rather subjective) choice

2) if I want plugin/hardware processing, I only can try as much stuff myself as I can..no other way round...and make a subjective choice. same with monitors...

3) if I want a mastering/transfer console & the set-up, wiring, etc. I´ll ask Chris Muth.period.

bottom-line: It will be a LOT more than 60k in the end.