Official - SONY MUSIC STUDIOS is CLOSING

[draudio2u]

Hello all,

I am a mastering engineer here and the studio is closing in August. In the mean time the studio is practically giving away mastering time - home studio prices for pro level mastering! Give us a call soon if you have some work to do, or else I will be dismantling my room sooner rather than after you leave with an amazing product!

Cheers.


Andreas Meyer
Senior Mastering Engineer
Sony Music Studios NYC
andreas.meyer@sonybmg.com
212 833 4376

[XSergeantD]

Yeah, I heard Andy was escorted out of the building this week. I didn't want to stir up rumors, but I guess the word is official now?

So now Avatar is next? I assume the same builder that bought the parking lot and the Midas building is buying Sony studios. From what I hear they've been aiming to buy that entire lower half of the block and it looks like they're slowly gobbling it up

[soundeq]

yep its true, working at sony today.... my gearslut eyes are alredy marking down serial numbers of the "good" stuff.

Studio will probly stop booking sessions by the end of this month

[walth]

Oh my God.
i think i'm going to cry. getting some of that gear might help though.

[walth]

what else is left in NYC? Chung King, Electric Lady Land, Quad?

in LA we have oceanway, Capitol, henson?

the world is coming to an end.

[XSergeantD]

Originally Posted by walth

what else is left in NYC? Chung King, Electric Lady Land, Quad?

in LA we have oceanway, Capitol, henson?

the world is coming to an end.

Avatar (until the same corp buys them out - I hear an offer was in when the offer for Sony went in), Legacy, Clinton, Electric Lady Studios, Chung King

[jdg]

:(

meantime... dibs on a sontec

[minipoodle]

Sear Sound is still alive and kicking

[Lindell]

Sad....

[StephenMarsh]

......it was a hard proposition for the facility to ever make money, let alone in today's marketplace. The good engineers will all find homes no doubt - perhaps even on the west coast.......

[IDOAUDIO]

Yes, sadly, it's true. I work for the "stages" part of Sony Studios. I, along with the TV show we were in the middle of taping, was given the word by my boss Mike Negri, thursday around 7 PM.
The mastering folks and the top engineers there will find work, no doubt, but for the likes of me, the lonely live guy, I am a dime a dozen. Will be tough to find work in a shrinking marketplace, and taking 3 years off touring, even after 15 years of being on the road, will be like starting over again to find work.

Sad, Very Sad.

[Alécio Costa]

sad, very sad.
:(

[zboy2854]

And I heard from 2 different sources in the past few weeks that the Hit Factory/Criteria won't last the summer.

[andremattos]

Is it the future ?
as it is , i am sad!

[adrianex]

Originally Posted by zboy2854

And I heard from 2 different sources in the past few weeks that the Hit Factory/Criteria won't last the summer.

I've heard the same thing......

[Firefox]

bummer.

[Remoteness]

Ah yes, the fleecing of our music and audio heritage...

Completely tragic for our industry.
Simply awful and heartbreaking news for sure!

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Record companies are no longer run by people who care about what they are doing they only care about the "bottom line". Record companies use to be run by musicians and other who cared about their product but now they are run by bean counters and people with MBAs. Those executives do not care about the music or the heritage of what made them great it is all about NOW and what kind of money they can make for themselves. Too bad....maybe things will turn around but I kinda doubt it.

[zboy2854]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

Record companies are no longer run by people who care about what they are doing they only care about the "bottom line". Record companies use to be run by musicians and other who cared about their product but now they are run by bean counters and people with MBAs. Those executives do not care about the music or the heritage of what made them great it is all about NOW and what kind of money they can make for themselves. Too bad....maybe things will turn around but I kinda doubt it.

Well, depends on how you define turning around. The business models of both the music and recording industries are completely changing from a centralized one to a decentralized one. Big, lumbering record labels are being replaced by smaller, nimbler indie ones, and artists who can connect with their fans on the grassroots level. Large scale studios are being replaced by private facilities and freelancers. Everything is going niche. It's all about making less money per project or selling fewer units, but making it up with doing more projects or having a better profit margin on sales.

Whether this is all a good or bad thing depends on where one sits in the food chain. Personally, as a freelance producer/engineer/writer, I've never been busier, so I can't complain.

But it is sad to see the loss of some of these great facilities that have so much history, not to mention the access to great sounding rooms. If the Hit Factory does in fact go under here in South Florida, that would leave maybe one or two studios in the whole town that have decent to great tracking rooms, neither of which are the scope or size of what the Hit Factory had in Studio A. If you want to track a full orchestra or big band, you'll have to go out of town to do it.

[draudio2u]

I guess I opened myself up for this one, but please stop contacting me about "when is the fire sale, or how do I get some gear?". Read the trade magazines and watch for the sale come August-September. I am sure going by what BMG did in the past, they are going to take out all the choice gear and put it away in storage. How long has it been since they closed BMG Studios? That gear is still in storage on 25th street.

Cheers.

[Igotsoul4u]

sucks ehh??? New York is really turning into the center of the protools apocalypse. I hope recording music becomes trendy in NYC again, but for now it looks like i should really appreciate the job i have much more then i do.

[zboy2854]

Originally Posted by draudio2u

How long has it been since they closed BMG Studios? That gear is still in storage on 25th street.

Cheers.

Man, that's really sad, like the Ark being sealed away in a warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark...

[gsilbers]

is this the same studio that was doing the mastering for $99 per song online?

seemed it was a good idea. too bad though.

[joeaudio]

Originally Posted by draudio2u

I guess I opened myself up for this one, but please stop contacting me about "when is the fire sale, or how do I get some gear?". Read the trade magazines and watch for the sale come August-September. I am sure going by what BMG did in the past, they are going to take out all the choice gear and put it away in storage. How long has it been since they closed BMG Studios? That gear is still in storage on 25th street.

Cheers.

This gentleman and many others are going to be out of a job.
Many of these guys have busted their balls for years to make lots
of money for other people. They are the front line of the music industry collapsing in on itself.

All we care about is "Hey man, do you guys still have those Sontecs?"

I wish all the guys at Sony well.

Joe

[ajcamlet]

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

sucks ehh??? New York is really turning into the center of the protools apocalypse. I hope recording music becomes trendy in NYC again, but for now it looks like i should really appreciate the job i have much more then i do.

i would say its turing into a giant condominium development for disney .

[12th & Vine]

Originally Posted by joeaudio

I wish all the guys at Sony well.

Joe

As do I. The news that so many talented people have been placed in this position, and the fact that we are to loose such a wonderful facility, saddens me.

[grahluk]

My first thoughts went to the folks that work there. Gear is gear ( I know blasphemy on this site) and upscale real estate is all NYC is about anymore. NYC may still think it's the center of the world for many things but music it is not. It's the people I'm concerned about. That's what made NYC a great music town. What are all the former Sony people going to do? Go to another studio in the city? Don't think so. They will probably disperse into related fields or move elsewhere. I'm sure their landlords will be happy to turn a few apartments and feed the upward housing spiral. My heart goes to the Sony music employees and my condolences to the NYC music community.

Just curious. Does anyone have an idea of how many people will be losing their jobs? How many assistants, techs, and office staff are/were there that will be going?

[StephenMarsh]

"Sony Music Studios NYC, 460 W. 54th St.

150 employees, 8 mix rooms, 8 mastering rooms, 6 audio post for video rooms, 2 stages, video production control, Avid, Smoke, Inferno, DVD authoring, the whole place. A general staff meeting was called June 8 where Sony Music Entertainment COO Tim Bowen broke the bad news. Aug. 31st is the final closing day. Some operations will wind down sooner.

The writing had been on the wall for many years. The studios were Tommy Mottola's baby and had always bled money since it opened in 1992. Tommy kept Sony Japan at arms length convincing them the losses were a cost of doing business. When Sony merged with BMG and Tommy left in 2003, the BMG management team came in and took a hard look. Credit to them for trying to salvage the viabillity of the place for the last 4 years, but corporate wheels turn slowly and they were either unwilling or unable to trim operating budgets and steer the business model toward more profitable work.
All this time, the NYC real estate market continued to go through the ceiling.

Intent to sell the property to a real estate development firm which would lease the Studios to a LLC that incorporated a 3 year work contract with Sony/BMG was announced early March and seemed to be moving forward as late as April 30th. Even though the rooms have been quite busy, the numbers have been real bad and the parties involved came to the conclusion that there was no way anyone was going to turn the beast around.

Sony/BMG will retain a small crew and relocate facilities to handle archives and master distribution."

[lucey]

I feel bad for everyone who is losing their job, for the loss of the physical rooms, and the combined experience of the staff in this facility. Lost potential. Fidelity and nice performance rooms, like musical depth and reality itself are homeless in this landscape. See you at the video shoot ...

[Mike Derrick]

Stephen, so ultimately is this a reflection on the high costs of doing business in NY city, or a reflection of the state of the music business in general?...or perhaps a combination of both?

The quote mentions that they were busy but the numbers were bad. If they were busy I assume that getting business in the doors wasn't the problem. However, were they just not able to make a profit based purely on the overhead/rent/taxes of the location? Or has the top end mastering business become that unprofitable?

I hope all those who will be losing their jobs find new ones.