Setting up a professional studio

[shuffle01]

Okay - i perhaps might be stumbling across $45-50K.

My question is simply this - do you think it is possible to make a recording studio with this money and be able to use it commercially?

I would need to buy all the parts for building the rooms. I have a rent free property. Labour is also free. So the only costs are the parts for building plus ALL the gear.

Do you think its possible?

What would you recommend i do?

Thanks,

[Tony Shepperd]

Yes... but it depends on where you live and your present clientele.

[Jules]

Its amazing how much the monthly bills can add up.

Phone
Elec
Internet
property tax
Cable TV

Especially if you are paying business rates for them

[Sqye]

.

nicely said, jules.

i think it's time we deposited that 8.7 million dollar check hanging on our fridge...



.

[Ironklad Audio]

1st thing i would ask is...a)do you have ANY gear whatsoever yet?, and b)if not, do you have the experience/know-how to create a quality product if/when you do buy your gear?

if you don't already know what you're doing, you could be in for a HUGE let-down

[The Byre]

If you are thinking in terms of a tracking room, then the answer is definately no. I'll explain in a moment.

If you are an established engineer with contacts, who just needs to be able to cream off some post and editing work, then, yes, of course you can set something up for $50k. In fact many do just this and have their stuff in flight cases and use it when they visit tracking rooms.

But now back to why you cannot set up a tracking room for $50k.

1. The lower the outlay for a studio, the more competition there is.

2. There are shed-loads of home studios with as big a capital outlay, or even bigger.

3. There is little or no demand for time in small studios. Most of this demo-style work is being done at home.

4. The main costs are never the equipment. Building, instruments, and as Jules points out, the running costs FAR outweigh the cost of some mics, a desk and ProTools, Radar etc.

To put it bluntly, the smallest size of tracking studio (and I am guessing that is what you are thinking of here) that would be a viabl business would set you back about, well, between 10-times and 20-times that sum, including building, but not including the cost of running at a loss for the first five years or so.

To be a viable business, a studio needs a great piano, drums, synths, organ, e-pianos, green room, and at least 100 sq m (1,000 sq ft) of live room.

Have a look at the business pages here audiotalk.org

My 30 Cents?

Put the money in a safe growth fund until such time as you can use it to generate an income or do somthing great (see the World!) with it.

[narcoman]

100% agree with t'byre.

We both run respectable (and earning) commercial facilities an, apart from the cost of recording gear (ie DAWs) the costs for professional level recoding have gone UP not down. Setting up a decent live room costs a lot. You could spend your budget on that alone if the building is a shell.

HOWEVER - as also pointed out - if its a mixing room based around plugins wih an overdub booth that is not treated apart from a little bass trapping, then you migh JUST be able to do it.

If you want to make a decent home/project (for your work) studio, then sure - yes you can.

For a halfway good studio - get business plan right first, then the room , then the monitoring then everything else. Most start with the gear and whilst its right from the perspective of satisfying sluttery its completely the wrong way for a commercial facility, and thats without respect to how difficult it is to make ANY money in this business. My overheads are about (the equivalent of) $18,000 a month. If you're thinking in terms of one man operation then you're thinking demo market terms and , as pointed out, that market has gone.

[Prefontaine]

Originally Posted by shuffle01

Okay - i perhaps might be stumbling across $45-50K.

And where could I stumble across that kind of money. Any suggestions?

[AudioFocus]

You can do it. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't. You just have to decide if you want a badass control room, or a badass live room(s). Just work out a budget for EVERYTHING and double it. That is how much you'll spend. That's the one hard lesson I've learned from getting our place up and running. You could probably do just as well with a killer mixing room as you could with a killer tracking room. You just have to weigh out which is more in demand in your area. Find something (a service etc.) that you can offer that nobody else can and run with it.

Just remember...

Building your own place is a labor of love. Nobody gets rich simply owning a studio these days. You have to be committed to the music first. If that's the case you'll find a way to do everything you want. For example, a year ago I was a lowly GC employee, and today I'm waiting for our Neve to arrive at our control room. I know it sounds cheesy but dreams come true, not free. Just work your ass off man, and post some pictures of your progress, I love those threads.

Cheers,
Creston

ps.
if you decide not to do it feel free to send me some cash to buy a RADAR for our place here in TN.

[DontLetMeDrown]

At this point in time, I'm all about buying the absolute bare minimum when it comes to gear. I keep meeting more and more talented engineers that own close to nothing. The hardest part in this business is getting the clients, but if you've already got them, they will work wherever you tell them. Why not rent a killer room with tons of vintage gear for a fraction of what it would cost to buy them? IMO, the only way to survive nowadays is to keep costs down. Maybe invest in a single killer chain, a nice monitoring setup, and some acoustic treatment, then save the rest for the months when things are slow.