Decisions, decisions...

[ItsOnLikeDK]

Ok I am seriously thinking about building a studio of my own. Probably just a one suite with a couple of offices. I have a basic list of gear I want/need and I'm open to suggestions and additional stuff. So here's the list.

Apple PowerMac G5 w/ dual 2.5gHz CPU tons of RAM
(2)Apple 23" Cinema LCD Displays
DigiDesign ProTools HD|2 Accel
DigiDesign 192 I/O Audio Interface
DigiDesign MIDI I/O
DigiDesign Sync I/O
DigiDesign ProControl|24 console
Avalon VT737-sp Mic Pre
(2)Genelec 1031a near-fields
(2)Genelec 1037c mains
MartinSound MonitorMAX
(2)Neumann TLM103
Yamaha Sub-Kick
(5)Shure SM57
(2)Sennheiser MD421-MKII
(2)Sennheiser e609
Audio Technica 4041
(2)Shure KSM32
Shure Beta52
Rode NT2000
Neumann U87
Waves Platinum TDM Bundle

And of course mic stands, cables, etc. I still don't know where to look at the desks that hold consoles with rackmounts on the sides. I also don't know how much the building will cost or where to get a qoute from or anything. I know I will need some mic pre channel strips with lightpipe out and stuff. I will most likely be doing radio and tv commercials and voice-overs as well, so I need to find out where to get a projector and screen. I will be doing music projects as well, but my main focus will be commercial stuff. So any thoughts, suggestions, or flames...please feel free. Thanks.

.:ItsOnLikeDonkeyKong:.

 

[mshilarious]

I will be doing music projects as well, but my main focus will be commercial stuff. So any thoughts, suggestions, or flames...please feel free. Thanks.

That's a serious chunk of change for gear. I didn't add it all up, but it's well over $30K, yes?

If you are doing VO work, why equip a studio to record a rock band? Also you need a selection VO mics, like the EV RE20, Shure SM7, maybe even MD441 on top of the Neumanns you listed.

The building you would construct to do VO is a lot different than a live room for a rock band. Are you renting commercial space, or do you need to build from ground up?

What is your total budget for this project?

 

[frederic]

I started to post a length reply to this, but my desktop locked up while Bryce was choking on something. Gig of ram, this shouldn't happen.

Anyway, since you're inviting flames...

While its fun to review gear you want/need/desire and paruse stores and catalogs, know that it's essentially a waste of time at this point, until you put your business plan together. I'm saying this because you've mentioned you're putting together a commercial entity.

First, you need to determine your available start up capital, which is a combination of cash from your, family, friends, bank loans and ponzi schemes.

Once you have a realistic figure, you can go shopping for suitable workspace, either by purchasing with a mortgage, leasing or renting. Then from there you can evaluate your utilities costs, insurance for the space, etc.

Then based on that space, you need to work out acoustical treatments if there are to be any. This may be a minor cost, or a significant cost, depending on the space you have chosen, what it is constructed of, as well as what your abutting neighbors are going to be like.

If you select office space next to a mortgage company, they might not enjoy having loud rock blasting through the walls, for example.

Most office space these days don't seem to be constructed out of fire bricks and concrete BETWEEN the offices of tenants, but rather galvanized C-channel replacing 2x4's, with sheet rock slapped on. So, sound transmission, in a typical office building (steel, concrete, and tinted glass) is going to be extreme. Anyway, something to consider.

Once you figure out the operating costs, versus what you have financially available, then you can litter your new place with gear, based on your needs. I'm not knocking the gear you've chosen, some nice tools in there, however buying the gear first only to realize later you don't have the funds to secure a suitable location, and treat it properly, will hurt your ambitions.

 

[vangore]

Pro control? 2* 23 inch cinema displays? do you actuall enjoy throwing away money or do you like them cus they look cool, I really doubt these should be your top priority, spend that money on your building and not usless crap, although i must admit id love 2 cinema displays. good luck with your studio but I think you need to put more thought into this before you make a horrible mistake.

 

[ItsOnLikeDK]

Actually no I don't consider it throwing money away. You wouldn't beleive the thought that I have put into this. I guess having top of the line gear and the nicer things like 2 displays is "a mistake" now? And to Frederic, that is more of a constructive reply than the guy after you. Thank you. I have thought about the building, floor plans, building materials, location, etc. It's not like I got up one day and went, "hey I know, I'll just get all the equipment first and *then* worry about a building," but since getting qoutes for a building and such is something I can't really do on a forum, I decided to ask about the equipment. I know all about budgets. I wasn't planning on buying ANY gear first, the first thing I would do is get everything financially set, get a building, and THEN comes the gear. This was merely a way to get more ideas for what I should think about getting once I have somewhere to put it, . I like to be prepared for things, so this way I wouldn't have a building, everything set, and then have to plan out the equipment from scratch. I'd like to have some kind of idea of what I should go for.

I was actually thinking of having a building made brand new in a pretty "remote" location just on the edge of town...somewhere that had barely any, if at all, other businesses or other buildings around it. That way I could concentrate more on the interior walls more, like in the studio and control rooms themselves, instead of worrying about leakage to the outside of the building. Not to say I want to be cheap about it...just if I have a location that's deserted in a mile in every direction except for the highway then I won't have to spend so much on keeping the sound from getting out.

And to MSHILARIOUS....umm I work at a professional studio where most of the work we do, about 95% of it actually, is VO work for Best Buy, Circuit City, narrations on a lot of big films, the History Channel's War of 1812 special....list goes on. And all we use are Neumann mics for the VOs. SM57's are really not a good mic for that sort of thing although I'm sure you can get some good results. And also you said I should add some SM57s...and they are on my list. At the studio we just put the VO talent in an iso booth...which is right outside of the room where we do music. As I also stated, I'm concentrating more on commercial work, although I do want to have the ability to do band sessions...so I would design/have someone design a space that would accommodate both.

Frederic, if you could please, help me decide what would be best for me as far as the building. Should I lease/rent, or have one built and have a mortgage for it or what? Also, I figured by getting a loan and an investor, I could make this happen. Any advice or anything on that? Thanks for the replies guys, and if I come off wrong I apologize, it's just how I am, and I don't mean to be...disrespectful or anything.

.:ItsOnLikeDonkeyKong:.

 

[knightfly]

If you have the option of a new, built from scratch building, I would recommend it; I've been helping people "turn sow's ears into silk purses" for some time now, and it's ALWAYS more of a hassle and expense to ADAPT existing, flawed construction into a well-isolated, acoustically good environment than it is to start from scratch and circumvent the mistakes.

About the only exception to this is finding an abaondoned industrial building with 2 foot thick concrete walls in a (now) quiet area, for back taxes - this would make a good start on a containment shell.

If you build from scratch at the edge of town, you would still need to assume it will get LOUDER at some point, as town surrounds you - so I would, even though it isn't necessary NOW, build for higher isolation than you think you'll need; it's cheaper to do SOONER than later.

There's more, but I've got a lot of (paid) drawing to do... Steve

 

[JasonB93117]

MSHILARIOUS wasn't recommending more shure sm-57s, he was recommending a shure sm-7.

 

[frederic]

And to Frederic, that is more of a constructive reply than the guy after you. Thank you. I have thought about the building, floor plans, building materials, location, etc. It's not like I got up one day and went, "hey I know, I'll just get all the equipment first and *then* worry about a building," but since getting qoutes for a building and such is something I can't really do on a forum, I decided to ask about the equipment.

I wasn't insulting you, please don't think that. I was merely stating the obvious (to me), because it's not always obvious to everyone, especially if something like this is their first business venture.

Trust me, I've seen many people start a business (of many kinds), only to drown into financial ruin in a few months. Since I haven't met you, or was able to draw a conclusion from your post if you had this experience or not, I simply took caution and assumed you didn't. Just in case.

have to plan out the equipment from scratch. I'd like to have some kind of idea of what I should go for.

Space wise, that depends on what you want to do. Voiceovers is easy, a vocal booth or two, and a console room, and possibly a media room. Since you're considering protools, rename the media room to computer room

Frederic, if you could please, help me decide what would be best for me as far as the building. Should I lease/rent, or have one built and have a mortgage for it or what? Also, I figured by getting a loan and an investor, I could make this happen. Any advice or anything on that? Thanks for the replies guys, and if I come off wrong I apologize, it's just how I am, and I don't mean to be...disrespectful or anything.

I didn't take it as disrespectful at all, like I said unless I can easily draw a conclusion that you've been down this path before, I tend to assume one doesn't and provide a little business 101. If it's "old hat" for you just say so, and I'll skip the monkey lessons

With the current market being in the toilet, real estate can be purchased below market value, especially if you go the foreclosure route. Some of the buildings you can acquire are essentially free. I and a friend bought a 20K sq foot warehouse a year and a half ago for the remaining value on the mortgage, and another good friend who is an attorney closed the deal for us (for nothing) in exchange that I did some electrical work for him on his house.

Get this - $17K for the building

Knightfly gave you good, sound advice though. Building from scratch allows you "do it right" however often that's not practical, especially considering how crowded cities and the outskirts are these days. And that problem is only going to get worse.

Financing is easy, in this market, as long as you have a good business plan on paper to which you can pitch your idea to either investors or a financial institution for a loan/mortgage.

As far as the gear you picked out, I chose not to comment on it because I hate using computers for mixing. But that's me, and my snotty opinion and its only worth what you paid for it . I like knobs and faders, but again, that's me. I have not mastered the art of mixing with a mouse, and probably never will for whatever reason. My home studio is digital mind you, but I use digital recorders, digital mixers, and the PC is for video editing and midi composing, both of which I can tolerate a mouse/computer for.

But I like my bushels of wires, and you can pry them from my cold dead hands

Anyway, that's why I didn't comment on your gear selection, its not my forte by choice, for the above reasons.

 

[mshilarious]

And to MSHILARIOUS....umm I work at a professional studio where most of the work we do, about 95% of it actually, is VO work for Best Buy, Circuit City, narrations on a lot of big films, the History Channel's War of 1812 special....list goes on. And all we use are Neumann mics for the VOs. SM57's are really not a good mic for that sort of thing although I'm sure you can get some good results. And also you said I should add some SM57s...and they are on my list. At the studio we just put the VO talent in an iso booth...which is right outside of the room where we do music. As I also stated, I'm concentrating more on commercial work, although I do want to have the ability to do band sessions...so I would design/have someone design a space that would accommodate both.

As the other poster pointed out I never even mentioned the SM57.

Sure, Neumanns for VO. That's why I said "on top of the Neumanns". But there are other mics too. Maybe you get some VO talent that wants to use the mic they are used to. Maybe the Neumann is better, but they demand something else (sort of the opposite of what happens with a rock band). Since you are spending probably $10K on mics, I figured another grand on standard VO mics wouldn't kill you.

From a financial point of view (after all that is what I do for a living), if you spec a studio to do rock band work, but only occasionally do that, then you have a lot of capital tied up in nonproductive assets, and you have higher overhead than a competing VO studio. At the same time, you have higher overhead than a rock studio, which wouldn't have all the video stuff. The usual path to success in business is specialization.

It could be in your market that it's mandatory to have both capabilities to get clients. In that case I'd consider designing separate control rooms so you could book both VO and bands at the same time.

As for your building costs, if you have a location in mind, it should be very straightforward to get estimates on buildout costs. They vary so much by area that I doubt there is much we can tell you, unless you happen to be in the same area as one of the commercial contractors who hang out here.

Here is one more financial issue to consider: basically, a studio makes money because it has two productive assets: the fixed assets (building, gear) and the talent of its personnel (both technical and sales). The lenders and investors who will fund your business will demand a return on their investment, which is proportionate to the amount they give you and the risk they perceive they are taking. Effectively, that will consume most if not all of the return on assets.

Do you know how to calculate your projected return on investment? Do you know how to write a business plan? Do you have a five-year financial projection? You'll probably need these things. If you need help with that, try calling the business department at a local university or community college. Often they have students assist local businesses with things like that, and you might just get some decent financial planning or training for very cheap or even free!

As an example this is from my alma mater:

http://www.jmu.edu/cfe/sbci/index.shtml

http://www.jmu.edu/sbdcenter/index.htm

 

[ItsOnLikeDK]

Awesome replies. Ok first off, I do apologize mshilarious, I am so use to people making typos on things like that (the "little things") that I assumed, but thats not an excuse so again, I apologize. However I will wait on getting more mics than the ones I planned on until I know it would be impossible for me to borrow/rent one from either the studio I work at now, since I am on very good terms with the owner, or this music store that a friend of mine owns that carries a lot of high end equipment. And I really took a lot of consideration into your post about basically focusing on one thing instead of making an "all purpose" studio. Since I really hope to do a partnership with the owner of the studio I am at now, and eventually getting into more things like foley and ADR for feature films (*crosses fingers* lol) perhaps that would be a great idea to design a space for just what I really want to do, which is VO work and the film stuff. Of course I love to do band sessions, it's just so much more money for things like that rather than a bunch of great VO mics, something much simpler than an HD|2 system, etc., heh. Besides that, with my current home project "studio" I can churn out some decent band demos, so I really don't need to worry about that.

As far as going all digital, Frederic, beleive me if I had the money I would have an SSL 9000J planned for my studio...but it just won't happen. Not in my current situation anyway. I may be young, but I had the most excellent opportunity to train on an almost completely analog studio before I started working with ProTools. I have found that although the analog equipment provides a much better feel for the mix, for me anyway, the digital way is much easier for me. Even though I don't feel as if I'm doing much with a ProTools rig as I feel like I have my work cut out for me when I was behind that SSL console, lol. This is why I will still want a console to have in front of me, because even now I still barely use the mouse to mix.

The idea of getting a building because of foreclosure, or repossession, anything like that is great. Certainly able to save money in that department, however as the other poster said, it's much easier to treat a brand new space than an old one. So I guess I will have to find a place that is able to outweigh that side of things.

I am tapped out of thoughts for now. Thanks again guys.

.:ItsOnLikeDonkeyKong:.