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By the way, it was a very different NYC and a very different music business 40 years ago: http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/new-york-new-york-1975-oh-what-year/425753 Keep in mind that almost all of those now-legendary NYC studios were located in what were then crime-ridden hellholes (most of Manhattan was a crime-ridden hellhole in 1975, although it got even worse when crack cocaine hit the scene a few years later). One other point -- I have a bit of first-hand knowledge about what was in the schedule books at A&R, Sigma NYC and MediaSound, and I assume the other big places had about the same business model with some (probably Hit Factory and Power Station) able to be almost all album-music-production and others (United Recording and a host of other survivors from the 60s and early 70s) doing almost all of their work in radio and TV commercials, sound-for-TV and some sound-for-movies. For the places I saw the schedule books, a lot of daytime booking was music score and voice-over for commercials. That was the bread and butter. The glory album sessions often were at night, at a discounted block-rate. In the late 60's and early 70's, the ad agencies started taking some production in-house (my late friend and mentor Bob Eberenz built studios for several major NYC agencies). The synthesizer and the musician/arranger with his home production studio further hollowed out the most lucrative part of the big-studio business model. And, as I said earlier, once the city got cleaned up, real estate values and rents went sky-high. -- Tom Fine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] From yesterday's NY Times >I think that's the key -- it's always a labor of love. Through the history, the record companies >have dipped in and out of owning studios, often finding that it's a business line that the >accountants cannot stomach! > > -- Tom Fine > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Aaron Levinson" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 1:56 PM > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] From yesterday's NY Times > > > As a current studio owner this business faces one more extraordinary challenge that it didn't face > in the past which is the fact that the recording studio as laptop and m-box era has eliminated an > entire segment of people who were once at least potentially clients. This is not just garage bands > and weekend warriors but also little post houses and VO talent who can know build an excellent > closet sized space to do their daily gig and not hire an outside facility that specializes in this > work. > At least Steve has proximity to labels that need restoration/transfer services. Contrast this with > people in smaller markets who don't even have that narrow tributary to rely upon with any > regularity. As always owning a pro level recording studio remains a labor of love first and > foremost.. > > AA > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Oct 13, 2015, at 1:37 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> I hope Steve is able to continue with his transfer and remastering business at a Brooklyn >> location. He does good work. I've been enjoying the Errol Garner set just today, it sounds >> fantastic. >> >> The trajectory of Steve's Manhattan studio is, unfortunately, long the story of recording studios >> in Manhattan. You set up shop in a dangerous hellhole neighborhood because the rent is cheap >> there and musicians tend not to mind doing business there. Once the neighborhood gets gentrified >> so it's safe and desireable, the gross revenue and profit margins of the recording studio >> business are far too low to afford prime-space rent rates. Think about how much more revenue per >> square foot a Starbucks or trendy boutique or luxury condo generates vs. a recording studio. This >> happened to almost all of the large-space recording studios in the 80s, during the Reagan-era >> Wall Street boom. Then another round of it happened during the Giuliani era, particularly in and >> around Times Square, when a former crime-ridden hellhole neighborhood got Disney-fied. Yet >> another round happened more recently, leaving Magic Shop as one of a handful of full-function >> studios left in Manhattan. >> >> The way rents are going in Brooklyn, there won't be much of a recording/music business there in a >> few years. >> >> By the way, if you go back and study the history of the long-term studios, there's almost always >> some unknown backstory where something more lucrative than the music business is subsidizing the >> studio. Look at a "golden age" studio empire like Bill Putnam's and you see a diversified >> business with many locations, an equipment-manufacturing business and, probably most importantly, >> a large and varied client list from the sound-for-picture world. Until very recently, the margins >> on doing movie and TV sound work were much, much better than doing music albums. Just think about >> what backgrounds you know about your favorite albums, especially if they are jazz or pop/rock. >> Many of them are legendary for being recorded "on a shoestring." Well, that shows you how thin >> the margins are for the studios. That kind of a business simply can't pay premium rent, it needs >> to exist in a low-rent area. >> >> -- Tom Fine >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barton, Matthew" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: <[log in to unmask]> >> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 1:11 PM >> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] From yesterday's NY Times >> >> >>> The owner of the studio, Steve Rosenthal, presented at ARSC in Pittsburgh on his work on the >>> expanded reissue of Errol Garner's "Concert by the Sea" that is now #1 on Billboard's Jazz >>> chart. >>> >>> >>> Matthew Barton >>> Library of Congress >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On >>> Behalf Of Peter Hirsch >>> Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2015 12:06 PM >>> To: [log in to unmask] >>> Subject: [ARSCLIST] From yesterday's NY Times >>> >>> As a librarian/archivist and collector, I am not directly involved with this end of the >>> recording process, so I was not aware of this studio's existence before reading this article. >>> Still, it touches on the "sic transit gloria mundi" aspect of our collective interests on this >>> list. In some ways, it is more a comment on the current state of affairs regarding real estate >>> in NYC and how these forces are transforming the city into a tourist trap/theme park and >>> investment haven for non-resident billionaires, than on the state of the recording business. >>> Hyper-gentrification is thriving and driving away so much that makes the city a place to be and >>> make a living in. "A Beloved Recording Studio May Be Priced Out of SoHo": >>> http://tinyurl.com/po8cmvf >>> >>> Peter Hirsch > >