Good Vibrations

A new recording studio stakes it pitch on service, but will its customers care?

Tweet

SOMEHOW I HAD EXPECTED TO BE dazzled by the activity at Sanctuary Recording Inc. For days, I had been tuning in the latest sounds, looking forward to seeing how recording artists -- straight out of People magazine -- put their ideas on tape. During the taxi ride from my hotel in midtown Manhattan down to Lower Broadway, I was envisioning rooms full of exotic equipment -- electronic gizmos that could produce the effects of 60-piece orchestras. Turns out I was a little early.

From the sound of power drills echoing down the 100-foot hall, it was clear that the opening of New York City's newest recording studio had been put off. In many ways, it was still a construction site. The electricians were running cables through walls. The finish carpentry was yet to be completed. Aside from the newly installed gray carpeting on most of the floors, the space was empty. Not a keyboard to be found. Not even a chair. But in a matter of weeks, Tom Silverman insisted, it would all come together. Sanctuary, located on the ninth floor of an old garment warehouse, would soon throb with activity. And what used to be 6,000 square feet of open loft area, he told me in mid-April, would have a whole new identity.

For about two years, Silverman, 34, had been working day and night toward that moment -- pinning down details, studying the marketplace. There were dozens of other recording studios within a 10-minute cab ride -- and hundreds of them within a half hour. But in spite of all the competition, Silverman was amazingly confident. While most studios put their resources into the latest equipment, Sanctuary, he explained, was going to offer something different. His model wasn't another drab studio with "battery acid for coffee," but a service-minded hotel, maybe even an inn.

Silverman had already spent more than $380,000 on the construction -- much of it behind the walls in extensive sound-proofing and electrical work. And in May, he needed to begin generating income. A few weeks before the target, there were already signs that word of Sanctuary was beginning to spread. The studio's full-time manager, Howard Kessler, had recently booked 80 hours of time in the studio's most expensive room for The Washington Squares, a folk-rock group recording a new album. It's not the kind of group that Silverman expects the studio to draw -- he anticipates more business from dance-music, R&B, and pop types -- but he's not picky. He's happy to cater to anyone who will play.

WHEN MUSICIANS USE A RECORDING studio, they pay an hourly rate for the privilege of using a room and some of the owner's equipment. If they need other equipment, clients either bring their own or rent it. Depending on what they're working on, they'll spend from two hours to several months doing and redoing their work. Oftentimes, they end up working all night putting down a few tracks, breaking only for meals or a few hours of sleep. But despite all the time and energy that goes into recording, mixing, and editing sound, most studios don't do much of anything to make the lives of their clients less frazzled. Among other things, most studios are seedy or sterile, with crummy bathrooms, no showers, and nowhere to take a nap.

Sanctuary is aimed specifically at professional musicians and engineers who are tired of the drudgery of such a studio life. Sure, it's going to have a lot of snazzy equipment ($700,000 worth). But at least half of the thinking, it seems, has gone into making it -- in Silverman's words -- "very un-studiolike." It has a full kitchen, a private bath with shower, a guest room, four private lounges, and a full-time staff of at least four people who'll be on hand 24 hours a day. To give it some style, Sanctuary will be furnished with sofas and whimsical artifacts from the 1950s that Silverman has been collecting from all over the country. And despite its investments in comfort and image, Sanctuary will charge the same kinds of rates as its midpriced competitors.

Silverman didn't pull his idea out of the blue. Among other things, he is the founder of an independent record company in New York City called Tommy Boy Music Inc. (now half-owned by Warner Bros. Records), which has specialized in dance and rap music since its inception. Over the past decade, Silverman has spent many a long night behind control panels of studios all over the city. (He likes the business so much that he built a studio in his uptown apartment.) But none of the studios he used -- none of the midpriced ones, anyhow -- provided the overall service he was looking for. He'd book time in them, paying an average of $75 for a studio hour in the Times Square area, but he wasn't happy. And neither, he sensed, were a lot of other people.

Silverman says he got serious about building his own commercial studio only a year or so ago, when his studio at home was being converted into a baby's room. But listening to him talk, it seems he's been thinking about it for years. "I knew what all the scams were," he says. In fact, the section of his business plan called "The Competition" reads like the memoirs of a disgruntled record producer who's had his fill of studio experience:

Competitor 1: Small studios, relatively claustrophobic. Dirty old bathrooms. "Two-elevator building, with one usually out of service . . . In the sleazy Times Square area." Booked 80% of time.

 1 | 2 | 3 | 4  NEXT