What to Look For in a Recording Studio

Recording Studio Stuff

If you can visit a studio before booking, do. Photos on a website tell you very little about how a room sounds or how a session will feel. This post is a checklist for the visit, room by room, built from what working producers and engineers have said in print.

My main sources are David Mellor’s 1996 Sound On Sound article on choosing a studio, with producer Stephen Street and studio owner Jerry Boys, Tom Flint’s 2016 report on a first studio session, and Neil Rogers’s 2020 article on keeping musicians comfortable. The 1996 article is old and its equipment lists are dated, so I use only its general advice. Items that are my own suggestion are marked.

The control room

Street said the first requirement is that it has to sound right: he needs to put up a mix and be happy with how it sounds in the control room. Mellor lists an accurate control room for judging the mix as one of three acoustic requirements. Street also said he wasn’t keen on huge control rooms with tiny playing areas.

My own suggestion is to ask the engineer to play something you know well, if you have a track with you. That is not from the sources, but it tells you more than a demo reel.

A drum kit on a low platform in a stone-walled recording room, with a window to the control room in the back wall

Image: The Studio 2 drum room at Rockfield Studios, Wales by Steve Knight, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The live room

Street wants a good playing area so the band can be captured “at the peak of their performance”. Mellor says to consider physical size: if you have 30 string players, you need plenty of elbow room. Street said he prefers wood rooms to stone rooms, but this is a personal preference, not a rule.

Look at the sight lines too. Wikipedia says the live room, isolation booths and control room typically have windows because musicians, engineers and producers need to see each other’s cue gestures. Wikipedia also says isolation booths are small rooms for loud instruments, or for drier vocals.

The equipment, and whether it is looked after

Mellor says maintenance is vitally important, along with line-up of the equipment. On tape machines, he writes, analog recorders need regular alignment, ideally for each session. Street said what matters most to him is a well-maintained desk, well-maintained machines and good-sounding speakers, and that a large selection is nice but not the main thing. Mellor adds that as long as equipment is well-maintained, it doesn’t matter how knocked about it appears.

Studio owner Jerry Boys, in the same article, said his house engineers matter because they know the studio and how it sometimes does not work.

So ask: who looks after the gear, how quickly can a fault be fixed, and are there enough microphones for what you want to do?

Cables and patching

A tidy patchbay is a sign of a studio that is easy to work in. Sound On Sound’s 2021 “21 Ways To Improve Your Studio” says tangled cables are a real buzzkill, and that a patchbay keeps things tidy and gives nearly instant access to everything. That article is about home studios, but the logic applies on a visit: look at how the cables are organized behind the desk.

Close-up of rows of patch bay sockets with colored cables plugged in

Image: A patch bay in Control Room A at In Your Ear Studios by Will Fisher from Richmond, VA, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Headphones, talkback and the cue mix

What the performers hear matters as much as what the engineer hears. Rogers says a talkback mic in the control room isn’t enough, so there should be a listen mic or two in the room so artists can speak without shouting or stretching. He also says engineers should aim to make what the performer hears inspire them, and that some musicians like a simple artist-operated headphone mixer for their own mix, and he calls headphone amplification one of the corners most often cut when a studio is set up. So ask how headphone mixes are done. If each player can have a separate mix, that is a good sign. (My own comment: it is an easy question to ask on a visit.)

The people, the vibe and the comfort

Boys said “vibe” is the hardest thing to quantify and the one thing a studio can use to create its own space, since most studios are built by competent acousticians with equipment from the same manufacturers. Rogers wrote that anything contributing to a relaxed atmosphere will have a much bigger impact on most clients than a collection of mic preamps. He lists lighting, artwork, seating, refreshments and somewhere to hang your coat.

Questions about the day itself

From the Kore Studios feature, the studio manager George Apsion says to ask the engineer or studio owner whether setup time is included in the day rate, and how long it is expected to take. I would add, as my own suggestion, to ask what is included: engineer, instruments, and anything that is charged as an extra.

A one-page checklist

  1. Control room: does it sound right, and do you trust it?
  2. Live room: is there enough room for your group, and is it a nice place to play?
  3. Isolation: is there somewhere to put the loud things?
  4. Maintenance: who fixes things, and how fast?
  5. Cabling: is it tidy?
  6. Headphones and talkback: can everyone hear and be heard?
  7. Vibe: would you want to spend ten hours there?
  8. Terms: is setup time in the day rate?

If you are still deciding between studios rather than inspecting one, the series post Careers in Audio, and When to Book a Studio Instead of Recording at Home helps you decide whether to book one at all.

Sources