Studio For Sale



hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

That's thrown the cat among the pigeons. I was considering converting the garage, but now....

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getting better all the time..

A prime London location without any preservation order or special listing barriers. Now that must be worth a pretty penny.
Sadly, no matter what Boote has said, there must be a strong chance it will not be a recording studio for too much longer.

Quote Airfix:

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A prime London location without any preservation order or special listing barriers. Now that must be worth a pretty penny.
Sadly, no matter what Boote has said, there must be a strong chance it will not be a recording studio for too much longer.

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it does have several protection and preservation orders on it. It's also a trading company outside of Boote (and his consortiums) investors. Understand why Boote has to sell and it'll all become clear:)....

it will remain a studio (partially because, under terms of the buildings current lease, it cant be anything else).

Quote narcoman:

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Quote Airfix:

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A prime London location without any preservation order or special listing barriers. Now that must be worth a pretty penny.
Sadly, no matter what Boote has said, there must be a strong chance it will not be a recording studio for too much longer.

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it does have several protection and preservation orders on it. It's also a trading company outside of Boote (and his consortiums) investors. Understand why Boote has to sell and it'll all become clear:)....

it will remain a studio (partially because, under terms of the buildings current lease, it cant be anything else).

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Ah! That does change things.
Thanks narcoman.
As to why Boote has to sell, I'm thinking he needs the money.

I've sent an email

Admittedly, it is for discount viagra. There will be stiff competition for the studio, and it will be hard on the industry. I can see the price staying up for a long time.

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'You know it's a bad role when Nic Cage passes on it.'

Apparently Trevor Horn is interested

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www.oliversheen.com

People still make movies in England right?
I'm reading there are only three facilities like Air in London. That surely helps the seller. That, and the movie business having made some impressive profits in the last ten years, bodes well for Air and the likes. Lyndhurst Hall is the business. What a hall!!

I was originally thinking Boote might have a problem selling - now I dont think so. Depending of course, on how much he'll let it go for. Any guesses?

forum group buy.... anyone?



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www.Lozjackson.com

Quote narcoman:

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it will remain a studio (partially because, under terms of the buildings current lease, it cant be anything else).

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It would require planning permission for any change of use as well.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote Bossman:

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forum group buy.... anyone?

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I've got £26, count me in!

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

the big problem is see is this. Air is moderately profitable. Moderately - for the current owners. Selling the leasehold on the building AND the business? I don't think, in 2012 with interest on such deals, that the overheads (including the lease) are sustainable. It will take a cash buyer who loves the studio for this to work.....

Quote shufflebeat:

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Quote Bossman:

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forum group buy.... anyone?

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I've got £26, count me in!

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... and I'll do a paper-round...

the forum has 94462 registered members... If we all chip in £50 then we'd have 4.7 Million.. do you think that'd be enough?

does anyone know how much its going for? all I've read is "the Air selling price will run into several million pounds"!..

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www.Lozjackson.com

Hmmm, if we each get a day in Air for our 50 quid, sort of time share basis, then we each get a turn roughly once every 250 years - bargain, count me in.

CC

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Put the fun back into dysfunctional.
Mr Punch's Studio

Quote ConcertinaChap:

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Hmmm, if we each get a day in Air for our 50 quid, sort of time share basis, then we each get a turn roughly once every 250 years - bargain, count me in.

CC

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No good, some sneak is bound to put in 100 notes and get an extra day!

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote Bossman:

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the forum has 94462 registered members... If we all chip in £50 then we'd have 4.7 Million.. do you think that'd be enough?

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It would never work. You know what it's like with shared facilities - you'd spend half of your precious day shopping for tea, milk, biscuits etc because the last person who used it didn't bother to restock the fridge. Or clean the toilet. Or put the cables away properly.

No man, count me out..

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getting better all the time..

Quote Bossman:

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the forum has 94462 registered members... If we all chip in £50 then we'd have 4.7 Million.. do you think that'd be enough?

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Theres probably about that much in gear alone!

Quote Airfix:

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A prime London location without any preservation order or special listing barriers. Now that must be worth a pretty penny.
Sadly, no matter what Boote has said, there must be a strong chance it will not be a recording studio for too much longer.

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As Narcoman has pointed out, it's a leasehold and there are very restrictive covenants on use and maintenance. Angel is in the same boat and is also a former Pentecostal church.

The truly sad fact is, that some idiot will be sentimental enough to 'rescue' this turkey and throw a great deal of good money away, when for a fraction of the cost, you could build a much better and larger studio from scratch in an out-of-town shed on an industrial estate.

There is one good and profitable thing you can do with a recording studio in London - but that involves a large yellow machine with the letters JCB painted on the side.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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The truly sad fact is, that some idiot will be sentimental enough to 'rescue' this turkey and throw a great deal of good money away, when for a fraction of the cost, you could build a much better and larger studio from scratch in an out-of-town shed on an industrial estate.

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One hand yes, i agree. But as for building another studio out of town? Fraid not (have a look what happened to a nice £1.4million spend in a certain Park Royal studio... ). To make it work in the European media market (which is absolutely London based no matter how much Berlin or Paris thinks its making headway - more German films are mixed in London than in Germany!! Why? It's where the offices of all the distributor and financiers are - USA companies based in UK) you absolutely have to be on a tube line. No two ways about it. ALL of there UK film people are still working around soho and as such - further afield than Abbey Road etc won't cut it. Same goes for post mixes and score mixes. The location is ideal - the amount of business cannot sustain that studio as it is.

What's needed is a smaller more nimble company with far lower overhead using a building in a similar position (but not necessarily recording at all. One facility would suffice)...... ahem . Whether people like it or not - live film score recording is the mainstay of the AAA product OR some smaller Clint Mansell type project where Air etc aren't required.

Jake Jacksons approach to running film score is bang on. London based; mobile; uses all studios; connected to Air Edel (not to be confused with Air studios) ; the right price; the right buzz; the right location.....

There are lots of Jake Jacksons all over the World and not just in London. They have their favourite studios and their pet musicians and people they know. I sometimes walk into the control room (to clear the empty bottles) and see that the musician being recorded is in China, NY or somewhere.

The problem for everybody at all levels in this industry, is that the old days of musicians in a recording studio are over. That does not mean that we are no longer recording music, but the prestige room just there for recording music is long past its shag-by-date.

The studio is dead - long live the studio!

This fact also has a bearing on the education industry. Teaching kids to do just one media activity is TOTALLY wrong. It is as wrong and makes the same mistake, as the idea that you can record a CD of music and sell it. At the same time, the whole AV industry cannot find enough suitably qualified systems engineers capable of covering all bases, from DMX programming, to DVD authoring and everything from camera work to fiddling with ProTools in between.

Any facility that wants to earn a profit, has to be able to be a conference centre, a recording studio and a TV studio all at once. You cannot do that at today's prices in any city centre. The film boys would be perfectly prepared to spend £12k to £50k a day, the rest of the music industry will just have to sit at home in their converted back rooms, or find a local shed that is cheap. I'm sure that the supply of blue-eyed nutters opening demo rooms will not abate any time soon!

I am perfectly convinced that the London music recording scene would be far healthier if the Big Three would close down (and their owners would face reality and stop subsidising other people's projects).

Then you would all have to pay real money and hire a sound stage at Pinewood!

On another topic, most German films are made by or for public broadcasting and they definitely do not use London! The few big German films made for the likes of Disney etc., are however often (but not always) getting their film scores recorded in London.

Paris has a music scene? Good heavens! I bet they still have difficulties keeping the beat!

We're not talking about music. We're talking about studios supplying resources to various parts of the ends industry.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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They have their favourite studios and their pet musicians and people they know. I sometimes walk into the control room (to clear the empty bottles) and see that the musician being recorded is in China, NY or somewhere.

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Absolutely right - but the mix and post for a great deal of the worlds content is done in London. Far more in LA, obviously. But everywhere else has a trickle. Don't underestimate how much is still done around London. One of the UKs stronger areas in terms of export - not that the UK gov even notices!! A lot of bollywood, for example, is conformed and graded here.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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The problem for everybody at all levels in this industry, is that the old days of musicians in a recording studio are over. That does not mean that we are no longer recording music, but the prestige room just there for recording music is long past its shag-by-date.

The studio is dead - long live the studio!

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That has very little to do with Air et al. That's not their core business.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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The film boys would be perfectly prepared to spend £12k to £50k a day

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No they wouldn't. Take it from someone who works in that biz (500ish games scores and 150ish movies). I agree that they don't need Air et al, they don't even bother recording full orchestra any more - mainly because a full orchestra isn't every film. But post production, score mixing and dubbing - Outside of LA its London. And no they won't go out of town - Park Royal couldn't get them to travel off piste even IN London. The dubbing, post and film score mixing scene is STILL about taxi rides and one hour get togethers.

And this is not core music industry. Air and Abbey Road are booked all of the time and in profit (although not an attractive one WRT to what you COULD do with that land).

Quote The Red Bladder:

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On another topic, most German films are made by or for public broadcasting and they definitely do not use London!

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ha!!!

Quote narcoman:

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Quote The Red Bladder:

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On another topic, most German films are made by or for public broadcasting and they definitely do not use London!

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ha!!!

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You can tell them a mile off, because they are invariably badly made. No proper use of grips, poor framing, toe-curlingly wooden acting, scripts that must have taken at least a day to write, little or no lighting and special effects that make 'Dukes of Hazard' look like Star-Wars.

And then there is the music . . . oh God! Generic, repetitive drivel - and that would be the good ones!

There have been brilliant films financed and/or made by German public broadcasting, but 'Das Boot' and 'Goodbye Lenin!' were a long, long time ago.

What happened to the Shepperton Studios expansion? Weren't they planning to devour the surrounding countryside and become a centre for everything film. No potential to site a studio there?

Good question!

But Narcoman is right, the metropolitan glitterati really do hang out around Curzon Street and expect the World to come to them!

Thinking about the UK, and the state of eveything. It's true that we have all these younguns walking around with all their degrees in 'soft' subjects and that - if we listen to the experts - we need to manufacture and export. It makes sense, we have to make things if we wan't to participate in this international economy game.

When you look at us and our strengths there's a laning towards the creative and the inventive, and it also suits the British character. We have a good proven track record too.

Perhaps we should stop looking at whippet flange manufacture and think about this huge body of untapped talent (currently sitting about in the pub) that we have here. We've been educating people for fifteen years in things that are now deemed pretty much useless; just not technical enough, not engineeringy and methematical enough. But is that really completely true?

Every creative industy that we get into we excel at.

We have a huge infrastructure too, but it's being allowed (by markets, policy, funding, changing distribution landscapes) to fall to bits. The devastation seems to my simple mind to be akin to the way our whippet-flange industries were allowed to fall apart in the 80s.

There must be some way to pull this all together and capitalise on this romantic libertarian bohemian creative way that we are.

Perhaps put the BBC at the centre. Getting behind real music on R1 might be a start. Getting behind low-budget on their umpteen digital challels could be another.

So much could be done and so many people to do it.