small town studios

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gsa
ass engineer
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small town studios

Post by gsa » Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:42 am

Is anyone operating a studio in a small town? By small town I mean population less than 10,000 and at least one hour away from any sizable center. What are you experiences and who makes up the bulk of your client base-- high school punk bands? Commercial v/o work, or other?

I ask because I'm in a position where, if I were so inclined, I could be ready to open up shop sometime next year in my tiny little hometown. I'm not so concerned about profit.. I fully expect to keep my day job. If I only break even at least I'm having fun doing what I love, right? As far as I know there is only one studio billing itself as Pro in the entire province, with maybe 6-8 project studios scattered around near the larger cities. At the same time, though, there are less bands to record overall.

Is it naive for me to think that if you work hard to make sure you're the best at what you do, your services will be desireable and you will draw people from further away?

drumsound
zen recordist
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Post by drumsound » Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:20 pm

I'm about two hours from Chicago and three from St Louis. The popultion is bigger than you mentioned, but its still a similar situation. Most of my work is local and the things that I have done from elsewhere were a lot farther out than the cities mentioned. They were TapeOpCon hook-ups, and some internet hook-ups. I've had trouble getting clients from the cities because with the 'home studio revoloution" pro rooms similar to mine are charging the same hourly I am even in bigger markets with higher overhead. I can keep my head above water with a few bigger projects here and there and the small stuff that I do regularly.

I think you should try to make a go of it, but without a hit you probably won't attract much biz from the cities.

YMMV, keep us posted when you go for it.

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