Overview

This is the day of the small recording studio. Musicians are interested in making demonstration records to develop their style and to sell their sounds. There are hundreds of small recording studios operated by not-for-profit organizations that turn out a prodigious quantity of material for educational, promotional, and religious purposes. Studios are required for the production of campus and community radio, television, and cable programs. All of these have limited budgets and limited technical resources. The operator of these small studios is often caught between a desire for top quality and the lack of means, and often the know-how to achieve it. This chap. is aimed primarily to those in these needy groups, although the principles expounded are more widely applicable.

What is a good recording studio? There is only one ultimate criterion-the acceptability of the sound recorded in it by its intended audience. In a commercial sense, a successful recording studio is one fully booked and making money. Music recorded in a studio is pressed on discs or recorded on tape and sold to the public. If the public likes the music, the studio passes the supreme test. There are many factors influencing the acceptability of a studio beside sound studio quality, such as the type of program and the popularity of the performers, but studio quality is vital, at least for success on a substantial, long-range basis.

Public taste must be pleased for any studio to be a success. Producing a successful product, however, involves many...