Indie Recording Studio Vs. the Billboard Studios

As a musician or band it is always hard to know where your hard earned money will be best spent. One thing is for sure, money does not come easily. What money you do have, you want to be sure you put it in the right place and get the most bang for your buck. That being said, what is the right studio for you. If you are looking to record your next album, EP or single, how will you go about choosing a studio. Should you spend thousands extra and go with the multimillion dollar studio or go with the local indie studio? Which one is going to bring you the best results and get you the sound you are looking for?

There is a lot to be said for both individual recording situations. The multimillion dollar studios are very impressive and have a lot to offer. They have all the gear that has made hits through the decades. They look great and have an amazing vibe to them. But is that alone a reason to record there, especially at the high price they bring. Compare that to the local indie studio that might be in someones garage, basement or spare room. It might not look or feel nearly as impressive but can yield you high results for a fraction of the cost. So, what is the difference and which one will you choose? One main difference is the amount of analog gear that a multimillion dollar studio has compared with the local indie studio. But this is not as big as you might think. As technology grows this is becoming a smaller cavern between the two. We live in the age of technology and progress. This means that there is more competition out there and competitive prices. Companies are making really great products at a fraction of the price of their competitors. Now you don’t need a bunch of really expensive analog gear and pricey microphones. People are making great recordings on a budget. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely get what you pay for and all of the expensive gear will get you a better sound. But most of the time it is not as big of a difference as the cost to a high end studio. The reason for this is that almost every piece of analog gear has been reproduced in digital format. In a lot of cases the best engineers from around the world say they can hardly tell the difference between the two. This means that the local indie studio can get you a comparable sound at a fraction of the price. Everything in the recording can be done in the box, which means on a computer by using digital versions of real thing. Although these digital plug-ins are very pricy, they allow indie studios to get amazing results.

All of this is great for indie studios and will get you amazing results but only if you know what you are doing. This brings me to my final and most important point. All the flashy gear, microphones, amps, instruments, plug-ins, etc will not sound good at all if you don’t know what you are doing. The worst engineer oil the world will still make bad sounding recordings at the best studio in the world. Just as the best engineer in the world will make great recordings at the worst studio in the world. Be sure that the studio you choose knows how to work the goods. In the end that is what will matter in making you sound amazing. It is also worth noting that most of the time your local indie studio is willing to go the extra mile for you and really help you bring your project to life while allowing you to be creative. This is something that gets lost in the big time studios, mainly because they are much more of a money machine and don't care as much about the artist. The local guys have more to prove and are willing to go the extra mile for you or your band. The next time you go to record consider your local indie studio and get to know them by building relationships and making great music together.

We are Sky Studios WNC, a local recording studio in Asheville North Carolina. It would be our pleasure to help you bring your next project to life. If you are looking for a great music studio or recording studio consider us at Sky Studios WNC. www.skystudioswnc.com

Some of our equipment includes: https://www.uaudio.com, https://www.avid.com/pro-tools , https://www.fender.com , https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-kontrol/ , https://www.soundtoys.com , and much more!!!

Who We Are & Why We Do It

I wanted to write about who we are and why we do what we do, basically our DNA here at Sky Studios WNC. We are a locally owned recording - music studio in the Asheville, NC area. Our passion is making great quality music at an affordable price. We aspire to be the top recording studio in Asheville NC and don’t want to sacrifice quality for quantity of price. We pride ourselves on paying attention to detail and want to be an asset to the artist while bringing their project to life. Unlike many other recording studios we record in sections and have the artist sign off on each part of their project. This allows the artist to have full creative control over their project and ideas. It takes a little more time but it leaves endless creative possibilities. Music is a process and creativeness doesn't all come in one day. To track everything in one day really hinders the creativeness of everyone involved, from the artist all the way down to the producer and engineers. We strive to be on the side of the artist and not money. We believe in our artist and only want to add to their success and careers.

Why do we take this approach? Well…. when I was young in the music industry I got totally burned by a big studio for thousands of dollars and never want any artist to have to go through that. We know how hard musicians/artist/bands work and how their music is apart of who they are. It is not fair to sell them a lie take their money and forget about them after the final payment. For this reason we started Sky Studios WNC.

On the next blog I want to share a little bit about me personally and how I got here. I will also share our goals, dreams and aspirations, not only for our studio but for our artist.

Blessings, Brian (Owner, Musician, Engineer and Producer)

Making of Beautiful Surrender

We had so much fun bringing Dakota Blakely’s song Beautiful Surrender to life at Sky Studios WNC. Sky Studios serves Asheville NC and all the surrounding areas. Dakota is an Asheville based christian artist and worship leader. He was formerly a worship pastor at The Rock Church in Asheville NC. To bring his project to life we used all kinds of amazing gear and goodies. We started with vintage Gretsch drums that brought a larger than life sound. Then we laid down the bass tracks with a Fender run through an Ampeg bass rig. The guitars were tracked with a Telecaster and Kemper rig. Acoustic guitars were tracked with a Taylor and multiple AKG mics. The finishing touches were the keys and vocals. After layering multiple key tracks it really brought the whole mix together and made it pop. Vocals were the final stage and we had so much fun with them in the studio. Tacking was done on an Avatone C12 and sounded amazing. We pride ourselves on great gear and amazing tone. This is done through Protools 12, Universal Audio and a bunch of amazing plugins. We have Neve preamps, Neve Channel Strips, API Channel Strips, Universal Audio preamp and much more. We were so honored to work with Dakota and look forward to finishing the rest of his album this year.