A recording experience to remember!
Blog by Louise Dodgson under Recording & Production
You may have already seen, as part of our 10th birthday shenanigans, that we are offering some wonderful money-saving discounts on a variety of music services to our members. One such discount is generously provided by Castle Rock Studios, who have enticing deals on recording and rehearsals available. These studios really are outstanding and bands from across the UK are travelling to use their facilities, and keep coming back for more! So we thought we’d take this opportunity to speak to Castle Rock Managing Director, John Stretford, and tell you more what CRS has to offer, within their studios and beyond.
(If you’re already a member of The Unsigned Guide, please get in touch to get full details of our exclusive 10th birthday discounts. If you’re not already a member, sign up during March and you’ll automatically be sent details too.)
Why did you decide to set up Castle Rock?
Over the last 2-3 years, before building the studio, our event company (Castle Rock Events) had been working with more & more bands and artists. In the main they were unsigned bands which we used to entertain our clients guests at numerous functions and celebrations, not only in the UK but Europe as well.
When speaking to bands a constant theme of inadequate rehearsal facilities which were either cold and/or damp and also had terrible sound-proofing were top of the ‘gripe’ list. Access, as in location & load in, were also raised on a number of occasions. We had the building at this point and had fought with the council for nearly 7 years to gain planning permission to do anything with it. So we thought it would make a great space for band rehearsals with maybe a basic studio upstairs for those that used the facility.
We also worked with a number of named artists at the time, specifically working on the event production element, which brought us into contact with Stereophonics, Joss Stone, Simon Webb, Shayne Ward, Rhydian and others. Again, we got the feedback from them that nobody was building high-end studios anymore and some of the established studios had not moved on and re-invested in equipment, for example.
We decided from there to, not only build a high-end rehearsal facility, but also invest heavily in the upper studio. For example, our main control desk was going to be an Avid controller, circa £10k. Various record producers, artist managers and national promoters SJM Concerts visited the studio in the development stage and told us we had a real chance of being the premier studio in the area BUT the proposed desk would not fit the buildings fantastic potential. So we opted for a high-end SSL AWS 924 control desk coming in at circa £50k! This has proved to be a wise investment and has attracted much attention from the trade.
Our ethos from the outset was to provide professional surroundings, recording and rehearsal facilities for the unsigned market but at the same time make the studio attractive to established artists as well.
So what facilities does the studio have & what stands CRS apart from the rest?
Obviously, our desk is very high end – SSL AWS924 – and we are the only commercially available studio in the North West with this desk! We’re also running the latest version of Pro Tools 10 HDX and presently have 5 engineers working at CRS which gives our clients access to a huge amount of skill and experience.
We have 5 live rooms, all superbly sound-treated, of which 3 are also used for rehearsal sessions. There is also a live lounge (The Druids Circle) where bands can perform to their own audience. The control room for the upper level studio is connected to all 5 live rooms which enables us to create for example awesome sounding drums from our performance lounge and capture room sounds from different live rooms around the building.
Isolation in the building is superb - there is very little, if any, sound bleed/leakage which means we can operate every room at the same time without bands impacting on each other sessions.
We also believe the rates for rehearsal are very keen. We often hear of bands who are paying maybe £5 less per hour but the space is very poor, hard to get to, stairs to load your gear in, it’s cold and damp and you can hear the band next you. Our rates are £40 for 3 hour session including PA and mics.
Where rehearsals are concerned we are presently running at a 98% return rate which shows if bands experience CRS, they come back again and again!
The Druids CircleCreating long term relationships with the bands that use Castle Rock seems very important to you…
We are very much into championing unsigned talent and we believe that the creativity of the grassroots level will now, and in the future, shape the music industry.
When we set out we wanted the grassroots market to gain access to high-end facilities and also have opportunities to showcase their talents, and we believe the more we can do for them, the more we will grow our own musical community. We don’t want to be just a rehearsal space or a recording studio - we want to be able to offer gigs to bands through our event division, promote bands using our involvement in events such as the Headlander festival, and possibly in future look at setting up our own label.
How else can new bands benefit from coming to Castle Rock?
The feedback we have received so far from clients is that they believe themselves they have stepped up a gear when they come to our studios. They feel they are in professional surroundings; they are certainly treated as such by our staff. CRS does help bands raise their game and treat their talent with respect.
It is also more likely that bands that come through our doors will be involved in our external activities. Recently, we used a track by Fidel & The Castro, who have been rehearsing at CRS for a while, as part of our Real XS radio campaign. This meant their track was on the radio every day for 4 months and as a result they’ve gained great promotion from it and picked up gigs.
We also have 6 slots at Headlander Festival available to our customers. At the moment, we’re organising our own 2 day festival to be held here at CRS. The event is purely for those that have worked here so they can showcase their talents.
And finally, what’s the best thing about working at Castle Rock?
It’s such a buzz! Over the last 6 to 7 months we’ve recorded over 50 bands and artists and chalked up over 140 rehearsal sessions. We’ve had bands go on to get a small recording deal from a demo we did. We’ve had bands such as THE 1975 come in who have gone on to be on the bill for Glastonbury this year. We’ve laid down the strings for Jonathan Ansell’s new project, of which I was delighted to use a local string quartet, rather than from London as suggested by the producer. We’ve also signed our first artist, Milla Muse, who has just been offered a performance at The Montreux Jazz Festival…so I suppose for me it’s the diversity of our operations, the challenges we face and the goals we have achieved so far.
Find out more about Castle Rock Studios here:
www.castlerockstudios.co.uk
Find out more about Castle Rock Studios here:
www.castlerockstudios.co.uk
Tags
castle rock studios, recording studios, rehearsal rooms, rehearsal studios, unsigned bands, unsigned artists, demo recording
