Five rooms, one pantry and three months of do-it-yourself labor later, 3 Elliott Studio is almost ready to reopen.
Athens residents Chris Pyle and Josh Antonuccio had recorded music for about three years in their tiny studio behind Pyle's former residence at 3 Elliott St. Their clients now have the benefit of a top-of-the-line, professional studio that is about 75 percent larger than the original.
We decided we wanted to expand the building
make something to function as a studio Pyle said. Before it was just a glorified garage.
Pyle, Antonuccio and many friends have put in long hours at the studio over the summer, completing most of the construction themselves. Some things, such as the hardwood flooring and the roof, were contracted to professionals, Pyle said.
We didn't really know what we were doing he said. Our thing is recording music
not construction.
We learned a lot
Antonuccio added.
The pair also relied on volunteers -they chose friend Matt Cooke as the general contractor of the project, and Chris Weibel, an OU multimedia lab employee, designed the studio almost for free.
I think they paid me a Beatles album
Weibel said. It's a labor of love.
Other friends also stopped by during construction to help with painting, putting up drywall, anything that needed to be done. In fact, without all that help, the project probably wouldn't have happened, Antonuccio said.
The largest part of the studio, designed for full-band sessions, includes no parallel walls -just one of several features intended to enhance sound quality. Each entrance has two doors to block outside noises and to prevent inside sound from getting out. It has double the amount of drywall, including two rooms-within-rooms -freestanding structures built inside the existing walls to isolate sounds.
It's designed to perform acoustically correct
Weibel said. It's a high-end design.
The studio also includes an automated mixing board, allowing a musician to take the tracks home and decide what they want to fix without recording everything again. Analog and digital recording are both offered.
Regardless of the studio's professional new design and the benefits that come with it, Pyle and Antonuccio said they are excited just to be recording music.
Josh and I are just extreme music heads
Pyle said. That's probably our biggest asset: We're big music nerds.
Their love of music also affects how they run their studio. Antonuccio and Pyle charge about $30 an hour, about half of what an artist would pay at a commercial studio.
We know people don't have a lot of money
Pyle said.
Rather than paying an hourly rate, musicians can negotiate a blanket fee to record an entire album, allowing them to take as long as they want in the studio.
We really want to offer something to this music scene
Antonuccio said. When I was a student
there was nothing like this here. We want people to be as excited as we are.
