[Scott Dorsey]

knadles wrote:

The Mackie 8-bus and Alesis ADAT lit the fire and DAWs collapsed the roof. =
The good news is the cost of entry is way cheaper than it used to be. You d=
on't need a $100K console with Flying Faders and a 24-track machine with Do=
lby SR and a half dozen Neumanns anymore. The bad news is that few people a=
re interested in paying you a living sum to operate a recording studio when=
they can buy their own DAW for 60 bucks and some Chinese LDCs for 75 bucks=
each.

The cost of entry on the bottom end is way cheaper than it used to be, but
to go up a notch or two is more expensive than ever before. Good rooms are
not cheap, and when you hire a studio you're hiring a room and a mike kit
and the staff, and everything else comes free in the bargain.

In the seventies, in Honolulu there was.... No Huhu Studio... Sounds of
Hawaii.... Soundcatchers... Commercial Recording Hawaii and Audio-Media
Recording studios who were the two big guys... Alii Audio and Video...
Quenzer-Driscoll... Sea-West Studios... Studio Q on Queen Street...
Oh, and Studio Hawaii, they were the third big studio with a 24-track
machine... Griffin Studio on Kalaukaua... Century.... Cine-Pic...
Sea-West... Rendezvous Recording... Hawaii Recording Company...
Paradise Studios... Paladin Productions... MRT...

Probably a lot more but those are the ones I can remember. Three of
those were big 24-track rooms, some of them like No Huhu survived mostly
on voiceover work and radio jingles. Lots of business doing soundtracks
for tourist visitor centers and the like.

And this was not New York or LA, and it was long before there was any
Hawaiian music renaissance like there is today. These days there are a
whole lot more musicians playing out in the city and I think Blue Planet
is the only place left on the island doing commercial work with a decent
room. I think the A studio at Sounds of Hawaii is now a big garage for
a Porsche shop.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."