We live in pretty sad times when there’s not enough work to sustain the major recording studios that helped supply the sound of hits for generations, but that’s where we are. Last year it was the famed United Studios in Hollywood and before that it was Capitol Studios (although some say it may be reopened in the future). More recently it was reported that the Henson Studios lot (formerly A&M) will be sold, although no one seems sure what will happen to the studios. Now comes word that the legendary Record Plant Hollywood is closing as well.
The Record Plant Hollywood was once one of three Record Plant facilities, the others being in New York City and Sausalito. The New York studio closed in 1987, while Sausalito closed in 1982 but continued to operate as The Plant. It has recently reopened under the name 2200 Studios.
A Sign Of The Times
The biggest problem with any large commercial studio is that since there are fewer and fewer real bands so there’s less need for a large room, as so much of recording today is done in home studios one musician at a time. Not only that, with the majority of current pop music based around loops and samples, there’s even less of a need for a large acoustic space.
Another problem is that many major music studios have large recording rooms, but they’re not quite large enough to fit an orchestra for recording film and television music. That was an issue previously, but today’s reality is that there’s less orchestra recording work than ever before, once again thanks to lower budgets, that have forced composers to use samples instead of the real players.
My biggest fear is that there will come a time when real musicians and bands will be in vogue again, but most of these legendary facilities will be long gone just at the time the demand for them returns.
Word on the street was that the Record Plant had fallen into a state of embarrassing disrepair, something that would have been unheard of during almost any time during its 50 year history. Even superstars who are able to lay out top dollar for a facility that they might not even need find it difficult to bring themselves to book a place when that happens.
So let’s raise a toast to one of the finest recording facilities on the planet that gave us so much legendary music (you can read some of the credits here). There will be a lot of tears flowing by those of us who worked there as we remember back on the good times.
