Hearty "Howzit" From South Africa! (Howzit, is a local SA slang word for : Hello/Welcome/Greetings)

Well it has been many years in the making, and now coming to fruition that I post this first thread of an entirely new build of the future - "Cape Town Recording Studios."

We have finally secured a massive 1300Sq/metre warehouse with securely attached parking for up to 30/40 cars.

We are a husband/wife team that has recently been married, and have both been in the music industry for many years in our own rights, having done a few albums of our own, and produced and recorded some of South Africa's best known artists, in previously self owned studios. Namely : Dreamspace Recording Studios, which in the past has had 4 different locations in 2 cities and has been growing into becoming this venture. We started out specialising in music production for a few years, then we moved into specialising in English dubbing as we have dubbed & recorded over 100 foreign films, and over 20 Foreign Series (each containing at least 30 to 60 episodes)

But now, we are re-branding & expanding to "Cape Town Recording Studios" and will finally commence our "Dream Studio Build" which will specialise and house both

The warehouse is situated next to the "Cape Town International Airport" and the address will officially be : 1 Aviation Crescent, Airport City, Cape Town, South Africa 8000.

The Plan thus far.
+++++++++++++

Phase 1: Most of 2014.

- In first initial phase we will be building the following:

- x 7 Recording Studios (14 Rooms)
- 6 Control Room/Booth V/O Facilities - Specializing in English Dubbing. From Any Foreign language to English. (All Pro Tools HD Native Thunderbolt based)
- x1 Music Production Control Room (Hybrid) with 2x ISO booths attached for Radio/TV/Music Production/Composition.
- Kitchen/Canteen/Bar Area
- Open plan mezzanine level for scripting/script adaptation/Production Management
- Studio Offices
- 5 Toilet facilities.
- Enclosed Boardroom Meeting Area

Phase 2: In late 2014, early 2015.

We will then endeavour:

- Adding on another x2 TV/Radio Post Production mid-sized Control Room/Booths. Specialising in Post Production.

- Building a Neve based Large Format Console Music Production Studio with a Large Tracking Room attached, and x 2 Extra ISO Booths on each side. Specializing in Music Recording.

Attached here are very first pics of the warehouse literally as we found it.

Enjoy, and chat soon.

Wayne Joshua

uau

The building is completely yours? Or is it shared with other companies?

Wow! I see a lot of beautiful possibilities...

Congratulations on this very beautiful home for Cape Town Recording Studios!

Wow, very ambitious. A good location for transport, between the suburbs and the city. What artists have you worked with in the past?

It's ours entirely. Including the parking

Hi Winny!

Somehow remember you from my childhood! hahaha

Here's a little list of who we've worked with in S.A. in the past.... In our previous studios : Dreamspace Recording Studios. Dreamspace Recording Studio's » Audio Post | Composition | Final Mix | Voice Overs | Music

Some of the Music:

Ard Matthews
Locnville
Gazelle
J.R.
Jon Savage
Joshua Grierson
The Plastics
Adrian Meehan - (Producer / Robbie Wiliams - Rudebox)
Merseystate
Aaron Schwartz - Formerly of Freshlyground
Vicky Sampson - EMI
Zolani - Freshlyground
Jeremy Loops
Rayban
Fokofpolisiekar
Van Coke Kartel
Die Heuwels Fantasties
7 FT Soundsystem
Two Minute Puzzle
Fahrenheit
Michael Copley
Claudia Mohr
EMI
SONY

and companies:

Commercials (TV & Radio) - Film - Series - Score

Ogilvy - Cape Town
Volkswagen
FEMME FATALE - Los Angeles based Series for HBO
Shoprite - Money Transfer
Tanit Phoenix
Pretty 24-7.com
Orange Cellular Networks Ad Campaign
Douglas Green / Ribshack Red TV Advert
Gavin Rajah Cape Town Fashion Week Music
Optimal Energy - Joule Showcase @ Geneva Motor Show
M-Net Supersport
Volvo
ORIJIN

Stay well.

Wayne

Hi, excuse my ignorance But what does uau mean?

Best regards and thanks in advance!

Wayne

That's an impressive SA client list, (you may even have met my brother in law Justin at Ogilvy) I'm looking forward to the build. BTW If you are looking for anyone to assist you musically or in the studio build my buddy Jon would be a great guy to work with, he's fronted the bands Stepdog & Johannine, studied music tech & has a background in woodworking. Pm me if you want his contact info. Good luck!

Edit: assist as in "assistant" of course : )

Thank you - ill call or contact if I need help. I have built 5 studios so far since I was young and now have much info on the right way. I have a great building team to boot too. I made many rookie errors in the past so I'm certain I'll try avoid those, I also have great literature ordered via amazon, and also an acoustician for reference (Pat foster) and my Father (Hilton Hirschson) who built many studios luckily in the past. Hopefully we can do it right this time. There are certain rules you just can't break, plus we are floating concrete floors on neoprene which should do the trick. Watch this space)

Best regards to all. From sunny South Africa!! We will be offering "Sound Safari's" to artists the world over when were done. And our facility will be top notch and the price will be right as our currency is 10 to 1 to the Dollar (USA) so should be attractive to international clientele. Hopefully Come visit S.A!!!!

Wayne Joshua

We'll we attain the keys to the warehouse by tomorrow mid-day, so here's just an aeriel shot of the place in the meantime, its been cleared and being cleaned as to be ready for our arrival, and building over the next few months.

Best regards

W.

..sweet this will be fun to follow...good luck

Here's some more of the empty shell, my wife (Claudia) and I.

Just got the keys. Big Day

Will post some plans soon. Enjoy

We'll after many drafts, we are at near completion of one of our final drawings. Much reasoning and thought has gone in and this is where we're at right now for phase 1. (The dubbing/ADR rooms) plus a slightly bigger room as the 7th room for post work. Busy on sketchup doing some 3d plans for rooms and how aircon will be silenced, and how floors with have pull ups, where they'll be located etc. sound locks aren't drawn in here but will be added between rooms. And we should be ordering 10 000 bricks within next 3 days so we can start building outer walls. We will float all rooms within on concrete mass spring mass systems.

Enjoy!

Wayne

So excited for this! Going to be the best studio in South Africa for sure.

Umm - Who is designing this - seems very clunky to me!

Wish you all the best though but that initial plan seems poor IMHO

I don't have any experience building studios, but it seems quite odd to me to build a facility that has 7 studios that are all the same size. If you're doing music, wouldn't you want a variety of different acoustic spaces?

Re-reading the original post, I guess you'll build something more geared for music in stage 2 and these are more for V/O stuff.

If you read the first post, you'll understand whats going on.

We arent in phase 2 yet, so for now these rooms are all to be seamless & uniform, as we're doing many V/O recordings that have to translate as one room. Hence the similarities, and this section of the business is made for V/O only. And small mix spaces for TV/radio mixing.

Our music phase 2 will be much more diverse and have 3 iso booths and possibly 2 control rooms, or maybe only 1, but it'll be very diverse for all musical situations. (Big tracking room 100sq/m or slightly bigger, + Med ISO Drum room + Piano and VO Rooms)

Watch this space.

Ciao

We're busy working closely with Pat Foster, to make sure our air supply & aircon systems are silenced upon entry to our dubbing rooms. These are some sketch ups of what were planning on doing. The walls here are outer brick walls, the inner isn't drawn here, and final acoustication not present yet. Watch this space

Regards

Here's a look at the inner room, which will be floated on concrete floors (Jack-up system perhaps, were currently refining our ideas) obviously not touching anything else around it.

Trying to keep everything nicely arranged so that all air vents, even though silent, won't blow into the microphone symmetrically etc etc,
and these rooms need to run almost 24/7, so our needs are temperature control, fresh air, absolute silence, and must be comfortable enough for 3 hour vocal sessions back to back.

Enjoy

Hi wayne! Howzit

I'm currently residing in Cape Town as well, So naturally this thread caught my eye. You guys are very lucky to have such a beautiful space to redesign and get going again, and I wish you best of luck in your future endevours. I am an audio engineering student at the moment so I'm very interested in any development in the music business. Will keep my eye on this thread, and hope things go off without a hitch.

Once again good luck and keep up the awesome work you guys do!

Hey Jon,

you've made a critical point here, we are sitting around a table rediscussing our initial plan for the dub rooms, because aesthetic means a lot to us, and because we were trying to budget and make shorter lines (cables,aircon, electrics etc etc) of entry, we may have sacrificed on aesthetic and feel, so we've returned to the drawing board to create more pleasing environments.

Thanks for the input, you must always listen to criticism carefully, and you had a good point even though our functions were met.

Watch this space closely - for a more up to date final draft, and design.

Best regards

Wayne

Hi Wayne,

Glad you did not take offence - it was meant to be constructive and not un-kind.

So are you designing this yourself then - if so - for a project of this size I can't recommend a professional designer enough. It's just like building a house - you know what you want but an architect will give you what you want but a way you would not have thought of yourself!

All the best,

J

Jon, I couldn't agree more. We had about 7 designs, and over last few weeks have gone through many, but even after consulting some local acousticians, we've found that in South Africa, we may lack certain up to date design philosophies. Our way, and our vision, (my wife and I) are to forward the South African music and film industries as to attract international clientele, and do better work, and represent a cohesive and seamless workflow that can shine internationally and make for a destination recording environment. We may now turn to more experienced people such as 'Wes Lachot' for some design help on our phase 2 build. We know a lot about studios, but maybe not enough to be an internationally competitive build, so we will now turn to the pro's and your comment was invaluable, thank you No offence taken! Gearslutz is about learning, and we are welcoming input, thats why we put up our thread.

Best regards, keep an eye out as we might just surprise you, and we'll put our best foot forward. We aren't called "Cape Town Recording Studios" for nothing!

Only the best, chat soon

Wayne Joshua

So were toying with all new ideas for our dubbing section of the business, here's a first sketch of our rethought design, per two room block. We will add sound locks on next drawing. Rather making fully sure were happy with all prep and design before we commit to a build.

Best regards from sunny South Africa,

Wayne Joshua

Starting to look nice guys!

As we go, I'm uploading pics, please comment as we enjoy feedback from all.

Regards

WJ

Here's a final draft, looking at this sort of thing with a little sound lock attached, for dubbing artists it'll be a place they can hang their coats, put down their keys etc, and then step into dub ios booths, and record.

Looks exciting. Best of luck to you both and looking forward to more photos to come!