Top 10 Tips for a Successful Studio with Matt McQueen

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Matt McQueen started recording as a hobbyist several years ago. Because he was a guitar player and in bands, recording was a side hobby for years, but then he started to invite bands and artists over to his home studio to record, and soon he was busy enough to start recording full time. Now, he is in his own commercial studio!

Today, he is here with us to share his Top 10 Tips for a Successful Studio!

1. Get a workhorse pair of large diaphragm condenser microphones.

2. Keep tools on hand to do basic guitar setups and simple repairs.

3. Keep items around your studio to show hospitality to your clients and take care of their basic needs.

4. Back up your projects to multiple devices. You should have 3 copies of any project you want to keep forever.

5. Get invoicing software or an app to track money from clients.

6. Headphone and distribution system to get a great headphone mix for artists.

7. A chair without arms or with arms that can be moved out of the way.

8. A DI Box and a reamping box.

9. Integrate a patch bay and cabling into your studio.

10. Tuners of all kinds. Clip on and pedal for guitars, and drum dial or Tune-Bot for drums.

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Produce Like A Pro is a website which features great tips to help the beginning recordist make incredible sounding home recordings on a budget.

[Producelikeapro]

What is the best piece of advice you've received about running a studio?

[dysfunctionalmariachi]

Ordinary bloke with great tips. Warren can do it all!!! WOW. Love the creativity in interview choice!

[yens]

Matt sure sounds like he knows what he's talking about! Advice earned and learned by experience...

[spencergroup]

I especially like the tip about backing up to multiple hard drives. When I go in to record as an artist, my engineer has me bring my own hard drive, which I think is a good idea because if for any reason there is some kind of accident at the studio where the hard drives get damaged (in a fire, for example), the artist will have his/her own hard drive and the projects will be safe. Also, studio owners could stock hard drives and resell them to their clients as an additional service they offer. Just an idea.

[floridapunkarchivist]

I own both the tinebot and drumdial....together they made our drummer's 15 year old skins sound good enough instead of gotten new skins since then and now the drums sound amazing

[MojosArmy]

Good tips! Warren - I love that growing collection of art behind you, it brings back memories and warms my heart!

[vaibhavahujate]

I've actually got 2 great ones
so 1 of them is obviously make your client comfortable which you mentioned
and 2nd is an acronym, what I like to call "ABR (Always be Recording)"
This always helps with people who have what I like to call the "Red Light Syndrome" (getting nervous or loosing confidence/ability to play as soon as the Recording is on),
When they ask you to just playback or when setting levels and stuff, always record, cause alot of time, (I MEAN ALOT OF TIMES) that turns out to be some of their best takes.

[kcctradio]

There's a lot of great information here! As a studio owner I agree with everything. One thing I have here in my studio that wasn't mentioned is a regulated power system with battery backup. A stable power supply to audio equipment is important. I have multiple power conditioners in my racks but before that I have regulated power going into those units that provide 2 hours of power should there be a power interruption. The last thing you want during a session is a sudden power interruption that causes you to lose a great take before you can back it up. I had this happen once, and it will never happen again. This is just one of those details no one thinks about until it happens.

[efnerva]

Content like this is just pure gold! Thanks

[MartinLuxen]

oh wow, that is a nice transition! As a guitar player, playing in bands, 40 hour job that pays the bills and having recording/mixing as a hobby, I can relate to this! Well, at least to a certain extend. I don't make any money yet on mixing/recording, but who know! Would be great to turn the hobby into a full time job and awesome to see that it has been done succesfully already!
Thank you for all the tips!

[Dylanklinemusic]

That was outstanding. All good advice and without trying to be impressive with recommendations but instead fully practical. Thanks!

[MixChecks]

I can see why his studio is successful. He just seems like a nice guy to be around. I feel like that's the most important tip that's not on this list.

[HitTheRoadMusicStudio]

Absolutely amazing!! Thanks for sharing 🤘so valuable information here!

[darrenross]

Hi Warren, Matt, great advice, i had a chair with arm rest's on and i play guitar, banging my funny bone started off "hilarious" at first but kind of lost it's humour the 50th time round, so i took the conflicting one off, much better now. Thank you, have a wonderful Christmas, all the best.

[TheFeelButton]

I've never thought too much about running a studio I just am. Good stuff Warren!!

[petesawchuk]

Thanks Matt & Warren! Great tips even for those of us staying home studio-sized.

[AlexeySolovievMusic]

What an interesting and knowledgable interview! Thank you so much Matt and Warren!

[rune]

Great tips, couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m about half way through building my new studio. Great stuff

[toddtv]

Very nicely done. Appreciate the advice from and owner who seems totally down earth about some of the everyday things to have in a studio to keep the workflow flowing.

[JornLavoll]

This is great. And, being from a theatre background, I kept thinking that what he is describing is how to be a great stage manager :) So much crossover usefulness.