Studio owner Tony Espinoza (pictured, left, with producer JerryHarrison) recently built a major facility in San Francisco thatincorporates a Solid State Logic SL 9000 J Series SuperAnalogueConsole.
“I have an extensive background in music technology and,through involvement with the Internet business models for the musicindustry, I decided to build San Francisco Soundworks, a studio with adifferent viewpoint,” said Espinoza. “The main room isdesigned around the 9000 J Series because of the legendary sound theboard produces.”
San Francisco Soundworks offers four control rooms that offer thePro Tools|HD system. The main room has Pro Tools|HD and the 9072 JSeries for tracking and mixing, while the other three will be used forproject development.
“Three of the control rooms will be very inexpensive to rent,so we expect them to be busy all the time,” Espinoza said.“The vision here is to experiment with various artists and musicstyles to help define a new sound, using the 9000 J room to finishinternal projects and to service established acts. For the establishedacts, they no longer need to migrate out of the area to mix theirprojects. For new acts, our goal is to work with artist management andbring talented artists to the Bay area.”
The building was an existing post-production facility and home tothe Gumby cartoons. Espinoza purchased the building, renovatedthe workspace and added three stories to the building for living spaceand a large lounge for studio clients. “The idea is that we aregoing to try and build a community center around the studio, withproducers and artists and acts going through all the time,” saidEspinoza. “Some people say that you can’t compete with homestudios, and I think that is all wrong. We aren’t competing,we’re enhancing. To do great records, you still need greatacoustics to capture sounds, an acoustically controlled room to mix thesound and a great-sounding board.”
