In the second part of a 3 part series Anthony Dominello investigates an ambitious project based in Philadelphia - Live/Work Recording, LLC  that plan to adapt and reuse vacant blighted property as modern luxury loft style apartments and production suites for music production, with a large live recording room for both residents and outside clients at its core. Anthony asked David Nicholas why do this in Philadelphia?

“Well because…it’s a great city and it’s got a great music heritage, but also of its location [relative to] to New York…it’s in the center of this diamond triangle…where it’s very centrally located to places where nobody can afford to do this sort of thing.  Whereas in Philly, you can afford to do it…the economics don’t work in New York or London or cities where real estate is stupidly expensive.  The thing we’re trying to show, too, is that with all this technology you can be anywhere.  I mean you try to do this in a loft building in New York and the rent would put all the musician type people out of the market.

There’s no point in us just building another big studio.  The only big studios left are the good ones and they’re all on Source Connect so you know we want to be able to partner up with some of them as well and say, ‘Look, we’ve got people that might want to use Lyndhurst to do a string session but they’ll only have the local ones.  But with our technology and our building, they’ll be able to do that from Philly.’

That’s not to say that big studio names aren’t interested or involved.  Apart from Source Elements, SSL is also involved, lending a lovely Nucleus console to the showcase.  David explained that the actual apartments are not going to be equipped, they’re just going to be acoustically treated and soundproofed and can be outfitted by the tenants. 

Image courtesy of Divzi Media

But there will be a larger studio in the same building for ensemble recording and, of course, SSL will be a part of that as well. So how’s the response been?

“The reaction has been great.  We all hate sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. The idea of being able to work in an environment where there’s a lot of people coming and going but also where your workspace, even though it’s connected to your living space is actually a completely separate space so people don’t have to walk through your house to go to your studio. Your studio will be on one floor and all the studios will be there and it will be kind of a professional atmosphere to that space. But then they’re all connected to the apartments above so you’ll still be able to come down in your jammies at three o’ clock in the morning and finish that mix. So it’s about making working at home actually a pleasurable experience and a good experience like upping the quality of the acoustic treatments.  Most people are doing it in their garages or in a spare room.  It doesn’t bode well for having a good time.  These will be really nice physically designed spaces. Paula’s got some drawings she’s gonna show around of what we’re doing. We haven’t had a single person that hasn’t said, ‘Yes, please.  Count me in for two.’

Image courtesy of Divzi Media

In the final part of this 3 part seires we will find out more about what happened at a showcase event to promote Live/Work Recording.