FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHERE IS GASWORKS STUDIO?
Gasworks is located on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people. You can find us on Doggett Street in Newstead, walking distance away from Brisbane’s best music venues, galleries, cafés and restaurants.
DOES YOUR STUDIO ACCOMMODATE ACCESS NEEDS?
Yes! We’ll try and get it right, but please email us if we can make it easier for you to access the studio and anything we should be mindful of during your session with us.
HOW CAN I PREPARE FOR RECORDING?
We strongly encourage a pre-production meeting with one of our engineers to give you an opportunity to outline your hopes and dreams for the session, and to ask any questions you may have. There are some simple ways to be fully prepared, including:
+ Being well rehearsed
+ Practising with a metronome before the session if your music requires it
+ Memorising the lyrics
+ Re-stringing / adjusting intonation of stringed instruments***
+ Replacing worn drum heads***
+ Knowing the tempo and key of the music, and if it changes
+ Having the arrangement finalised
***The best solution won’t always be to record with brand new strings or drum heads. Different music styles have different requirements, and we encourage you to make these decisions during pre-production.
WHICH STUDIO SPACE DO I NEED?
It depends. Many single-instrument recordings, simple overdubs, voice-overs or podcasts can be made in our control room, which has a dry and intimate-sounding acoustic quality. Our live room sounds more spacious and is perfect to give instruments a sense of size and space. Note that the live room can also be made to sound intimate, but you will struggle to emulate the sound of a large room being acoustically saturated in the control room.
HOW WILL MY MUSIC BE RECORDED?
Your recording can be approached in different ways:
+ Recorded live, with everyone - or nearly everyone - playing simultaneously
+ Overdubbing one instrument at a time, or
+ A hybrid of these two approaches
WHAT HAPPENS ON THE DAY OF THE SESSION?
Ideally, we would have a pre-production meeting with the artist prior to the session so the day runs as smoothly as possible. Then we set mics up and make adjustments until everything sounds great for the musicians and engineer. Then we record until we have all the takes that we need until the session ends. When we are on a break, we get a coffee from nearby, and a magnificent breakfast / lunch / dinner.
I JUST NEED TO OVERDUB VOCALS. CAN I DO THIS AT GASWORKS?
Yes. Please bring the backing tracks as stems, or as a stereo file at a bare minimum.
I CAN’T PLAY ALL THE INSTRUMENTS IN MY ARRANGEMENT. HOW CAN I RECORD MY MUSIC?
We regularly work with fantastic session musicians. Please let us know if we can help you to find someone to nail that tricky part.
DO YOU HAVE INSTRUMENTS AT THE STUDIO?
Yep. Check out our selection here.
SHOULD I BRING MY OWN INSTRUMENTS?
Yes. Your instrument is the one you are comfortable playing, and the one you are used to hearing, and the one that sounds most like you. That said, we encourage experimentation to get as close as possible to the sound you hear in your head.
I WOULD LOVE TO USE MY FAVOURITE GEAR. DO YOU HAVE IT?
It’s possible. We have great gear made by the likes of Neumann, ATC, AKG, Schoeps, Josephson, Beyerdynamic, RCA, Coles and more. Check out our full list of microphones, monitors, outboard, instruments and software here.
CAN I BRING MY OWN ENGINEER TO RECORD AT GASWORKS?
Yes, we accommodate dry hire clients. We will provide an assistant engineer to be on-site to ensure your session runs smoothly.
DO YOU PROMOTE MUSIC?
No, but we can point you in the direction of people who do.
DO YOU NEED AN INTERN?
Never say never, but not at the moment. We will happily keep your resumé on file.
WILL YOU RECORD SOMETHING I’M MIXING ELSEWHERE?
Yes.
WILL YOU MIX SOMETHING I’VE RECORDED ELSEWHERE?
Yep.
WILL YOU MASTER SOMETHING I’VE MIXED ELSEWHERE?
Yup.
WHAT IS MASTERING?
Mastering is the final layer of polish in the music-making process before files get distributed to online streaming services or pressed to physical formats, including vinyl and CDs. Mastering is undertaken by an engineer with a trusted pair of ears in a highly accurate acoustic environment, and can offer: enhancements/improvements, consistency between songs, and mix translation across different listening environments and systems.
DO I NEED TO MASTER MY MUSIC?
Probably. A mastering engineer shoulders the responsibility as the last pair of ears in the quality control process before your music reaches streaming services, radio, and vinyl/CD manufacturing plants. A good mastering engineer, working in a reliable acoustic space, will be able to assist with track ordering, spacing between songs, delivering the correct file types for different upload or physical manufacturing specifications, ensure good translation of your music across different playback systems, undertake any necessary audio clean up, add punch/definition/clarity to mixes, and make sure the audio files are at the appropriate volume for release on different streaming and physical media, among other things.
WHAT FILE TYPES DO YOU NEED FOR MIXING / MASTERING?
For mixing, we require the individual audio files that comprise your music. Mastering will require a stereo file, and we recommend sending the mix at the same sample rate and bit depth it was mixed at.
WHAT ABOUT FILE STORAGE?
We keep multiple copies of your session for archival purposes.