New Room: In Flight Music Studios — The Arts District, Los Angeles
These studio operatives have teamed up on a dangerous dual mission: conquering both recording and sync licensing.
We’re doubling down on the sonic squad that’s flying In Flight Music to wildly succeed. They’ve got the talent. They’ve got the console. They’ve got the ENERGY. All of it not-so-coincidentally converged in a downtown LA space that always delivers on inspiration.
Writing and licensing are at focus of In Flight, a place where those who crave creativity can count on getting an earful. This crew is at the ready to source prime resources from all over the planet, and they do so regularly to build up their fast-growing catalog of music for sync licensing into film, TV and advertising.
At the center of it all is a console they regard as no less than a living organism: a 64-channel SSL 8064 G+ with a musical heritage that’s pure royalty – its past owners included Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Eminem. But it’s more than just a beautiful bank of faders, because, according to them, they’ve got the engineering crew to make it soar.
It’s not hard to mainline what they’ve got going on at In Flight. Just read what A&R/Licensing Director Lucas Flood and Creative Director Matt Salazar have laid out below. And then the second you have the chance — go.
O what fingertips have felt these faders: In Flight’s SSL 8064 G+ is borne from the pinnacle of pop and hip hop.
Facility Name: In Flight Music Studios
Company Name: In Flight Music Group
Location: Downtown Los Angeles, California
Neighborhood Advantages: When we were choosing a location to build this studio, we took in all of the factors: traffic, local studio market, distance from major labels/music companies, local music scene, etc.
The more and more we analyzed Los Angeles and the more feedback we got from those with studios or those looking to move their studios, the census was that The Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles would be home to the next big music/creative boom.
If you were to travel to The Arts District, you would find a slew of hip coffee shops, art galleries, fashion boutiques, breweries, and so on — but what you won’t find is a plethora of professional recording studios, and surely not one Solid State Logic recording console… at least since I last checked.
These are the main factors that led us Downtown. Well, that and the new Warner Music Complex (two blocks away from us, but their move got delayed until late 2018) which is absolutely awesome. It’s a massive old Ford Factory, which will surely solidify the gentrification of our studio’s area, leading to bigger and better things.
They are also building a SoHo House nearby, which is great for us. If you factor in the level and diversity of clientele from both Warner/SoHo, all located in a youthful, creative, and up and coming area (DTLA Arts District), I’d definitely say our neighborhood has some advantages.
Ogle the outboard.
Facility Focus: Our facility is focused on writing, tracking, and mixing. Before drooling over our gear selection, clients always first comment on the vibe of our studio. “Wow, this is even better than the pictures!” is something we hear often. It is extremely comfortable and creative, which is important no matter the session. But for songwriters and producers, this is always the #1 factor when choosing a room to write in. This is why we have so many writing sessions each week!
As far as tracking/mixing, we have an outstanding SSL 8064 G+ in our control room, with a TON of vintage and boutique analog outboard gear surrounding it, as well as our always popular wall of guitar amps, with an awesome live room attached. From drum tracking to overdubs and vocals, our studio has the comfort and gear available to give anyone the session of a lifetime, and that is not over-exaggerating in the slightest.
The response since we opened our doors in October of 2017 has been nothing short of fantastic. It also doesn’t hurt to have a console that was custom-built to facilitate
Michael Jackson in 1993 and owned by Dr. Dre & Eminem shortly after. You can catch our console in “The Defiant Ones” as well! We actually had it driven out to Los Angeles via Eminem’s studio tech, Tony– the console was being stored in Eminem’s house in Detroit.
Date of Birth: February, 2011 (In Flight Music Group as a company)
October, 2017 (latest Downtown Los Angeles recording studio was opened)
Mission Statement: In Flight Music Group sets the standard for exceptionally produced songs packed with edgy lyrics and melodic undertones. With offices and recording studios in Los Angeles and rights management partners worldwide, we create, own, and license today’s hardest hitting tracks for Film, T.V., and Advertising.
Visually Inclined: Traditionally and still in most cases today, studios survive on cash exchanges. They offer unique creative environments for artists to come write and record. They offer select gear and rooms that artists aren’t able to get elsewhere, which is why Artists are willing to pay money for access.
Furthermore, regarding the creative process, the owners of these studios and those who run the studios are completely separate from the artists that use them. There is/was rarely any involvement on studios’ behalf regarding the production of music. They merely facilitate and make sure things run smoothly for the artists.
Amps abound
Now in the case of In Flight Music Group, we operate as both a traditional studio to cover our day-to-day overhead, but we also have a long-term vision for the company that we are slowly working towards.
In Flight Music Group targets edgy songs with the capability of powerful cinematic undertones. Utilizing our state-of-the-art recording studio and veteran production team, we craft larger than life masters that appeal directly to the lucrative sync market.
Our licensing team provides targeted and aggressive outreach, to make sure our tracks are in the right hands at the right times, while our Marketing and P.R. departments connect the world to our music.
In some ways we are a production house and in some ways we are an exclusive sync library. Part of our catalog is made up of full, in-house, rock productions, where I target demos that I think are licensable, and pass them to our production team.
The other part of our catalog consists of tracks that we’ve targeted based on trends and conversations with music supervisors. All fitting a certain edgy, cinematic style.
Clients/Credits: Universal, Sony, Downtown, FOX, Warner Music Group, Atlantic, Interscope, Nick Murphy (Chet Faker), CP Dubb, YBN Nahmir, Complex Magazine, ROC Nation, Jorg Huttner
Something awesome: Our film composer, Jorg Huttner, was just nominated for an Emmy for his work on Cries From Syria. Jorg has also done Fifty Shades of Grey, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Dark Knight Rises, and so on!
39th Annual Emmy News & Documentary Award Nominations for Outstanding Music & Sound:
DAN ROMER, Composer, Chasing Coral (Netflix)
DIANE WARREN, Composer, Cries From Syria (HBO)
JÖRG HÜTTNER, WILLIAM V. MALPEDE Additional Music Composers, Cries From Syria (HBO)
Key Personnel:
Matt Salazar is the CD and MC.
Matt Salazar: Creative Director; Matt is the backbone and the compass of In Flight Music Group. His years of experience, knowledge, and vision have led us to where we are today and we would be nowhere without him. Having been in the Los Angeles music scene for over 15 years, Matt has the experience of both success and failure, which I’m sure most business owners will tell you is the most valuable thing in the world…well that, and the ability to flawlessly operate a state-of-the-art recording studio!
Over the past 15 years, Matt’s been in sessions with everyone from The Rolling Stones to Gwen Stefani, has owned and operated successful studios all across Los Angeles, has charted billboard, and continues to push traditional boundaries with the growth and development of In Flight Music Group.
Zephan Hwang: Operations Manager; Zephan is a stone cold badass. He oversees all operations that take place in our recording studio, from sessions and invoicing, to scheduling personnel, and orders/deliveries. As a young company with so much going on, it’s imperative that there is a man on watch, making sure nothing falls through the cracks. It’s very easy for Matt to get caught up working on productions, or Lucas to be consumed by events and new signings, so Zephan’s job is one of the most important. Without him, we would fall apart.
Lucas Flood navigates synch and A&R.
Lucas Flood: A&R and Licensing; Lucas is on the ground floor of the Los Angeles music scene, connecting IFMG with songs that fit our recording studio, our licensing catalog, our producers, composers, etc. He uses his ears and heart to source hard hitting tracks for IFMG. Whether its curating events in Hollywood or working with new IFMG artists in the studio, Lucas is on the front lines at all times.
Josh Moran: In-House Engineer; Josh handles most of our sessions that come through, unless he’s been working for 20 hours straight and becomes delusional. Josh has been an extremely key part of our business plan due to his ability to work well with artists of all backgrounds, from hip hop to hard rock. Josh is technically advanced as well, having refurbished our SSL console with the help of a few interns. We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without him!
Console Role: (Answer by Matt Salazar) Our Solid State logic 8064 G+ started life as a 8100 G+… Yes 100 channels!
It was custom ordered by Allen Sides for his Record One facility in Los Angeles. There were so many factory modifications to this console that SSL provided a separate binder hundreds of pages long detailing their schematics. The majority of these modifications were of a workflow nature (extra transport capability, secondary film T.V. monitor section with special filtering capabilities, etc).
The heart and sound of the console is G series all the way. After the console was used to record many hits inside the walls of Record One, Dr. Dre moved into the studio, camped out there for like 10 years, and took the console with him when he left. It eventually landed in Eminem’s hands when he put together his new studio in Detroit. The full 100 channels would not fit into the space so it was cut down to 84 channels. When we received it, we again cut it down to 64, which for us was the perfect number. We still have the remaining channels and keep them in storage as spares.
Count ’em — 64 pristine channels.
Before putting it into commission we went through and meticulously cleaned and recapped the whole console. Because of the extraordinary number of channels we had available, we were able to fit the console entirely with 242 EQ aka E series EQ, which I particularly love for mixing modern music.
We also updated the power supply to an Atomic Instruments S2 and the computer to a THD Tangerine (automation is now stored inside the DAW…cool). The console is incredibly punchy. There is nothing like running a session from your DAW through the console and feeling the energy it adds when you’re hitting it just right. I love how the console feels like it’s a living organism. As a guitar player it feels a lot like a vintage Marshall Plexi, where I can adjust my playing dynamics and pick attack to draw different tones out of the amp.
Our console is the same way. Its organic, it’s alive, it’s bringing energy to the music.
Live Baby (Answer by Matt Salazar): The studio was originally designed as a very extravagant production and mixing room.
Go live time
Our band clients had been asking to utilize our larger sized booth to track drums, so we obliged and tweaked the acoustics a bit and added a really great Sugar Percussion drum kit along with a few choice snare drums to the equipment list. We’ve recorded more than a couple of groups now who have made previous recordings at the household name studios around town that have said they enjoy the sounds they get out of our room to just about any other — of course that really comes down to the engineering chops. There is no denying the sound temples of old have great sounding rooms, but you can’t do much in a great sounding room without a great engineer at the sticks, and that’s where we bring the most heat.
Additional System Highlights (Answer by Matt Salazar): The SSL 8064 G+ console is a great asset when mixing, but not mentioned often enough are the 20 channels of CAPI FD312 mic preamps with accompanying vintage API 500a equalizers that provide the front end for our tracking sessions. Jeff Steiger over at Classic Audio Products, Inc. is doing the audio world a real service with the products he offers. Everything he does is just straight heat and sounds incredible.
The building is on fire, you only have time to grab ONE thing to save, what is it?: No no no…. Don’t do this to me. (Obviously Matt!)
Time to tweak!
Rave Reviews: The creative comfort our studio provides has probably been the highlight. We’ve had many people come to our space and make a point to say that it’s the most comfortable “vibey” studio they’ve ever been in, proceeding to name some of LA’s most renowned studios. I suppose it would be a tie between this and the gear selection we have in a relatively small space. Someone called it “the spaceship” once, because it was a normal-sized space that packed a punch like none other.
Most Memorable Session Ever: I think my favorite sessions were with this extremely talented songwriter/vocalist from London, James Cherry. We flew him over to write/record vocals on a record Matt Salazar (producer) and our composer Jorg Huttner put together.
The record is influenced heavily by Massive Attack/Radiohead/Depeche Mode and the guys were looking for a strong male lead. I found James Cherry via Sofar Sounds London and when he sent us a demo, we were all ready to get him here immediately. When he showed up, he took one day to recover from jetlag, and we wrote/recorded for the next five days.
I’m sure with every memorable session, the energy in the room was mentioned, and I can now understand why. At the time, our engineer Josh was working with us for only two weeks, but he and James instantly hit it off. When it came time to track, the seamless operation between Josh and James made the vocal takes smooth, even as Matt had James put down 250-300 takes (we all lost count). James couldn’t speak after the sessions were finished, but what came from his stay/time in our studio was nothing short of magical.
Session You’d Like to Forget: This is going to sound corny, but I wouldn’t choose to forget any of our sessions. Good or bad, there has been something worthwhile that has come out of every session I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always opportunities to learn something new and become better, whether that’s through success or failure.
Dream Sync: I’ve always been obsessed with the 007 Movies and have a very, very specific dream to tell you. I throw a songwriter night, Writer’s Block LA, every Tuesday in Hollywood, where I curate four songwriters in the local scene that I like and think deserve a platform to be heard on. My dream would be to pair up 3-4 of these songwriters in our studios, have them write the theme song to the next 007 movie (like “Skyfall” by Adele), then I’d pass this to our man Matt to produce, and we’d cut the license for the big bucks and everyone gets to buy a Ferrari.
Life would be so perfect if I could write my own plot based on my dreams, right?
— Lucas Flood and Matt Salazar, In Flight Music
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