Stratosphere Sound Studios to Close — Reflections from Co-Owner Adam Schlesinger

CHELSEA, MANHATTAN: No one wants to say goodbye, but it’s true: Stratosphere Sound Studios is closing.

“The magic combination” — Stratosphere’s Studio A were where a classic room and console came together.

As of press time there were still time slots available at its storied location at 26th Street and 11th Avenue, but the historic last session must wrap at day’s end this Sunday, December 16. After that Stratosphere, which began in the Meatpacking District in 1998 and has been in West Chelsea since 2001, will go into shutdown mode.

Stratosphere blazed its own cool trail through the New York City recording scene during its life span. The two-story facility was co-owned by three extremely well-accomplished artists in James Iha (Smashing Pumkins, A Perfect Circle), Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, That Thing You Do) and Andy Chase (Ivy, Brookville), and it was every inch an artist-friendly space.

The fashionable foyer that opens directly onto 11th Avenue and the laid-back lounge upstairs on the mezzanine are the perfect surroundings for Stratosphere’s Studio A, a big and accurate-sounding Fran Manzella-designed space that houses one of New York City’s All-Star consoles: a Neve 8068 32X16X2, featuring 32 33102 EQ’s and 64 returns. A mouth-watering gear list of choice outboard, from new to vintage, and analog tape machines accompany it.

Listening in that room – for tracking, mixing or critical listening – has always been a massively musical experience for the long, long list of artists, engineers and producers that created there over the last 11 years. Stratosphere’s portfolio includes work by Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, A Perfect Circle, America, Steve Lillywhite, REM, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Arto Lindsay, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Tahiti 80, Tenacious D, Rufus Wainwright, Ryan Adams, Secret Machines, Chris Shaw, Sean Lennon, The Strokes, Cat Power, Nada Surf, Depeche Mode, Bright Eyes, Music & Lyrics, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, John Holbrook, Moby, A Camp, Television, Dashboard Confessional, Tinded Windows, Steven Gold, Morning Wood, Junior Sanchez, Courtney Love, Rob Thomas, Tony Visconti, Mario McNulty, James R. Brown, Carly Simon, Steve Van Zandt, Donald Fagen, Phenomenal Handclap Band, Chris Coady, Amanda Ghost, Aaron Neville, The Food Network, Fuse TV, Santigold, Ice T, Scissor Sisters, Jesse Malin, Mayer Hawthorne, The NowhereNauts, Kevin March, and Bloc Party – to name just a few.

A huge percentage of the work at Stratosphere was overseen by its experienced engineering staff, led by Chief Engineer Geoff Sanoff, who worked in concert with engineers Rudyard Lee Cullers and Arjun Agerwala, plus current studio manager Ashley Olauson. Together, the group helped Stratosphere – with its high ceilinged-tracking room, acclaimed Studio A control room, and creative vibe – become a facility renowned worldwide for making great modern music.

With Stratosphere’s final weekend underway, Adam Schlesinger gave SonicScoop his unique perspective on the life and times of this distinctly NYC studio:

Why is Stratosphere Sound Studios closing, after being in business since 1998, and being in its current location since 2001?

The high ceilings of Stratosphere’s live room were a cornerstone of its sound.

It’s closing for a number of reasons – the main one being our landlord wants to start getting the kind of rent he could easily get for the space on the open market. We’ve enjoyed a great deal for 13 years and we’ve had a great relationship with them. But we’re on the ground floor, which makes it a potential retail space, and we’re paying substantially less than what that’s worth in West Chelsea these days. It’s easily worth double what we’ve been paying.

But also, it just started seeming like it was the right time to move on. Andy has been feeling for a while that he didn’t want to be involved in a studio anymore. He’s been a partner in studios since before I even met him in the early ‘90’s. And it’s certainly not something I could handle alone.

As you know, it’s a transitional time for recording studios in general, as well as for the whole music business. The economics of running a mid-level studio in a prime area of Manhattan just don’t make as much sense anymore. Everyone’s budgets are much smaller, but the costs of operating are only going up.

How did the studio business evolve to become tougher, from when you started running Stratosphere until today?
 
For one thing, even “baby bands” used to routinely be given six figure budgets to make their debut record. That doesn’t happen so much anymore with the collapse of the record business. These days it’s more typical for labels sometimes just to say, ‘Hey we like this record, we’ll put it out for you.’ So we used to see bands that wanted to come in and work for 6-8 weeks to do a whole album start to finish. Whereas now they may just want to come in and do basic tracks, or come in and mix.

And of course the technology has evolved, too. People have many more options in terms of ways to record something decently.

How would you characterize the particular place that Stratosphere carved out in the NYC studio scene?
 
Initially, the idea was to be sort of in the middle. It wasn’t a super high-end corporate kind of top-dollar studio, but it also wasn’t a really down-and-dirty grungy place where things didn’t work. It definitely had a rock and roll vibe to it, but it was also a really pro place with a great console and great gear. We wanted it to feel more homey, like a living room, and not a corporate offshoot of a record company or something.

And I feel like we achieved that. It was a very comfortable place, and we were able to keep the rates fairly reasonable, especially by Manhattan standards, for a long time.

Now that you’ve been through it, how would you characterize the experience of being a commercial studio owner?

Overall, it’s been an overwhelmingly positive and great experience. Stratosphere always felt more like a clubhouse than a typical studio for me.

We had a great community of people who all became friends, and our client base was very much an outgrowth of our circle of friends. We had a lot of interwoven projects, with different people playing on different things for each other.

For James and Andy and me, the goal in starting this place was not to try get rich as studio owners. It was mainly to have a place to work that we knew and loved, to have a home base.

You’ve personally recorded countless great projects you were involved with there – Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, Tinted Windows, America, just to name a few — how did Stratosphere become a musical instrument for you?

Stratosfoyer

There was a comfort level in knowing a room that well, and knowing that you got the sounds that you wanted. You knew that when you took something home to check it out, you wouldn’t be surprised.

And also it’s just a very comfortable space. It was really well designed by Fran Manzella, and it aged well over time. I felt like it had a nice lived-in quality to it, without ever getting too shabby (laughs).

Stratosphere had an excellent collection of outboard, and one of the most admired consoles in NYC with your classic Neve 8068.

The Neve had such a sound, and the room had such a sound, and that’s the magic combination of working in our room. For a lot of people that were repeat customers over the years, I think those two elements were the main things that brought them back.

And after that, we had a bunch of cool toys for everybody to use! All of James’ guitars were there for people that wanted to use them, lots of cool amps, etc…

Was there a common thread to the engineering team that worked there?

The people that really stayed with us all ended up knowing how to work with each other, just by trial and error.

It was a learning process for all of us together, from the time we opened in 2001 until now. But by the time we got five to six years into it, it was just second nature for all of us to communicate with each other. The engineers I work with all know what I like and what I expect when I’m producing, and the same went for the other guys – everyone got very familiar with each other’s working methods.

I imagine we’ll all continue to work together. That little team of people that came out of there are all very close friends now, and I plan to continue using the same engineers wherever I end up working.

What records that were made at Stratosphere stand out in your mind?

There’s so many personally, for me. Obviously Welcome Interstate Managers – that was made there and at Q Division in Boston. That was a very important record for me. I also really loved the America album Here And Now that James and I produced together.

There were also a lot of awesome records I had nothing to do with that came out of Stratosphere. I really loved the Ryan Adams record that was made there, Rock N Roll (2003), as well as the Secret Machines’ Now Here Is Nowhere (2004) that Geoff Sanoff worked on.

What clientele was Stratosphere the right place for?

We had all sorts of clients, but I think the emphasis was always on live bands, live playing, and organic sounds. That’s the kind of people who would care about that kind of room and console.

Where are you going to be working out of next?

The ultimate living room

I’m sort of figuring that out. I think at this point, the main reason for me to run a studio is to have a place to do my own stuff. And if it works out to be a place where other people can work too, then that’s fine.

I actually have a space in the neighborhood that I’m planning on setting up as a studio, on a smaller scale. I’m trying to figure out what type of setup I’ll have. Some of the gear from Stratosphere will wind up there, but not all of it.

Will the other gear become available at some point?

We’re going to have a sale of some equipment at some point in January, although I don’t know the exact date yet. We’re going through our gear and deciding what to keep. The console is already on the market – it’s listed with Professional Audio Design.

Does the closing of Stratosphere mark a milestone in your own career?

It’s certainly a milestone. It’s sad, and it’s the an end of an era for us. At the same time, I don’t plan to retire from making music, and neither do the other guys!

It’s a chapter that’s closing, but ultimately the most important gear is the ideas in your head. Hopefully I’ll take that with me.
 
 — David Weiss

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