From Sonic Scoop, November 17, 2010
http://www.sonicscoop.com/2010/11/17/engineermusicians-hatch-three-egg-studios-in-williamsburg/
Three Egg Studios has been years in development, its first owner and designer working closely with Michael Blackmer of Blackmer Sound to perfect the acoustics. Officially open for business as of the end of September, the 5000 sq ft facility is now being run by engine
er/producers Bryan Kane and Brian Penny.
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What Three Egg is providing in Williamsburg will appeal not only to the indie rock set but also to jazz and acoustic musicians and ensembles for its tracking spaces and sightlines for live off the floor sessions. Engineers, according to Penny, will appreciate the room’s accuracy. “Three Egg is the best mix room as far as translation that I’ve ever worked in, period,” he declares. “Learning this room takes half-an-hour as opposed to days. It’s freakish how well the mixes translate.
“We shot out the room and it is quite literally as flat as physically possible for a mix room to be — within 3dB for almost the full spectrum and then a 4dB drop at 115Hz and that’s it. So the coolest thing for me as an engineer is that you come in here and you’re literally hearing what you’re working on, no question.”
Three Egg is impressive looking as well. From the console, engineers look out to a large live room and two large booths, left and right. The entire Studio A is a done in natural light wood and cream-colored walls, with illuminating light and window boxes accenting the rooms.
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Three Egg is equipped with most every DAW platform, including Pro Tools HD3. “Everybody can record at home now which means a lot of people don’t want to pay studio fees for editing time,” Penny notes. “So we built computers that can support all the DAWs — Pro Tools, Logic, Nuendo, Cubase, Samplitude, Sequoia, Live and Reason. We’re going to have Sonar soon. And they all run 48-in and 48-out.
“The premise is that if a client is comfortable working in Logic and that’s what they’re running Logic then we’ll have that running here and it’s seamless integration for you and your project. Or however you want to work; it’s no big deal, we’ve got it all.”
The studio boasts some other musician-friendly features as well. “Jason Rutherford, who wired the facility, has stayed on as our tech,” says Penny. “He wired the whole place for CAT5 so we can do personal monitoring systems in any of the rooms, or set up a monitor and a keyboard in the live room so you can sit there and press play and record for yourself while you’re recording.”
It’s worth noting that the facility also has a beautiful lounge up front with built-in bar and stereo speakers for another listening environment and meeting space. Additionally, an independently owned/operated 5,000-square-foot photo/video stage downstairs could tie into Three Egg for music video productions and photo shoots.
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“We want to keep the rates on a sliding scale,” Penny notes. “Being an indie band ourselves, we definitely want to be working on music we want to listen to. And at the end of the day if that means we’re not making as much money, but we’ve got cool things going on, then it’s worth it. We’re also not going to require that clients use in-house engineers. We’ll have an assistant here no matter what, but I want to keep it affordable for bands, especially bands that know how to record themselves.”
