The Bespoke Studio Matchmaker
SONORAMICA IS A RECORDING STUDIO in Argentina’s Traslasierra Valley, not far from a national park designed to protect the Andean condor population — though looking at photos, it’s hard to imagine even a hardened workaholic getting anything done in such a stunning location. Maybe an artist might prefer to hunker down at Durbuy Music, tucked away in the Belgian Ardennes in a renovated riverside villa. Then again, natural beauty can be a distraction here as well:
“If you keep your eyes peeled,” the studio’s website notes, “you may see beavers, deer, squirrels, kingfishers, herons, woodpeckers and many other wonders.”
Sonoramica and Durbuy are just two of the more than 175 recording facilities around the world that Miloco Studios either owns or partners with. The company not only operates and books studios but also helps build them out, deals in audio gear and even manages some producers. The breadth of Miloco’s studio “roster” — which includes numerous spots in industry hubs like London and Nashville, but also a plethora of options in some of the world’s most dazzling and far-flung locations — allows Miloco to create bespoke recording experiences for artists as they hunt for the right place to cut their next album.
“Most people just say, ‘I want a studio,’ ” says Chris Brown, who handles digital marketing for Miloco. The three-person booking team then “has to work out what that means in reality — how that translates with the project they want to make and the budget they have. That’s the beauty of maintaining a roster with variety that covers all bases: You can work out what would be a best fit for these artists.”
Miloco started as a single studio in East London, where Henry Crallan and Queen bassist John Deacon founded Milo Music in 1984. They were subsequently brought in to help run The Garden Studios, another London recording institution. In 2000, Milo Music bought Orinoco Studios (Miloco is a portmanteau of the two names) and it has continued to expand, through acquisitions or partnerships, in the years since.
Today, the still-family-owned business has 13 full-time employees, as well as a Labrador retriever named Prince. (“Prince is completely useless, to be honest,” Miloco’s website jokes. “He has no studio experience and can’t operate a telephone.”) The tiny booking team, on the other hand, is impressively productive. Miloco receives 200 to 300 studio inquiries a day. If they organize a booking on a studio they partner with, they receive a commission; they collect money directly when studios they own are booked.
“We have all sorts of clients,” says Lottie Field, one member of the booking team. “The studios in London start around 275 pounds [$295] a day and go up to around 1,000 or 1,500. For high-profile major-label artists, budget is maybe not so much of an issue. If you’ve got a smaller indie artist that’s not got that budget, they’ll let us know what they’re working toward so we can help narrow down the search.”
The roster encompasses everything from smaller rooms for writing or programming to big spaces for live-band recording. When assessing a potential partner studio, Miloco thinks about what’s both inside and out: “There’s the technical aspect — does it have industry-standard stuff or something that nothing else [on the roster] offers?” Brown explains. “Is it in a desirable location, somewhere where people are going to go?”
But there’s one factor that Miloco values above all. With a client list of “some pretty hefty names,” Brown says, “the most important thing is, if we put somebody with that kind of name in one of these studios, are they going to be happy?”