Electric Lady Studios is one of the most well-known studios in the world, with a long history that began with its co-founding by Jimi Hendrix in 1970 up through being used to this day by many of the biggest artists around. But after Hendrix purchased the space along with his manager, Michael Jeffries, it almost didn't become a studio at all, but rather a music club.
Fortunately, famed engineer Eddie Kramer came in to save the day. Kramer had worked on every Hendrix album to that point, including Electric Ladyland, which it should be noted was recorded at a different space before Electric Lady was created. Even more fortunate for us today, Kramer recently took the time to talk about the early days of the studio with [MixOnline.com](http://mixonline.com/" rel="noopener noreferrerj "The world's leading magazine for professional recording and sound production"), including how he convinced the famous owner to devote the property to being purely a studio space.
“Oh, my God, This is a Fabulous Space”
“I remember walking down the stairs and my first impression was, ‘Oh, my God, this is a fabulous space,’” Kramer told the site. “I walked around and checked it out, looked at the square footage and finally I said, ‘Guys, you’re crazy. Why on earth do you want to build a nightclub? Why don’t we just build the best recording studio in the world?’ And they looked at me like I had four heads.”
We can all be glad those four cooler heads prevailed. In the interview, Kramer also speaks of how they worked with the architect for the studio to get the exact acoustic situation they wanted in the recording rooms.
“We kind of knew what we wanted -- [London’s] Olympic was my grade-A reference point,” he explained. “It was never too live nor too dead, and that’s what I was trying to get at Electric Lady. We also did things like making half the floor covered with carpet and the other half not carpeted.”
For us gear geeks, Kramer also breaks down the original technical specifications of the studio, some of which came about a bit by happenstance. Two custom Datamix consoles were ordered because they are what Hendrix used for Electric Ladyland at Record Plant in New York. But the first console was not up to par, and the second wasn’t completed before the maker of the console got busted for not paying taxes. So the studio was able to secure everything that was left from the console maker including test gear, modules and other equipment and used it to build the custom equipment for the studio.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout each course.
- Each SAU course includes Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website and social channels.
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2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
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3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
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4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
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5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
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6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
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- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
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7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your skills at your own pace.
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