Well, I got to say something here. Yea, I do agree that there are some studio in Sg which only have some not-so-pro-looking setup and they call themselves recording studio. (Not-so-pro-looking meaning they dun have all the big big console and racks and blah blah blah in their studio.) Which bring us to this thing call "Aesthetic". Because, people usually judge things from first-impressions. And when one steps into a specific studio for the very first time, you don't know the engineer well, unless he is really famous. Hence, we start to judge by seeing the equipments. When you see large console in the centre and lots of buttons and blinking lights on the outboard racks, you would probably have more confident recording in this studio than you step into a studio with only a few pieces of gears here and there. And even if those few pieces of gears are killer gears, most non-audio personnel would not know. So they goes back to first impression and fascination with lots of faders, knobs, buttons and blinking lights. So never underestimate the power of Aesthetic when you ever want to setup a studio. I swear to you that my workplace has got gears that we would probably only touches it maybe once in a long while. But it's still there for aesthetic purposes.
Well, at the same time, I also do agree that the gears plays apart, but the engineer plays a even more important part. He can have the best and most expensive equipments, but if he can't put them to good use, then that's still boo! Which is why I mentioned above that, unless the engineer is really well-known, or you know that he is great, or if not, one usually would judge by first impression and aesthetic.
Continue on with that, eversince Audioplex closed down, I guess Lion and Pavane is the only slightly bigger studios that are left in Sg. (btw, the ex guys at audioplex opened Resonance Audio.) And more and more small-sized studio are popping out since. Why is it so?? Very simple, firstly the rental here is definitely more expensive than M'sia. (Not to mention that I once stepped into a M'sia studio and I swear they are using pirated plug-ins and softwares, and you could easily find shops that sell pirated games and softwares over there.) And with the industry already so small here, and local don't support local and run to record at other country, it's hard to open big studio or hi-end studio in Sg. Or should I say, it's not hard to open, but hard to have enuff returns to keep this form of studio going. Not only that, why is is that alot of Taiwanese singers used to come to Sg to record but they no longer now? Pirated CDs and illegal downloads answer them all. Piracy caused sales to drop. In order to earn money, they start to think of ways to cut cost. One way is to record in their own country, coz when you fly an artiste to Sg to record, not only must you pay for the recording fees, but the air-tix, hotels, and blah blah blah in Sing dollars.
And another thing to consider is our local engineer's living expense. Come on, engineers are humans too, they need to eat and pay bills. Our standard of living here in Sg is definitely higher than in M'sia. Singapore is recently ranked the third most expensive country to live in in Asia, and also in the top 10 for the world-list. And M'sia is not near us. Hence, one cannot says that why M'sia studio can charge so cheap and Singapore so expensive. If we charge the same rate as M'sia, then how are we going to survive the more expensive rental than M'sia, more expensive electrical bills than M'sia, more expensive living expenses than M'sia? Everything goes with the standard of living of that country. If one is going to say that, then why don't we ask why M'sia groceries or petrol are cheaper than Singapore.
Lastly, I've heard many complain about the music scene in Sg that lack of local support. Likewise, studio in Sg do also need local support too. How many people actually steps into studio to record in M'sia as compare to Sg? They got the population and people to record, which means they have the business, which oso means they have the money to run that that kinda of studio at that kind of rates. Our music scene is already very small, and if every music people here runs to M'sia for recordings, then don't complain why Sg studio dun upgrade or use cheap gears, and I think we will see more SAE grads and SP's audio course grads going jobless.
Coz no business = no money = no employment and no upgrade and use cheap gears.
