St. Louis Gains All-Purpose Facility
The new Four Seasons Media Productions is equipped for a full range of audio production services.
St. Louis, Missouri, may not be considered a music-business town by industry standards, but opening a full-service recording facility in the heart of the Gateway City makes perfect sense to Steve Richards Mahoney, owner of Four Seasons Media Productions. Conveniently located a few hours from Nashville and just a quick plane trip from New York and Los Angeles, Four Seasons has the potential to pull clients from all directions.
Four Seasons was built from the ground up by Russ Berger Design Group, who has designed studios for Mariah Carey, Don Henley, Sony Music Entertainment, and most recently, in Nashville, the studios of WPLN Radio and the mastering facility, MasterMix. Four Seasons held its christening session in mid-September (Missouri Botanical Gardens was the studio's first client), making the new 8,500-square-foot studio the largest commercial facility in the St. Louis area.
"I told Russ Berger to build me two of his finest rooms and an editing suite, and that's exactly what he did. He went beyond my expectations," notes Mahoney, who also acts as Studio Manager of the facility. Mahoney called on contractor Harold Helmkampf and the St. Louis firm Stewart Schabert Architects for the design of the non-technical spaces, to enhance the vibe of the studio."
I wanted an aesthetically pleasing building to fit around the three studios," he said. The technical install was performed by Chris Green of Dallas-based Gigawatt.
After moving to St. Louis from New York City over five years ago, where he held the position of Night Manager at Sound Track Recording, Mahoney pursued his career as a producer and engineer in the corporate world. He worked within St. Louis' thriving advertising industry and tackled corporate productions for several Fortune 500 companies. It was during this time that Mahoney met engineer Gary Holladay, who had a production facility of his own, and Holladay worked with Mahoney on several projects. When Mahoney began making plans to build Four Seasons, he called on Holladay to act as his Chief Engineer and Systems Manager. Mahoney later brought in Jason Hollowel as Corporate Engineer and Rob Schlette and Scott Good as House Assistants, Debby Ross as Administrative Director and Eric Wolf as Director of Sales.
Mahoney followed the advice of Russ Berger, who urged him to set up all of the Four Seasons studios to work in surround sound. All studios are prepared to handle just about any audio session, including A/V, post production, motion picture work, and live recording. Specialties of Four Seasons include on-site digital recording for conferences, seminars, meetings and radio interviews, as well as tailored music/message on-hold services for today's business phone systems. In addition to these services, Four Seasons also handles voiceover narration and editing, audio restoration, and archiving.
The main recording studio, Control One, houses a hand-built, discrete, 64-frame, 48-channel API Legacy with Moving Fader automation, and it was created specifically with recording and mixing sessions in mind. Tape machines on hand include a Studer A820 two-inch 24-track coupled with 24 tracks of Dolby SR, and Alesis ADAT. Control One also boasts the largest producer's desk ever designed by Russ Berger, complete with an extensive list of outboard gear. Effects by Eventide, Lexicon, t.c. Electronic and Yamaha are available. A wide array of compressors and equalizers are also available, most notably the GML8200 Stereo Parametric EQ, Pultec EQH-2 vintage tube EQs, Khan Electronics KEQ-2 'Pultec Style' Stereo Tube equalizers, Telefunken V-78 Tube Mic Pre-amps, dbx 160s and 165s, and others from Demeter, Empirical Labs, Purple Audio, Neve, Focusrite and UREI. As Mahoney points out: "
If it's not in there, it's either because I didn't want it there or they don't make it."
Studio One, Four Seasons' most impressive studio area, was designed with the large tracking session in mind. The 30ft x 33ft live room and two large isolation booths gives Studio One 12,000 cubic feet of recording space. As an added benefit, the studio is designed to allow natural light to shine through.
Four Seasons' second room, Control Two, matches Control One in its dimensions (26ft x 26ft), but if offers two Yamaha O2R V2 digital consoles. Multiple channels of Alesis ADAT are available in this studio as well. Control Two is fully equipped to mix, using the latest 5.1 surround sound technology, making Four Seasons the only 5.1 studio in Missouri.
Control Three is the home of Four Seasons' digital editing suite, and it contains a Mackie 32 x 8 console, along with the latest 24-bit Pro Tools technology and a nice selection of outboard gear.
All three of the Four Seasons studios come complete with their own 24-bit, 24-track Digidesign Pro Tools system with full A/V lock-to-picture capabilities. The systems are linked to a Fibrechannel 150-gigabyte disk array, which allows the user to open a session in Pro Tools and then move between any room in the facility. Four Seasons also has a 150-gigabyte RAID system, ensuring safe, automatic data backup.
While the bread-and-butter for Four Seasons will most likely continue to be corporate productions and advertising, the studio is planning to attract regional and national recording artists with the API Legacy, large live rooms, and a long list of client services. Their list of amenities reads more like a resort than a studio. Clients can enjoy a private bedroom and the lounge features a full entertainment center and DVD player, outdoor patio, business center, loading dock, and ample parking.
"One thing that makes us stand out from the other studios in St. Louis is that we are definitely pushing the service aspect. You can get your work done fast, but in a nice place that caters to clients' needs," explains Holladay. Mahoney agrees: "As a producer, I have spent a lot of time in different studios. Four Seasons has everything I have ever wanted in a recording studio. I believe it's one of the best sounding studios around and has well exceeded my expectations."