Please can anyone be kind enough to tell me what it will cost to open a music studio in Nigeria? Precisely in the Eastern part of the country.

Equipments and prices?
Room to rent ?
what to expect: as in, is it worth starting such a business?
What are the risks involved?
Advantages and disadvantages?

And any other valuable info. I already asked 1 or 2 people but I just want to hear from you guys and compare with what I got from them.

Thanks guys!

There is no fixed cost for starting a studio in Nigeria or any other part of the world for that matter. It all depends on the type of studio you want to operate and your budget. There are different types of studios and differerent equipment requirements for each. There are analog studios and there are digital studios. You also have the paris studio.

Another question is, Are you a music producer or an audio engineer or do you intend to hire these professionals to man your studio for you?

As for whether it is worth starting such a business, I can confidently say YES. These are very good times for the music industry as more and more hit artists are emerging by the day. Nigeria has many talented youths who are yearning to produce and release their albums and become superstars like Tu Face, PSquare, 9ice and several other artistes who have made it big and become multimillionaire, world-reknowned artistes simply by going to the studio to get their albums produced and released to the entertainment-hungry public we have now.

The main risk involved is that if you have poor equipment or quack studio personnel, your studio will gain a bad reputation within the industry and since every intending artiste wants to succeed and needs the best output, they will look elsewhere.

There are a lot of advantages: You can make good money from artistes who book sessions inyour studio. There is also the fame and publicity aspect- every album has the name of the studio where the work was produced, mixed or mastered printed on the cover, and so everywhere the album goes and people appreciate it those who need to know check out the studio where the work was done.

Disadvantages: You may not be able to attract any artiste whose songs are capable of becoming hits in the market

These advantages, disadvantages and risks may not be exhaustive. They are just the ones that came to mind now.

Dollarwise, thanks man!

Could you please tell me how much they charge artists per hour? I heard 7 thousand naira.

before u open a music studio u have to be ready to deceive the up coming artists because it so sooo difficult to make it in naija music industry, so many people struggling for so few spotlights so na to just trick people to pay u and record then they waste their time looking for record deal in kennis and the rest who will keep tossing them around

@richo2, The poster wants to setup a music studio, not an artiste management outfit. All he needs is the necessary equipment, personnel and conducive environment for clients. You need a small bar that artistes would use to relax between sessions. I don't run one but I would like to open one soon.
By the way, I have tailored a solution that would cost less than N200k for equipment alone!
I don't see any solution that beats that.

The truth is that already established artistes have made enough money to setup home studios, where they do their recording. Therefore, your primary target market is the upcoming artistes.
Another method of breaking into the market is using a figurehead producer to drive the studio, like we have these days. (DR. Frabs, ID Cabasa, TY Mix, etc). This just adds to the hype-machine of your studio.

dollarwise:

There is no fixed cost for starting a studio in Nigeria or any other part of the world for that matter. It all depends on the type of studio you want to operate and your budget.

i.e just the gist of everything

No body has given a concrete answer.

Hold a million naira and you wont have much change.

Starting a Music recording studio is no joke. It is one of the most daunting experiences ever, but if done right the rewards (sonically) is break taking.

The first thing is location. When opening a studio you should find a location far from the hustle and bustle of the city. External noise can ruin a great recording, plus artist tend to be more creative in a peacefull environment.

Now that you have found you location. (in a nice quite suburb i.e somewhere far from Lagos) the next thing is sound proofing. buy egg crates or auralex and sound proof the entire studio. The studio should be divided into three room. The lobby, the control room and the sound room.
The lobby where Friends and family or artist will wait during a recroding session
The control room where you would house all audio equipment.
The recording room where artist would record and instrumentalist can play.

Now you have the lay out it is time to talk equipment. Mics, Mixers, Compressors, equalizer, DE-essers, cables, pre amps, computers, audio interfaces, monitors, effects racks and the list could go on forever.

Now depending on you budget you could spend Millions of dollars, or you could choose to spend a little more on the imp rotant items.

For a mic go with a Nuemann u87. they run about $2000 to $3000
For mixer the Euphonix is great (especially with is sweet sounding preamp and on board compressors) but they would run you almost $30,000.00 dollars
Alternative you can go purely digital and skip the mixer altogether. This mean you will need a good audio inter face with multiple inputs. 12 stereo pairs minimum. The emu 1820m is a good one (if they sill make it)
Then cables (nothing else but mogami cables. these are the best audio cable in the game)
don't forget you pre amp. the best pre-amp is the Avalons. they run about $2000 dollar but it is worth it. Or you could settle for cheaper tube pre- amps.
Now monitor is the most important item in any studio. just ask any sound engineer. Spare no expense here. Yamaha makes a very good affordable Monitoring system that come with a sub (to effectively measure those troubling low end) This should run you about @1500

OH and a computer with lots of memory, a high end graphics card, and 2.6ghz quad core processor. The software is use is sonar. that because I have used it my entire life. You could use protools.( it would be easier to share production with other studio because every body uses protools)


I was in the process of moving my recording studio to Nigeria, but changed my mind last minute. I make more money here and better security. No pun intended.
Thanks

Let me shed more light on the equipment:
- Host PC (workstation): This is the system that has the audio recording and editing software installed. It is also connected to your audio interface (will talk more on that next). There are basically 2 types (PC/windows and Apple Mac). Software include: Adobe soundbooth (CS4), Cubase, Protools, Nuendo, etc
- Audio interface: This varies from USB interfaces to firewire interfaces to entire Protools systems. My adviser told me that firewire interfaces will do the job. Check www.motu.com and www.presonus.com for options.
- Microphones: I would advise you to get at least 2 types of mics - a condenser and a dynamic mic. Don't forget to buy pop filters for your mics
- Midi controllers: These include fader controls (like that of a mixer) and keyboard for sequencing. Check www.behringer.com
- Headphone amps: These help the recording artists hear themselves basically.

So that's about it for equipment on a budget. Now go and get a good sound engineer to construct the acoustics of the room.

@poster

Follow Your Dreams

All the best

Topic.

I don't Know.

Na wao. i know starting a recording studio is quite expensive but NOT these amouts Hillli is talking about, that kind of studio is not what the guy who posted this topic is maybe talking about, a lower quality materials to start with i guess, Hillli ist talking about a firstclass studio where million dollars hits are been recorded. i myself have a semi recouding studio where upcoming artist can come and practice their demo in my appartment here in Germany before they can finally go and book an appointment in a modern studio and pay less for their main recording. I think the whole instruments costed me roughly 1500 to 2000 euro including the high speed computer and the quality of music we are are doing here is even better than some Naija music i hear here and some of them are top artists and they are also making hits too. I know a German friend of meine who sold half a million copies of an Album he did just with his lap top. All he needed was a high speed lap top and a 100euro mic and the music maker software, so are we talking about

Am startin one of the best recordin studio in Africa and its gonna cost me over 40 million naira, equipments alone is about $180,000.

u have to put ur mind to it, and kno its a long-term investment.

it depends on the kind& size of the music studio. You should start with hundreds of thousand

@machu, i suggest you visit www.tweakheadz.com

Funny enough, i learnt everything about setting up a studio from that website. I spent over 3 weeks reading over and over again from it.

I never set up a studio, but i know it is useful.

gbengaijot:

@ www.tweakheadz.com

Good website 4 u, true

Its cost a huge amount of money en it depends on how you want its size.

I mean what kind of studio are you trying to open? What is you budget? What are you skill? All these will factor into the initial setup cost. Most importantly what kind of sonic quality would you want to be associated with your recording studio. Granted you can make good music with a cheap studio, but if that was always the case then there would be absolutely no need to spend millions on a studio. My friend, each and every equipment has its purpose. In music, your main aim as a producer is to capture the emotion and neutrality in any performance. sometime artist might only get such performances once, and when this happens you want the right equipment to record them. That is what you pay for. You want microphones that record as natural and a close to the source without any external or internal bias. This my friend is called transparency. I opened my first studio 10year ago and have learned the hard way. I was trying to be cheap, always looking for the cheap equipment not the right equipment. "All in All" I had to end up buying the equipment I was avoiding all this time. If you want to buy all my old, used equipment then let me know. It is still better than any you ll get in Nigeria anyways.

@hilli666, Please let me know what you have for sale as per your old equipment. Email me on soji@601realtime.com

Okay I'll have the sound engineer copile a list and forward it to you. Mind you this might take some time, they are all piled up in the storage with more stuff on them. But as soon as this is done you'll recieve an email. It was my initial intent to do this anyways, and put the equipments on ebay. Thanks for the motivation. And good luck.

Interesting, 9ice

your maga don pay abi!!!

@poster

I have read all the sound advice given by 'expert' in the area of setting up a sound/musical studio. I think it is a very good investment in any economic weather, it doesn't matter if it goes up or down, we will still buy or listen to music, after all it is the food of the soul, so it has to play on.

Having said that I believe that setting up a recording studion is no longer a necessity for you to become a producer. You can produce artists here In Nigeria,West Africa sub or any part of the world with world class equipment to internationally acceptable standard, that will rival some of the best studios around. You have access to enterprise recording studios that would handle all the repsonsibility of the artist work for you. From doing demo recording to the final recording itself. They can also handle the marketing and promotion of the artiste work on your behalf. The good thing is that you have access to the label name. it will be your label. branded by what you want. We have left the age of machinery behind and right now you can operate virtual manufacturing companies worldwide. Currently there is a company in Nigeria that can help you get started easily. Visit them at www.vebisys.com or call them on their office line.

I hope you follow your dream!

pls

crzysxykul:

Am startin one of the best recordin studio in Africa and its gonna cost me over 40 million naira, equipments alone is about $180,000.

u have to put ur mind to it, and kno its a long-term investment.

Can we talk?
This is my email - chatdarlington@yahoo.com
Thanks!

hilli666:

I mean what kind of studio are you trying to open? What is you budget? What are you skill? All these will factor into the initial setup cost. Most importantly what kind of sonic quality would you want to be associated with your recording studio. Granted you can make good music with a cheap studio, but if that was always the case then there would be absolutely no need to spend millions on a studio. My friend, each and every equipment has its purpose. In music, your main aim as a producer is to capture the emotion and neutrality in any performance. sometime artist might only get such performances once, and when this happens you want the right equipment to record them. That is what you pay for. You want microphones that record as natural and a close to the source without any external or internal bias. This my friend is called transparency. I opened my first studio 10year ago and have learned the hard way. I was trying to be cheap, always looking for the cheap equipment not the right equipment. "All in All" I had to end up buying the equipment I was avoiding all this time. If you want to buy all my old, used equipment then let me know. It is still better than any you ll get in Nigeria anyways.

Can we talk also pls!
chatdarlington@yahoo.com
Thanks
By the way the name is Darlington

hello guys, my name is tunde from united kingdom, i'm coming back home soon 2 start my own dj studio in ojota but i'm just looking for sum1 with gud sence of humour 2 start the bussines together with him age between 18-30 money no be problem but i'm just looking bussiness partnership dis my 07775496393 tunde.thanks

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bye chizzy
www.meenrecords.com

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