Track stars: A tour of Hudson Valley recording studios

Split Rock Studio, New Paltz

Named for a popular New Paltz swimming hole, Jason Sarubbi’s Split Rock Studio is a particularly thoughtful and well-equipped example of the kind of professional studio that crept into the cracks of the end-of-empire music industry: small, affordable, efficient and results-oriented. What separates it from the big studios is space, mostly, or the lack of it. What separates it from the recording studio that lives inside your computer unbeknownst to you is a) the gear list – one that the bigger studios would hardly be ashamed of – and b) the owner’s years and years of tracking and mixing experience in all kinds of studio settings and in all genres of music. Grammy-nominee Tracy Bonham has recorded at Split Rock, as has Old ‘97s frontman Rhett Miller and a Who’s Who of regional notables, including Kelleigh McKenzie and Sarubbi’s own bands, the Trapps and the Sweet Clementines.

Split Rock Studio, (845) 430-4717, www.jasonsarubbi.com

West West Side Music, New Windsor

If you evaluate a music facility by its client list alone, West West Side Music is likely going to win any shootout of studios in our area: Fleetwood Mac, Pete Townshend, Sufjan Stevens, GWAR, Animal Collective, Maya Angelou…Maya Angelou? Game over. One reason is that this unassuming shopfront in a kind of out-of-the-way area of New Windsor is, first and foremost, a mastering facility. Mastering, for the uninitiated, is the very last stage of music production: the specialized, mysterious ninja art by which records acquire their sonic coherence and their radio-ready sheen. West West Side chief engineer Alan Douches is one of the handful of elite mastering engineers in the world, and his small staff of qualified seconds – Bill Colvin, Jamal Ruhe, Steve Watson, Mark Kramti – keeps WWS’s two state-of-the-art mastering suites humming pretty much around the clock. You have undoubtedly heard music that was mastered here. Why, you’re listening to it right now!

West West Side Music, (845) 563-3094, www.westwestsidemusic.com

No Parking Studio, Rosendale

No Parking is not a new studio. It was founded in its original Main Street, Rosendale location over 15 years ago. It was called No Parking because there was no parking. But the new No Parking – an unassuming one-room haybale studio with some parking, located a bit outside of town – is experiencing a rush of attention and business since owner Dean Jones won a Grammy for producing 2012’s Best Children’s Album, Can You Canoe? by the Okee Dokee Brothers. Jones is known as much for his composing, arranging and performance chops as for his engineering, and it is often for musical collaboration that clients seek him out. No Parking specializes in children’s music. Uncle Rock, Ratboy, Jr., Grenadilla and Jones’ own band Dog on Fleas have made CDs here. But by no means is this a kindie-only facility.

No Parking Studio, www.facebook.com/noparkingstudio

Leopard Studio, Stone Ridge

In the studio world, a reputation can be built upon one timeless classic. In the case of Leopard Studio, that classic is the Strokes’ debut, Is This It? an album known every bit as much for its movement-starting boutique garage sound quality as for its great songs and style. No, the Strokes didn’t record it in Stone Ridge. Leopard used to be in the City. In 2002, Jimmy Goodman moved the studio upstate into a tranquil, rustic environment in the woods. Leopard’s client list is all over the map, but there seems to be a specialty in luminous art-rock of a distinctly non-Strokes flavor. Local heavies like Sarah Perrota and Shana Falana have recorded here, as well as Goodman’s own meditative, vibey project, A Viberatto.

Leopard Studio, (845) 706.5726, https://leopardstudio.com/

Nevessa Production, Woodstock

Even among the tech-savvy studio community, Chris Anderson of Nevessa Production is a geek’s geek, and his multiple fluencies are reflected in Nevessa’s diverse offerings: an outrageously outfitted mobile recording rig (which includes three huge trucks and a Beech C23 Sundown airplane), video postproduction, IP satellite connectivity and encoding services and – get this – welding and steel fabrication.

But all of this should not distract us from the fact that Nevessa is also a storied recording studio where local/national legends such as Orleans and NRBQ have done some of their best work. The recently expanded tracking room features an inspiring view of Overlook Mountain. The recording gear and in-house instruments are top-notch and, in Chris Anderson, you’ve got yourself an engineer who knows which knobs to turn.

Nevessa Production, (845) 679-8848, https://nevessa.com