Welcome to the latest addition of our Show Us Your Space series, where we explore and celebrate the unique music-making environments of studio owners, independent builders, and musicians at all levels.
Today, we're heading outside Boise, Idaho to take a virtual tour of Audio Lab Recording Studios, founded in 1992 and run by Steve Fulton and Pat Storey.
Keep reading to hear straight from them about their studio and gear.
For more information on Audio Lab, visit its website here. Have you assembled a great practice space, project studio, or music workshop? Be sure to drop us a line at [email protected].
Audio Lab was founded 1992 by Steve Fulton and then-partner Todd Dunnigan. At the time, both were recording at Horizon Audio in separate bands. Steve and Todd heard that owner Rob Matson was moving to Nashville to continue his audio engineering career and was selling the studio.
Steve and Todd, at the time, had other neighboring businesses (Todd had Aardvark Records and Steve, along with his brother Jerry, had the Koffee Klatsch espresso restaurant) and co-conspired to buy the gear, and hopefully some clientele from Rob.
Once the transaction and career change happened, Todd and Steve built their first version of the Audio Lab. It was in a 600-square-foot house in Boise. That was the first four years. Then, in 1996, they "moved up in the world" to a bigger space and built their second studio location in Garden City, a suburb of Boise.
It was in a 1,200-square-foot commercial space. At the time it seemed like maybe a little too early to grow but they hung in there. Fast-forward to 2010, Todd had moved on to other adventures and Pat Storey entered the picture. They, along with a lot of help from the community, built the current studio in a brand-new 3,000-square-foot space.
This was designed from a shell of an existing building, so they could design it pretty much how they liked with their given resources. Recently, Andrews Masters came on board and integrated his studio into Audio Lab, contributing the Neve console and an entire studio worth of gear to augment what Audio Lab already had to offer, doubling the gear list for their clients to use.
Currently 28 years, many hundreds of albums and recording projects, movie post and scoring, a live sound division and live-in-studio concerts in front of exuberant audiences, Audio Lab has carved out a deep-rooted history in Idaho as the longest running recording studio in the Boise area.
A shot from what we call Control A, the main control room into the Live Room, looking over our centerpiece: the 1986 Neve 8232 Console. In the distance you see Control B, mastering on the left and the drum room on the right across the 1000-square-foot live room. The Neve was a merging of studios with new partner Andrew Masters.
This is a shot as you walk in the door of Control A. We always like the control room to feel more like a living room.
This is a second HD Pro Tools system for mixing, editing, overdubbing, etc. This is where we do our mastering.
This is the Lobby just outside of Control A.
From the live room back toward the Main Control Room A.
A shot as you walk into the drum room.
We like pedals... ha! Also shows some of our vintage keys: 1979 Hammond B-200, a very rare portable B3, basically. Also Wurlitzer 200A and Rhodes.
Many of the top-brand guitar amps available to our clients.
This is our dedicated isolation booth mostly used for vocals. It is just to the right of Control A. We have had acoustic duos in this room together before. Tried to make it spacious enough for some options.
This is our main outboard rack in Control A. Control and coloring beyond the Neve. With the Neve, not sure we need this? Haha! No, you need all of this right?
Sony APR24 2” reel-to-reel machine—analog 24-track-tape!
Audio Lab Live pre-show: We do live concerts in our Live Room. We can accommodate 70 people.
To find more information on Audio Lab, visit its website here or contact Steve directly, [email protected].