This is a Chicago recording studio and music production studio owned and operated by producer/engineer Matt Griffo in Chicago, Illinois in the Rogers Park neighborhood right by the Jarvis Red Line stop. Musicians also have access to a variety of instruments and equipment which is available for use during each session. Griffo has been a Chicago mixing engineer since 2005.

Below is more information on the services I provide and how to understand the overall landscape of not only what I have to offer, but the differences between different types of studio setups.

MIXING

If you already have your tracks recorded and are looking for a mixing engineer, and have all your stems/tracks ready to send over. Go to the bottom of this page using the request form. The best audio engineers, like Serban Ghenea, Manny Marroquin, Jaycen Joshua, Dave Pensado, or Tony Maserati, don't use basic home recording studio equipment. They are using some of the best sound recording and reproduction equipment on the market. Most people with a home recording studio setup, may even have the right recording studio software, or even a professional recording setup, but the knowledge and ability to quickly and accurately make a well balanced track is huge. It's important to hire the right person for the job.

RECORDING

There are a lot of types of Recording Studios.

- Top-tier

- Mid-tier

- Project

- Home

TOP-TIER

Top- tier studios are easy to identify. The rates are typically $100/hr and higher. A few top recording studios in Chicago are Gravity Studios, Chicago Recording Company, and the Recording Studio in Downtown Chicago, Chess Records. In Los Angeles there is Conway Recording Studios and Capital Records. In Miami, Florida there is Criteria Recording Studios. And one of the most famous, Abbey Road Studios.

MID-TIER

Mid-Tier studios can offer similar capabilities to a top-tier studio. However, some elements of the studio, usually the equipment, are not as expensive as the top-tier studios and the rates go down accordingly. Rates might be in the $60/hr and higher range. I have been to a few mid-tier recording studios that I have been very unhappy about the low-quality recording equipment they were using and decided to never go back again.

PROJECT STUDIOS

Project studios are usually independently owned and may or may not operate as a commercial facility. Producers, engineers, and some artists may establish such project studios. Generally they can compete well in terms of capabilities with the mid-tier studios. They are often located in a home. The rates, if applied, may be similar to a mid-tier or even a top-tier studio. They are significantly different from a home studio in terms of construction, acoustics and equipment. Some of them look and perform very similar to a top-tier studio. They pretty much all have a professional recording studio setup. In Chicago there is Studio 11 Chicago and a place called Music Garage Chicago, which is mainly for renting rehearsal space but has a few spots to do recordings as well.

HOME STUDIOS

Home studios are hard to define. Some are very rough, with very tiny budgets, with little or no thought put into room acoustics. Equipment is usually very low-cost and the range of equipment is usually very limited. Recording experience for these types of studios is random, and a home studio set up can be from a hobby to someone trying to make money with it.

The hard part is that back in 2020 to 2021 a lot of mid-tier and project studios began closing, leaving us with the top recording studios in the US and something moreso in between project studios and home studios. Those recording engineers and mixing engineers are using their home spaces as recording studios and having to pair down space. Which makes identifying studios aside from top-tier studios far more challenging. My best advice is to listen to the work on their websites and if you like the quality and sound of the finals, then that's great. Budget is a huge consideration and Gravity Studios Rates are going to be far higher than a smaller studios space, and for good reason. Doug McBride from Gravity Studios is an amazing mix engineer, he works quickly and it sounds awesome. But not everyone has that type of budget.

Some places now are even offering to send a professional audio interface and microphone to the musician and record them remotely. The way this works is the audio engineer gets a feed from their computer and essentially runs the session from wherever they are in the world. The only problem with this is that most people don't have acoustically treated living spaces. There could be air conditioning sounds, heating sounds, radiators, dogs barking, reverberant walls. Overall, to me, it makes a lot more sense to record in a properly treated space. Even the best microphones aren't going to be able to help a recording in a bad space.

When in the studio, the engineer or producer is often considered to be the “5th member” of the band. The tools they choose and the techniques employed can infuse the recording with a rich spectrum of colors and textures. As the source audio passes through the signal chain, there are many stages at which it can be affected. Arguably the most important of these is the choice and positioning of the microphone.