Mix Magazine - September 1999

NASHVILLE SKYLINE by Dan Daley

One of Music Row's first studio casualties, Sixteenth Avenue Sound, which shuttered its doors nearly two years ago, has found a new lease on life-one that better reflects the times.

What had been a two-room studio is now a subdivided honeycomb of several related and unrelated ventures. On the main floor, in what was Studio A, engineers John Trevethan and Mike Griffith have set up shop in Antarctica. They turned what had been the original control room into a Pro Tools-equipped mastering and editing suite run by Trevethan, and they took what once was the piano iso booth and made that into a new control room, outfitted with a Soundcraft DC2000 console. The recording and mastering businesses feed each other, Trevethan says, and both feed a graphics and Web site-building business run by his wife, Brenda.

"It's a one-stop shop-you can track, overdub, mix and master your record here, and then have the album graphics done on print-ready files and have your promotional Web site constructed, with MP3 files done on the Pro Tools system," Trevethan explains.

A third room above the studio kitchen is being converted into a recording studio by John Elliott, former member of Nashville alt/industrial band Dessau. Upstairs, what was once Sixteenth Avenue's B studio is now a studio operated by engineer/producer Brian Hardin, who was profiled in these pages several months ago as the audio auteur behind the strange sounds on MTV's hit series Sifl & Ollie (which he had previously been creating in his home kitchen). Like the old factories of New England, which filled with shops when the Industrial Revolution hit the skids, the multiroom studio facility has evolved into a collection of boutiques.

All of the above parties are renting space in a building that is still on the market, and all of them understand the tenuous nature of their businesses' existence. Says Trevethan, "Hey, if we gotta move, we'll move. It's not like anything's nailed down."

Mix Magazine - February 2000

NEW MARKETS FOR A NEW AGE by Mix Staff

One message has become increasingly clear in the studio business during the past decade: Providing conventional recording services is often not enough.

Many of the standard recording studio applications-particularly overdubbing, mixing and mastering-have migrated to alternative venues, such as project studios. At the same time, certain types of sessions, such as voice-overs, needle drops and original music, are increasingly being brought in-house by companies that acquire low-cost, powerful desktop audio equipment.

But when one door closes, others usually open, and the audio business is rife with new opportunities. These include disc replication, computer graphics and artwork design, post-production services, and Internet-based services (a whole article by itself), to name just a few. These services may seem to pull studios away from their core competencies, but they are, in short, adaptive reactions to a changing business environment.

Multimedia? What's That? Mastering engineer John Trevethan is co-owner, with recording engineer Mike Griffith, of Antarctica, which opened last year in Nashville on the site of the former Sixteenth Avenue Sound on Music Row. "I was right here watching as a studio [business] became increasingly difficult to maintain," Trevethan says. "The world changed, and some studios couldn't change with it."

Antarctica was conceived from the start as serving both music recording and mastering markets. Then Trevethan's wife, Brenda, moved her Mac G3-based graphics design business into the space, putting out, among other projects, renderings of CD covers for the independent recording artists that make up much of the studio's clientele.

The arrangement works both ways, Trevethan says: "There's been instances in which her clients have come to the studio for graphics work, and they say, 'Oh, you have a recording studio here, too..." Brenda Trevethan also does Web site design, and the studio adds MP3-encoded audio elements. Antarctica has also developed a flexible rate packaging system: The more services clients use, from recording to mastering to graphics, the larger the discount.

Marketing these services can be tricky, though; the danger, says Trevethan, is in losing focus. "We tried selling ourselves as 'Antarctica Media' at one point," he explains. "But it was too nondescript. People need to know what it is you do, and you have to be able to communicate that information to them as quickly and as simply as you can, because there's a lot of competition out there." So, Antarctica incorporated a subtitle into their company name: "Recording, Mastering, Graphics." Simple yet effective.

Mix Magazine - March 2000

SESSIONS & STUDIO NEWS by Mix Staff

SOUTHEAST The crown princes of King Crimson, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew, oversaw the mixing and overdubbing of the band's new album with engineer K. Latchney.

Fripp also held forth at a question-and-answer session at Antarctica Studio in Nashville. Audience members from as far away as Ohio and Alabama attended the event, which was recorded by Mike Griffith.

Pro Sound News - March 2000

FRIPP VISITS ANTARCTICA by Pro Sounds News Staff

NASHVILLE- Robert Fripp, guitarist with King Crimson, held a question and answer session at Antarctica Studio in Nashville, TN. Travelers from as far away as Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana attended the event.

Attendees were instructed to write their name and a question on note cards which were randomly chosen by Fripp. Each person in the audience was then asked why they were there and what value their question held for them. This made the session an interactive event where participants could not simply be passive spectators.

During the four hour session the audience was treated to excerpts from the upcoming King Crimson release featuring Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto.

Antarctica Studio owners John and Brenda Trevethan said the event exceeded their expectations. "We have been looking at new and different ways of utilizing our studio." said John, "and the Robert Fripp Q&A was exactly the type of thing we want to continue doing."

Antarctica partner Mike Griffith handled the live recording of the Q&A, and assistants Tim Buchanan, John Elliott, Brian Fechino and Chris Tench helped to make the event possible.

Mix Magazine - July 2000

NASHVILLE by Dan Daley

THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS If there has been significant activity in the upper tier of facilities, the same goes for the emerging middle class in Nashville's studio community. Antarctica, a Pro Tools-based recording studio that also offers graphics and Web page construction services, underscores how new business models are rising from the ashes of the old. The studio moved into the site of the former Sixteenth Avenue Sound, and owner John Trevethan says he purposely targeted a middle ground in the Nashville market precisely because there was so much consolidation activity above. "There's a lot of high-end competition here, but that made for opportunities in the middle level," he explains. "Also, the Pro Tools thing in Nashville had been mainly for editing. We created something new by making it a primary recording system. This is a level of the market that's really been overlooked."

Trevethan says he has no ambitions to grow into the bigger leagues. He notes that Nashville's music market has become more diverse and more technically oriented and is now less reliant on large consoles and big tracking rooms. "To quote Robert Fripp [who recently gave a question-and-answer session, hosted by Antarctica], the small mobile unit is the way to go in the future," says Trevethan.

Mix Magazine - April 2001

NASHVILLE SKYLINE by Dan Daley

Nashville's upper-end recording studios went through multiple gyrations over the past two years. The same effect is making itself felt at other ends of the spectrum. Antarctica Media, which opened in early 1999 as a mid-budget, Pro Tools-based audio mastering facility, and which then grew into recording and mixing and Internet-based services, has shuttered most of its music operations. The company will now focus on Web page construction and graphics, with some audio mastering services available, mainly for Web-based projects.

Company owner John Trevethan attributed the pullback from music to pure economics, and the numbers he cites offer a glimpse into the mechanics of the mid-level facility in the context of Nashville's studio culture. The studio asked $1,000 per day, including an engineer and access to what at the time was Nashville's largest Pro Tools system. The Pro Tools system lease cost $300 per day, and engineer charges generally ran around $250 per day, leaving revenue of $450 per day for the studio, before fixed overhead costs such as rent, utilities and payroll were taken into account.

“That was simply not enough, considering that it's become too difficult to find clients who are willing to pay that much for a studio,” Trevethan says, adding that Nashville clients are used to ordering services a la carte. “They just didn't seem to get it that the engineer was included in the day rate,” he says. “That's not the way it's done here. Just because you change the technology doesn't mean you change the culture you use it in.” Furthermore, Trevethan cites the diminished client pool for this level of studio, particularly the decline of the publishing demo market. “Aside from more writers recording their own demos, you have fewer recording artists on fewer labels, and that means they don't need as many songs, so you don't need as many demos,” he says. “Studios just fall in the middle of that food chain.” Trevethan also bet on Pro Tools taking off in Nashville, which it did last year; however, he found that many potential clients simply bought their own versions of the system for use at home and in private studios.

After seeing revenues decline 20% over the last year, Trevethan decided to pull the plug on music recording. The studio occupied the former Studio A room in what was once Sixteenth Avenue Sound, ironically one of the first casualties, in 1998, of the consolidation trend that has since engulfed Nashville.

Keyboard - November 1988

DISCOVERIES by Titus Levi

JOHN TREVETHAN
Style: Experimental rock
Age: 30
Influences: Keith Emerson, Robert Fripp, Tangerine Dream, David Sylvian
Main Instruments: PPG Wave 2.2 w/midi, Ensoniq Mirage, Yamaha DX7, Korg DDD-1, Commodore C-64 with Sonus Super Sequencer.

"Every piece I do has a different approach to sound, rhythm, and other musical elements," John Trevethan observes. "That's why my music is experimental." Whatever it is, it's fun. Trevethan's style slides between rhythmically forceful new age, hip-churning techno-pop with an elusive funky edge, and dreamy electro-chant music with strong third-world overtones. It's sexy, heady, sensual, seductive, sweaty, uplifting, and refreshing. The textures are clear, though not oversimplified or mundane. The melodies are airy, but not forgettable. The rhythms can be fierce and effective, yet they're never rushed, because "I really try to think like a drummer. I go through the parts with my hands and feet to get a more human feel."

A year ago Trevethan moved to Nashville to further his opportunities in the music business. He describes the scene there as lively for all types of music, especially original work. The fact that the city is smaller than Los Angeles or New York is also an asset, in his opinion, because it allows him to stand out from the pack more easily. He found a collaborator in Nashville too- his wife Brenda, a reed player.