SZS INTERVIEW with MNSUN.COM

In this economy, a Lakeville recording studio hopes it’s making a sound investment.

With 16-inch thick walls and local talent, Studio Zero Seven recently opened in downtown Lakeville.

The space, heavily converted and insulated to control sound, is in the mall behind the Community Action Council’s Lakeville location, across from the site of the former Enggren’s Mall. Owner Ian Schwartz of Minneapolis can do audio mixing during the day and have recording sessions after business hours.

Before he opened his new studio, Schwartz spent nearly three years recording artists in his basement. The studio’s name features part of a recurring theme in his life, Schwartz said.

“Everything in my life has to do with sevens,” the former DJ and Lakeville High School student said. “I was born in July, I’ve had a lot of things happen to me on the seventh day of the month. It’s just a good, happy number.”

Schwartz attended Full Sail University in Winter Park, Fla., to learn recording production and engineering during a one-year accelerated program, where he and other students would spend as long as 18 hours a day in a studio. He also earned an associate degree, and pursued a bachelor’s degree, taking a leave of absence after completing about 90 percent of his bachelor coursework.

“I just got burnt out on it,” he said. “I recorded bands in Florida for a few years, and then moved home.”

Studio Zero Seven consists of a front waiting room, a middle engineering room with the sound controls and acoustically treated walls, and a rear studio with heavily insulated walls. Schwartz used to work for a movie theater, and was able to secure surplus insulation material from a recent construction project. Each fabric-covered wall panel takes nearly an hour to make.

In addition to recording music, Schwartz records voiceovers for professional demos, and can do analog-to-digital conversion of old reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes. This has led to some interesting side projects.

“I’m working on a project with Adath Jeshurn Congregation in Minnetonka,” he said. “My family is Jewish, and they had a whole bunch or archival tapes that need to be transferred from analog to digital. They want to kind of keep it in the Jewish family, and I’m really interested in that.”

While many children grow up wanting to be rock stars, Schwartz said a talented childhood friend influenced him to want to produce and record other people’s music. The friend, he said, was an amazingly talented musician, but was unable to record his material. Now, with his own studio, Schwartz hopes to become involved with South of the River artists, and maybe with the Pan-O-Prog (Lakeville’s summer festival) Battle of the Bands event.

“I want to get as much local talent in here as possible,” he said. “The whole theory behind this studio is that someone comes in and I’m going to give people as much time as I can for what the person is interested in. I want to be the person to help get things done.”

Full Article: http://www.mnsun.com/articles/2009/04/23/news/cw23studio.txt