Conversations with Ian Gregory

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Gregory

Hi Ian, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
1116 Studios began in 2019 but my brother Justin and I have been making music together our whole lives. We were born in Detroit and grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where our mom played violin in the Toledo Symphony and our Dad had a passion for home music production. From the time we were in middle school we were recording funny songs to share with our friends and writing our own music. I play guitar and bass and Justin is a keyboardist and singer.
Throughout high school and college we wrote a collection of songs which ended up turning into our first album, Escherscapes, under the name Cotown Records, released in 2014. The making of the album ended up taking a year and a half (we originally thought it would take 6 months) and was an incredible learning experience. This was really the start of our education as producers and engineers as we learned all of the intricacies and complications of making an album from start to finish. Despite pulling our hair out on multiple occasions, we quickly realized we had a talent for the production and engineering side of the process. The album landed us an internship with a film scorer who featured 4 songs from the project in an independent film for which he was the music supervisor.
From there we went on to work with number artists and bands around Colorado Springs as producers and gained a reputation for our intricate production and polished mixes. After several years of recording in a rental house, stacking couch cushions up against the wall any time we wanted to record drums, we finally decided to get a commercial space and in 2019 1116 Studios was born.
Over the past 5 years we have done lots of music mixing and mastering, numerous band and solo artist productions, audio mixing for commercial film projects, podcast production, voice-over recording and editing, voice dubbing for a foreign film, and beat/instrumental production for various genres. Currently we our interested in growing our business in the direction of mixing and mastering, as this may be our favorite part of the process, and would love to work with more artists from the Denver area. We can’t wait for what the next year will bring!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We have certainly faced many challenges as studio owners over the years. One of the greatest challenges is learning how to succeed in the business world as introverts in a highly extroverted industry. It would be great if we could stay behind the scenes in the studio and have a steady stream of work coming our way, but unfortunately running a business requires wearing a lot of hats and dealing with things like contracts, marketing, and money collection, which can often feel very impersonal.
Every now and then we have also had to deal with difficult clients who don’t pay on time or cancel sessions at the last minute, but these experiences only forced us to level up and learn how to our improve our contracts and set healthy boundaries.
Typically the work itself is the easy part but every now and then we run into a difficult project that requires us to learn new skills. An example of this occurred last year when we were asked to record voice dubbing for a Norwegian Christmas film (very random, I know). The project required us to record a voice actress in our booth while communicating live with a producer in Germany who also needed to be able to give direction to the talent in real time. The project required us to acquire several new pieces of software and learn a number of new skills. While we probably won’t pursue this particular type of work again, it was a rewarding experience and felt good to know we can pull it off.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We’re a full-service recording studio southwest of downtown Colorado Springs. We are musicians, producers and recording engineers but we specialize in music mixing and mastering. We are known in the community for our intricate productions and polished mixes and masters.

What matters most to you?
At the end of the day, what matters most to us is making great quality art. Music has had such an enormous impact on our lives in terms of how we see the world from a philosophical standpoint, how we process emotions, and how we build relationships and share experiences with others. Because music has this kind of power, it is a thrill to be a part of the process and put our labor into something beautiful that can make waves in the community. Whether we are making our own music or mixing someone else’s record, our goal is to make to best music we possibly can and remove any technical barriers that could get in the way of the music connecting with the listener.
We also pride ourselves in being affordable for local artists in the community and are able to tailor our services to a variety of clientele. Some of the most talented people we know are hardworking artists who don’t have large budgets and we love finding ways to create more with less.
Finally, we value learning over a big paycheck. Taking on work that challenges us and working with artists more talented than we are is the best way to get better at our craft. As long as we are always growing, we feel we are moving in the right direction.

Pricing:

• $45/hr for tracking and general studio services
• $200/track for mixing
• $60/track for mastering

Contact Info:

• Website: https://1116studios.com
• Instagram: @1116studios
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1116Studios
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Studios-ou8hp