Jimmy Mulvihill reflects on how good life can be at London's Bally Studios.
I just love a job where I can chat to band members about guitars over a cup of tea, as members of one band arrive, and another leave. That aside, there are plenty of other benefits from working in a rehearsal space.
1) You never need to buy plectrums
Proverbs 14:23 in the New Testament bible tells us ‘All hard work brings a profit’. Never is this more apt when cleaning a rehearsal studio. Going that extra mile cleaning down the side of cushions and underneath the mixing desk are great treasure troves for plectrums lost by their owners. If you don't collect at least three plectrums when giving a good clean to all our practice rooms, then you're not doing it right.
2) Getting the low down on the local music scene
Nowhere equips you better than a rehearsal space in finding which venues to play and which to avoid. I would say most of the time members of different bands agree on which are the favourable venues and those to steer clear. Pretty quickly your knowledge of venues grows.
I remember speaking to musicians about a promoter that promised they could use a bass amp at a particular venue. When the band turned up to play the gig they were told they would have to pay £20 to use it. The promoter switched the tables and said: “You didn’t think I would provide you a bass amp out of the goodness of my heart? I have bills too…….”
Upon hearing this, I was able to give advance warning to members of another rehearsing band due to play at the same venue. When this band contacted the venue, the promoter asked: "Did you speak to another band about that?”.
Other tips from working in a rehearsal studio come my way. For example, which promoters promise longer stage sets, then reduce their stage time on the day. Or a guitar shop that adds big fees to amp repairs, and or on the positive side which venues pull a good crowd.
When you get up to 100 bands a year rehearsing at our space, you get 100 different points of view on many matters. Chatting to staff at your rehearsal studios can be a great way to help you make decisions for the benefit of your band.
3) Learning about musical equipment
Most guitar amps get used 4-6 hours a week at low volumes by its owner. Whereas in a rehearsal studio amps can be used 30-50 hours a week at loud volumes by different guitarists playing disparate musical styles. Staff at the studio get to see these amps played loud and hard daily. We learn which amps are well made and which ones look good in a store window but aren’t built to last the rigours of being pushed to their limits.
If you’re thinking of buying a guitar amplifier by a certain manufacturer, chat to staff at your rehearsal studios to see if they’ve used them in the past, and if so, what their opinion is? They will know much better than most people how certain amplifiers stand up to being driven hard. They will have first hand experience of working with a wide range of amps.
We have 40+ amplifiers here from 14 different manufacturers. We receive feedback about them by loads of different musicians that use them. Believe me, if there is something wrong with one of them, we hear about it!
We contact the amp manufacturers directly and we’ve had lots of them ignore our requests for help, while others have offered to fix our amplifiers for free. We deal with amplifiers day in, day out, and we don’t make a commission from selling them either, so we’re able to give unbiased and honest advice about the amplifiers we use.
Most musicians head to a music store to get their advice, forgetting the amps are tested quickly before being sold. By contrast we’ve owned and hired guitar amps for a decade, used for thousands of hours and regularly serviced. Not only do we see the amp in use, receive feedback from the user, but the repairman throws in their opinion too. Advice about amps or drum kits from staff at a rehearsal space can be informed by lots of experience of their use rather than a sales quota.
4) Having a free place to rehearse
All staff members that work at Bally Studios get unlimited free rehearsal sessions at times when the studios would otherwise be empty. Some staff members have used the time to do a 12-hour multitrack recording session, borrowing mics not used in other sessions.
Staff can buy instruments and equipment they would otherwise spend on paying for rehearsal sessions. Sessions can be stretched out as long as their schedule allows, with less pressure to achieve as much since they’re not paying for them.
Staff can also store their gear at the studios for free. If you’re in a band that rehearses as much as possible its a good idea to recruit a band member who works at a rehearsal space that offers free sessions to staff. That band member can then negotiate all the other tasks to their band mates, such as driving and loading the van.
5) Discovering new bands
Working in a rehearsal space is like working at a youth academy in a football club. We’ve had bands rehearsing with us for two years before they’ve been signed to a record label. There has even been times we’ve read in music magazines about “New Up And Coming Bands” that had their first rehearsal with us half a decade ago. You get to know bands months before their first gig, hear snippets of songs left off albums and other songs develop from two minute instrumentals to 6+ minute epics with a horn section.
Rehearsal spaces are where bands build their craft and experiment. Working at a space means we get to peek behind the curtain of what is happening to a level other people never can. It’s like those “The Making Of……” videos you see on YouTube about how bands form and how albums are made, but in real time and in person.
6) Not pretending to be interested
Most chats we have with musicians are interesting. Guitar pedals, record shops that will sell their music, studios offering cheap recording sessions, how a signal booster effects a Big Muff pedal, how Squier guitars compare to the more expensive Fender equivalents.... are the sort of conversations with friends we would have down the pub if we weren’t working here. We work in a rehearsal studio because we’re interested in these conversations, removing the need to feign interest.
7) Learning from other people’s mistakes
A bonus of working in a studio is that you learn from other’s mistakes. There must be hundreds of lessons we’ve learnt which we’ve applied in our own bands. For example:
Over-ordering a print run of 1,000 vinyl records when 8 years later you have 850 still stashed in your cupboard
Agreeing to play at a venue without attending a gig there in advance to see how well suited it is to live music
Blowing your guitar head after adding an extra guitar cab and forgetting to switch the impedance rating to compensate for the extra load
Not mastering your recordings prior to distribution to achieve consistent levels and to prepare them for different formats, such as vinyl, MP3/AAC and streaming services
Spending four years paying expensive lawyers to remove a clause you didn't understand when you signed that record contract
Turning down gigs in some European cities that don’t appear to offer much, only to find out later from other bands about multiple fantastic gigs they’ve played there
The best way to learn from musicians is to meet them at rehearsal spaces. Best of all, since the music industry is constantly evolving there is never a time when you stop learning. There is always something new to learn.
8) Working in the evenings
Not many musicians are morning people. One perk of working at a music rehearsal space is the reversal of the usual 9-5 job schedule. The weekends can be our busiest times at the studios and weekday evenings are busy too. Whilst other people are dreading Monday mornings, our staff members can lie in and catch up on the TV they missed over the weekend.
Working late in to the evening to lock up the studios at 11:15pm means getting up later the next day is common. Whilst it can take getting used to, such a lifestyle can mean cheaper off peak cinema tickets, shopping when there are no crowds and not travelling on packed trains.
9) Getting session work and band roles
Bands will replace band members from time to time. Working at rehearsal studios means you may know band members on a personal level for weeks or months at a time. This allows you to build up a rapport and get to know their music, putting you in a great position to potentially join a band if a member leaves. We’ve had staff members playing in 3, 4 or 5 bands at once at times.
If you play an instrument in high demand, like drums, you may get the opportunity to offer your services for extra cash as a last minute replacement at a gig or for session work.
In an industry where “being in the right place at the right time” counts for so much, working in a rehearsal studio is literally the right place. The more you work there, the more chance you’ll be there at the right time.
10) The joys of going in for your shift early, or staying late
In many jobs. you arrive, do the work, and get out as quick as you can. But when you've got drum kits in empty rooms waiting to be thrashed, pretty soon you'll find that a 20 minute practice before or after your shift is not only a great way to build up your drumming chops, but also a great way to burn off energy and tension.
Had an argument with the other half? Stick that guitar through a double muff and a 200w head into 4x12inch cab and feel the tension slip away. There's few jobs that offer the same benefits as the ten benefits to working in a rehearsal studio.
Thanks go to Jimmy Mulvihill who owns Bally Studios established in 1989 as Sync City, and trading as Bally Studios since 2005. Used by 1,100+ bands, with over 40,000 sessions. Run by musicians, for musicians.
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