16 Ton Studios will go silent at end of year
Continuing a Music Row trend of commercial recording studios shuttering, 16 Ton Studios will cease operations at the end of the year.
The company operated for the past 10 years inside a 117-year-old Victorian house on 16th Avenue South.
Danny White, owner and studio manager at 16 Ton, said cynics told him his business would last only six months when he opened in 2004. White and his team had to completely renovate the building, which for many years prior operated as a design company. His studio survived the recession and the decline of the music business, lasting a decade.
White installed an array of vintage equipment, including an original console from RCA Studio B, along with microphones and a tape machine used by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Buddy Holly. White estimated 16 Ton was home to about 1,000 recording projects.
At just 10 years old, 16 Ton is not a legacy recording studio by any means, but the company counted major record labels among its clients, as well as artists and producers such as Eddie Kramer, Jay Joyce, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Sheryl Crow, Steve Gorman from the Black Crowes and dozens of others.
White said developments at the RCA Studio A building this year rang alarm bells for him. Studio A was sold to a developer who planned to raze the building in favor of condos, but instead sold it to a preservation-minded nonprofit group.
"What I will miss about Music Row will be the creators," White said. "That's what this city was built on, and music was built on in Nashville."
White said he is worried that a series of factors are conspiring to run commercial recording studios such as his out of business. He cited the rise in home recording studios and the collapse of the music industry, which has fewer and fewer record projects being funded.
In addition to 16 Ton, Sound Shop, Fireside Studios and the tracking room from Vibe Studio are among those that have been shuttered in recent years. And remaining commercial studios are facing an uncertain future.
"Unless somebody on the city government level or state level comes in and says (Music Row and commercial recording studios) are important places and worth protecting, this is all going to go away," White said.
Pat McMakin, who manages Belmont University-owned Ocean Way Studio on Music Row, is among a group of industry leaders pushing for the state to create a recording studio incentive program for video game, film and television scoring work.
McMakin and other stakeholders have been touting a study by Belmont University economics professor Jennifer Fowler, which showed a steep decline in the number of studios in Tennessee and the number of jobs affiliated with recording studios.
"This plays into why I'm seeking this tax incentive," McMakin said. "It's exactly this situation. How do we keep our very important resources and our talent from eroding? When we see a physical studio close down, it's not just about the studio manager and those few (workers) who work there. It's the place where hundreds of people over the course of a month go to ply their trade."
White said the building will be put up for sale, and the hope is a recording studio and music business could become the new tenants. He is going to be working with collaborator Stacey David on a music and automotive-focused project. White wrote the book "The Last Rock and Roll Show" and worked with David to turn the manuscript into a screenplay.
"I love the history of Music Row and this town, and it pains me to see things like this happen," White said. "But I'm still optimistic about the music industry."
White said he is hoping to maintain much of the vintage equipment that has been kept in use at 16 Ton. The equipment was used by luminaries such as Chet Atkins and Norman Petty. It was that equipment and the welcoming studio vibe that made 16 Ton a popular place to record.
"Danny's a great guy, and he gave it a good run for as long as he was able to," Gorman said. "I always liked that room, whichever of the three rooms I was in, it always had a great vibe to me.
"The bigger issue is people aren't buying records, and this is a natural byproduct of that."
Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and on Twitter @tnnaterau.