To book a session, take a look at this calendar.

If there is nothing booked already at the time your client or you would like, shoot a text to Christian at 541-687-0947. He will then “pencil you in,” pending when you receive the deposit, which must equal at least the studio fee for however many hours you book, e.g. 4 hours from 1pm-5pm would be $120. We will book the session as soon as you have the money, but we need that deposit sent to the studio ASAP, Venmo is easiest and quickest for us.   

Cancellation policy: If your client cancels, they LOSE their deposit. If there are extreme circumstances we may give them their deposit back, just let us know, but the deposit system helps make sure we get paid and not cancelled on every other day.

Your session may get booked tightly around if we’re busy, meaning, another session may end right as yours is supposed to start, or end right as another group is supposed to begin. Be mindful of this when you are planning out how much time you need. We don’t mind if you end up going longer than you had originally booked AS LONG AS your client knows they are paying for the extra time, and there is no conflict with the following session. Communicating with Christian and the other engineers will prevent issues.

We can accept cash, checks, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, and cards via Square.   

Note: It may be easiest to have your clients pay you directly, and then you pay the studio out of what they give you.

Checks must be written to Sprout City Studios. Feel free to have them write separate checks to you and the studio if you like. 

Venmo: @liquidaudio

PayPal: giddy@sproutcity.com 

Apple Pay: 541-914-0096

Fill out receipts. It is important for the books of your clients, for you, and for us! Make sure you list their name, date, the cost breakdown of your session, your cut, and any other helpful notes. THE CLIENT GETS THE WHITE COPY. WE KEEP THE YELLOW. That was bolded so you could find it easier if you were skimming. You’re welcome.

Below is an example receipt with the band Black Sabbath.

1. The band wanted their name on the receipt as “Black Sabbath” for their records and tax purposes, so I made sure to list it as such.

2. That was the date that we had our session and we were paid in full. They did pay a deposit before hand of course. They’re very professional in that way.

3. Here you can see I’ve listed the amount of hours they booked for a rehearsal before the session (3 hours) as well as their 8 hour recording session. Note that the rate we list is the total rate, meaning the studio fee plus my fee to engineer. It’s then totalled at the far right column.

4. The total here is the total amount that Black Sabbath handed me. I then divided up my cut and the studio fee after they left.

5. This is important for the studio’s books. If you don’t feel comfortable writing this down for the client’s copy, rip off the carbon (yellow) and just fill it in on that one. Your name goes under engineer, your cut in the adjacent box, and the studio fee in the lower box.

6. Notes! This could be a lot of things, but think, what is Christian going to need to know about the money to balance the books? Did they pay the deposit on Venmo beforehand? Did you need to take cash from the bag for your cut? Is the money split between two different paypal and cash app? There’s nothing wrong with overdoing your notes.

If you can leave the studio the way you found it or better, that’s all we ask. If your drummer breaks his sticks and there’s chips of wood all over the floor, maybe vacuum that up. If your rapper is leaving Reeses peanut butter cup wrappers all over the booth, maybe throw those away. 

Wrap up your cables, put away your mics, stands, etc. Keep it clean, the clients like it when it smells good and looks good.

Turn off the gear! Especially the tube mics and outboard gear, make sure it all gets turned off after you are done using it. Make sure any gear that you have 48v (phantom power) turned on, that you turn it off afterwards. Plugging mics into a channel with phantom on already can damage the mic, any mic, not just ribbons.

This section is not going to have detailed information on how to use the desk, just some tips to make your life easier. If you need help with the board, hit up Christian or Thaddeus and they can meet up with you to go over it.

Check your gain! It is very important that people know that the common scenes in the desk have inputs on 1-16 as expecting to come from microphones, so they have +30dB gain on the desk, and channels 17-32 are expecting to see Line level inputs from the outboard gear, and are set on the pre to 0dB gain.

Our patch bay is pretty straight forward, if you are having issues, check the guide Thaddeus made in the STUDIO INFO folder on the computer, and use it as a reference. 

Some things to know about the patch bay:

Check your outboard gear before you plug in microphones. Note whether the pre amps have phantom on or off, or if the EQ circuits are engaged, polarity is reversed, etc. 

All of the mic pre’s are normaled to channels 17-31, EXCEPT for the Sebatron. That must be manualy patched.