1 of 9
Lexington producer Duane Lundy has recorded, mixed or produced a variety of artists’ work over the years at his studio, Shangri-La Productions. Photo by Estill Robinson
2 of 9
Having moved to a few locations over the years, Shangri-La Productions is now located downtown. Photo by Estill Robinson
3 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
4 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
5 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
6 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
7 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
8 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
9 of 9
Photo by Estill Robinson
When you think about where artists record their music, Lexington might not be the first city that comes to mind. But while it might not rival Los Angeles, Nashville or other big recording hubs of the music business, the Bluegrass region is home to a growing number of small but successful studios that have managed to establish their own niches in both the local and national music industry.
For at least a handful of local sound engineers, running a studio is a business they came into somewhat unexpectedly.
Local sound engineer Duane Lundy established Shangri-La Productions “by accident” over a decade ago. Like many in the recording industry, Lundy started out as a musician. Producing scores and doing mix work for film and television, he originally needed a personal workspace, so he set up a studio in his basement.
“I needed a place to do my work, and I thought I’d let my friends work there, too,” he said. “I never intended to open a recording studio.”
While Lundy’s first recording equipment purchase was inspired by his desire to listen more closely to his own music, he soon found he loved the engineering work. While establishing his career in commercial work, he also started recording musicians with whom he had a personal relationship. As his reputation has grown over the years, Lundy has had the opportunity to work with a number of high-profile musicians at Shangri-La – from singer-songwriter Joe Pug, cellist and singer-songwriter Ben Sollee and Lexington country-rock artist Justin Wells, to My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Grammy-winning country and roots artist Sturgill Simpson. A notable recent success came when two tracks produced and engineered by Lundy featuring Louisville indie-folk act Vandaveer – a band with which Lundy has a long-established relationship – were featured on former Beatle Ringo Starr’s latest album, “Give More Love,” released on Sept. 15. The tracks were overseen by Lundy at his downtown Lexington studio, a space he shares with frequent collaborator (and Vandaveer member) Tom Hnatow. (Starr’s vocals were added in later.)
1 of 4
Sneak Attack Studio, run by Jason Groves is located in the back of Southland Drive’s Doo Wop Shop. Photo by Estill Robinson
2 of 4
Sneak Attack Studio, run by Jason Groves is located in the back of Southland Drive’s Doo Wop Shop. Photo by Estill Robinson
3 of 4
Photo by Estill Robinson
4 of 4
Photo by Estill Robinson
Across town in one of Lexington’s most frequented music hubs is another Lexington studio that grew out of a local musician’s initial desire to set up a place where he and his friends could make music.
Jason Groves collaborated with the owners of Doo Wop Shop to establish Sneak Attack Studios in the back of the Southland Drive music shop in 2011. Like Lundy, Groves started as a musician and fell into recording work somewhat unintentionally.
“I never wanted to open a studio – I just wanted to make a punk rock record and didn’t want to pay anyone else to do it,” he said.
“Then some other punk rock kids wanted me to do their record … all of a sudden I’d done seven albums, and it just kept going.”
In his studio – converted from underutilized warehouse space in the back of the popular music equipment shop – Groves has worked with local and regional acts in a variety of genres, from Americana artists Grayson Jenkins and Doc Feldman, to rock musicians Dream the Electric Sleep and self-labeled “sludgefunkcircuspunk” band Ford Theater Reunion. When asked about the most high-profile or critically acclaimed artists that he’s worked with, Groves won’t say – instead, he replies, “To me, everybody is the biggest band.”
1 of 3
Specializing in hip hop and R&B, DOJO Studio is the realization of a longtime dream of childhood friends Steve White (left) and Wade Fisher. Photo by Estill Robinson
2 of 3
Photo by Estill Robinson
3 of 3
Photo by Estill Robinson
On Lane Allen Road, about a mile west of Sneak Attack, is one of the newest additions to Lexington’s recording studios: Dojo Recording Studio, started by childhood friends Wade Fisher and Steve White.
Growing up in northern Kentucky, the two were into hip hop music and dreamed of one day being famous rappers themselves. Wanting to record and produce their own music, White decided to go to school to learn the trade but only lasted about 30 days.
“There was a disconnect for me between what I was learning there and the music I wanted to make, and at the time I was too young to realize that what I learned would be adaptable,” he explained. “So, I quit and bought my own equipment.”
White was able to teach himself quite a lot but credits a huge gain in knowledge to an apprenticeship he fell into with respected engineer/producer Nicholas “Sunny” Race, who has worked closely with Atlanta rapper and producer Hit-Boy.
“I spent over a year with him almost every day for eight to 10 hours, just learning and watching,” White said.
Today, in addition to recording a steady slew of local and regional artists – primarily hip hop and R&B – White and Fisher are working to pay that knowledge forward and offer budding engineers a chance to learn the ropes. In October, Dojo began hosting a recording master class, focusing on teaching beginning-to-advanced recording mixing and mastering techniques. White describes the 12-week program as “a very targeted curriculum geared toward urban music.”
“If you wanted to record from home, this course will take you from knowing nothing to recording and mixing tracks to a competitive standard,” White said. “It’s a very new concept to teaching this art but so far it’s working really well.”
In addition to being able to pay it forward, the added revenue from providing classes can also help pay the bills – recording equipment, software and space don’t come cheap, nor does the knowledge and experience it takes to produce a quality record. Supplemental revenue streams have the potential to make or break a small local studio – especially in a market the size of Lexington – where income can be erratic and difficult to predict.
“If you are enterprising, it’s a more realistic way to sustain this type of a business,” said Groves, who said he feels fortunate to have continually attracted a steady enough stream of clients to keep his business not only afloat but poised for growth. While he currently works alone as the sole engineer at Sneak Attack, he stays busy enough where he says there might come a tipping point where that would have to change.
“I’m at the point now where I’m going to have the think about how I will eventually hire someone to help,” he said. “There has been a local music explosion, and I’ve gotten busy doing records from beginning to end – tracking to mixing to mastering.”
White and Fisher have stayed very busy in their first two years of business as well. Dojo originally opened in a small space near campus but outgrew that space quickly.
“We were doing in six months what we thought would take a year – in a year we were doing what we thought would take three years,” said Fisher.
With Dojo still being a relatively newer studio, many of the acts on its roster might not be household names on a national level – but the studio is working with an increasingly talented roster of artists. White said some of the recent work he is most proud of includes CunninLynguists, a regional hip hop act that has been rising to a national and international level in recent years.
“We’ve got plenty of artists who have released music, and they are making money, but they aren’t on TV and are mostly known in their own cities so far,” said White. Lexington might not be an obvious place to find a big-name rap or hip-hop artist, but he added that “the hope of finding the bigname artist is what we live on.”
Of Lexington, Lundy says “the talent pool in this town in incredible.” He regularly employs local musicians to provide backing for artists who travel from around the country to record in Lexington and has helped make lasting connections and relationships among some of those musicians.
“We’ve got a wealth of excellent musicians for a town of this size, and it’s unexpected for those whose experiences with the industry are all in the major music hubs,” he added.
While it might be a relatively minor hub when looking at the national music industry, these studios and others that exist in Lexington show no shortage of highly regarded and talented producers and engineers in the area who are able to fill a variety of niches for local – or national – acts that are looking for the perfect place to record. And despite the challenges of working as a full-time professional in a music industry at a distance from the major centers of the trade, many of the them wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
As Lundy puts it simply, “This is home.”