Studio Monitor: High-end N.y. Analog Shop Marks Decade Of Making Magic

When Steve Rosenthal opened the Magic Shop in 1989, he bucked the industry trend toward smaller live spaces and MIDI-oriented control rooms. Rosenthal had cut his teeth on old-school analog recording, and he was determined to build his dream studio along those lines.
Rosenthal also steadfastly refused to conform to the industry's trend toward multiroom studios-an unassailable business model that most of his competitors embraced.
Furthermore, Rosenthal decided to keep his studio analog, while others adopted low-cost, modular digital gear and equally inexpensive digital consoles and processors.
In other words, Rosenthal was doomed to fail.
"I always had worked in real recording studios with large rooms, so when I had a chance to build one, I said, "I'm going to do that,' " says Rosenthal. "It was pretty out of touch with what was happening, with most of the music being electronic."
The fact that the Magic Shop has not only weathered the industry's changing winds but arrived at its 10th anniversary with flying colors is a testament to Rosenthal's unflinching commitment to quality and his gift for establishing just the right vibe in just the right place.
Since opening in 1989, the New York studio has been a beacon in an ever-changing studio market, with a wildly diverse clientele that includes icon Lou Reed; rock/pop star Sheryl Crow; downtown acts Cibo Matto, Sean Lennon, and Arto Lindsay; Boston-area alternative rockers Morphine and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones; metal bands Monster Magnet, Orange 9mm, and Prong; and the Smithsonian's Alan Lomax collection, which is restored and transferred at the studio.
Although the Magic Shop is relatively new by the standards used to judge historic studios, Rosenthal's windup to opening his own shop began nearly 25 years ago.
After getting his engineering degree at the Recording Institute of America, he went to work for Herb Abramson, a co-founder of Atlantic Records who sold his interest in the label to open both A1 Studios in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and independent label Festival Records.
Abramson mentored Rosenthal in the business by teaching him the tricks of the trade-and by pulling the ultimate stunt on him.
"I'll never forget what he did to me," recalls Rosenthal. "One day there was a large, 12-piece soul band booked and Herb didn't show up. I was calling him at his house, saying, "Where are you?' He said, "Well, I'm not coming.' I said, "What do you mean you're not coming?' He said, "Well, you can do this. Just go ahead and do it.' He just threw me into the water, and it was the best thing he ever did for me."
After three years with Abramson at A1, Rosenthal and a friend built a small, 8-track studio on 17th Street called Dreamland, which thrived for five years during the height of the punk revolt and the New Wave era. ("We did a lot of goofy, skinny-tie records," says Rosenthal with an air of bemusement.)
He then went to Opal Studios in Midtown, where he did dance remixes old-style, i.e., by cutting tape. Also at Opal, Rosenthal excelled at cutting entire jingles-from backing tracks and horn overdubs to lead vocals, background vocals, and mixing-in three-hour blocks.
"It was very high pressure, and it was a good way to learn how to be an engineer," he says. "If you can deal with those situations with the client screaming at you and everyone having a nervous breakdown, you really can be an engineer."
Following that short but intense tenure, Rosenthal endured an equally brief but less enjoyable stint at Unique, where he says he felt excluded from a clique of engineers that had banded together. Then, Rosenthal worked for a short time running a recording studio for Bill and Rita Tesar of rental shop Toy Specialists.
"By then I'd developed my own clientele as an engineer, so I felt like it was probably a good idea that I try to put a room together instead of getting $25 an hour or whatever I was getting," says Rosenthal.
The first step was scouting locations on foot. Rosenthal walked every street from the southern tip of Manhattan up to Houston Street, from Lafayette Street to the Hudson River. He found a building for rent on Crosby Street that had high enough ceilings to accommodate recording live drums; a footprint large enough for a spacious control room and tracking area; room for offices; and a basement that could accommodate a tech shop, storage, and a lounge.
Just as important as the physical location was the choice of a console. Rosenthal was fixated on buying a vintage Neve, so he journeyed to England in search of one.
He found a 1970-vintage broadcast board that formerly belonged to the BBC and spent a week negotiating with its owner to buy it. After he closed the deal, he almost lost the console to the English rain. Rosenthal explains, "I didn't really know what lorry meant. When they said they were going to bring a lorry, I thought it meant a truck with a cover on it. It turns out a lorry is a flatbed. When they put the console on it, I said, "Aren't we going to cover it?' We ended up putting piano blankets on it and got it to the shipping place just before it started pouring."
With the console safely in place on Crosby Street, Rosenthal's next challenge was to retrofit the board with Flying Faders automation, which he was able to do despite some technical obstacles.
The studio opened without much fanfare, as most new, unproven rooms do. However, it wasn't long before the Magic Shop attracted the kind of clients who draw in big business.
Among the early adopters were the Ramones, Sonic Youth, and Reed-who cut his acclaimed 1992 release "Magic And Loss" there, as well as its follow-up, "Set The Twilight Reeling," with Rosenthal engineering.
Soon, other hip clients became regulars. Producers Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake brought the likes of Suzanne Vega, Ron Sexsmith, and Crow to the Magic Shop. Paula Cole worked on her breakthrough release, "This Fire," there, and the Smithereens recorded and mixed two albums at the studio. Others followed, including Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto, Arto Lindsay, David Poe, and Medeski Martin & Wood.
One of the biggest treats for Rosenthal came when industry icon Phil Spector booked the studio to work on his Abkco Records boxed set "Back To Mono." Besides being a watershed event in the history of the Magic Shop, the Spector session marked the first-and only-instance of a noise complaint against the studio from a neighbor.
"He listens very loud," says Rosenthal of Spector. "My neighbor upstairs called down and said, "Why was someone singing "Be My Baby" outside of my door all night?' "
Another of Rosenthal's heroes who came to roost at the Magic Shop was former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who brought onetime Stones guitarist Mick Taylor in for a project.
More recently, Morphine recorded at the Magic Shop just prior to front man Marc Sandman's untimely death, and "song noir" artist Warren Zevon mixed his upcoming Artemis Records debut with producers Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade.
Along the way, the Magic Shop added a second, identical Neve console that was joined with the original one under the supervision of the board's designer, industry pioneer Rupert Neve. The result is a "wraparound" console that never fails to draw oohs and aahs from visitors (see photo, this page).
Besides the Neves, the Magic Shop is stocked with enough vintage recorders, signal processors, amps, instruments, microphones, and other gadgets to open an audio thrift shop and still have plenty left for sessions.
With such a vast array of old and customized gear on the premises, having a crack technical staff is essential to staying in business. Rosenthal relies on the skills of Nat Priest and Matt Wells, both renowned technical gurus with extensive experience in repairing, refurbishing, and customizing vintage gear.
Although the studio prides itself on its all-discrete analog signal path, it has adopted digital technology by adding a Digidesign Pro Tools workstation, multiple channels of Prism Audio converters, and a Sony 3324 multitrack machine.
The bridge between the analog and digital worlds allows Rosenthal to tackle such projects as audio restoration for the Smithsonian's Lomax tape library, which is released on Rounder Records. The Rounder connection has also brought several folk and blues projects to the Magic Shop, including albums by singer/songwriter Stephan Smith and late bluesman Charles Brown.
Rosenthal says the blues and folk vibe-as well as an undercurrent of hard rock and metal projects-are lesser known but vital virtues of the Magic Shop's business.
"It's been a really interesting mix of music," he says. "A lot of studios are known for one kind of music, but we do lots of different kinds. The fact that it's been so eclectic has been a great thing. Some people who have all the money in the world would rather come to a funky studio downtown than to some giant, factory-type studio uptown."
One of the reasons clients flock to the Magic Shop is that it's a one-room facility, thereby affording them a level of privacy they might not get at a multiroom complex. Ironically, one-room studios have become a dying breed as studios find a need to take advantage of the economies of scale that come from multiple rooms.
If Rosenthal were in it strictly for the money, he would follow the expansion trend. However, he says, he's "in the music business to make records and be around musicians and producers." For that purpose, the one-room model has worked extremely well, and he's refused numerous offers to build additional studios.
"Everyone that works here focuses on the one room, and that helps the client," he says. "It's basically their place. They don't have to deal with other people or interruptions."
Asked if he plans to hold any special events to celebrate the Magic Shop's milestone, Rosenthal says, "We'll be having a millennium/anniversary party around the holidays, but other than that, the only thing we did was send a 10th anniversary mailing for the fun of it, as a way of telling people we've survived. I was proud of that."