A New Tempo #3: Tonehouse Studios Jams With Gizmos And Grit To Stay Viable

Tonehouse Studios, are you okay? (Credit: Tonehouse Studios)

Music studios are where compositions truly come to life. It’s often where a songwriter’s budding idea turns into an opus fit for the stage. It’s where musicians huddle together for jam sessions teeming with experimentation and expression. And it’s where songs can reach their full potential backed by a full-fledged soundsystem. The gist of it is: music studios are essential for any recording or performing musician, and they, too, have been affected by the harsh reality of COVID-19.

In this instalment of A New Tempo, we look at Tonehouse Studios, a boutique establishment that’s been winning the favour of professional and casual musicians in the past year. Beyond the provision of well-equipped spaces for musicians to sharpen their skills and build on their repertoire, the multi-purpose venue also offers recording services and opens up as a performance space, having hosted events for promoters like Big Duck and Binary.

Tonehouse Studios hosting one of the hip-hop shows organised by Big Duck in pre-COVID times (Credit: Muhammad Isyraq Irfan)

The early phase of the Circuit Breaker period hit the studio particularly hard as the city turned into a ghost town with tightened restrictions, but this didn’t kill the spirits of the Tonehouse team. During this downtime, it gained new wisdom and dug up some eureka moments, coming up with new initiatives to maintain its presence in the scene. Today, not only are its rooms filled with music once again, but it’s got a couple of tricks in the bag waiting to be unleashed.

What did it come up with? We speak to Mah Chen Zhong, co-founder of Tonehouse Studios, who’s keeping the torch burning. Tonehouse Studios, are you okay?

“We’ve had literally no income during the Circuit Breaker and Phase 1 because our business depends on people actually being in our studio. There was nothing we could do except to wait. It was an absolute nothingness. But it wasn't a time to wallow in self-pity, so I tried to maintain our online presence by doing a podcast series. I also spent my time planning what we’d do once we re-open. There was no monetary help from partners or benefactors, but there has been so much love and support from our friends, especially the guys at City Music Singapore and Jinfu from Deity Microphones who have really walked the talk that music businesses need to support each other as much as we can, especially during this period.

The downtime did have a silver lining. We had the time to recalibrate ourselves and plan for the year ahead. It's hard to make big and exciting plans when the drudgery of work and life weighs heavy on ambition. It was because of the Circuit Breaker that we came up with exciting projects to do.”

“We've just finished recording and filming our Tonehouse Live Sessions. It was inspired by the genius of NPR Tiny Desk, and I thought we should do something like that for our local bands. We recorded 10 hand-picked local bands that we thought would suit the theme of this first series, and we're excited to release it once we're finished with the mix and edits.

We're also currently running the Tonehouse Live Streaming Sessions, where we found 15 local bands to each cover six of their favourite local songs, in an effort to give our artistes and musicians an avenue to perform and show support for 'made in Singapore' music.”

“Phase 2 was a test of adaptability and survival. Live-streaming was starting to become a thing, but it was done mostly by individuals in the comfort of their own room. I saw the wider need for a space for musicians and bands to continue performing, so I plunged straight into live-streaming services for Tonehouse. We spent many hours on trial and error and fine-tuning the system and equipment to sound and look its best on the currently popular free live-streaming platforms like Facebook and YouTube. We fought to stay relevant and it has paid off during this last month.”

“Learning live-streaming made me realise that we're now capable of doing a little bit of what TV broadcasters do, and that it's an extremely complicated process that involves many (some uncontrollable) variables. We didn't even know what a 'capture card device' was a couple of months ago. I remember we went to every camera shop at Peninsula to ask if they sold a capture card device, and all of them had no idea what it was. A search on Carousell brought up the Elgato Cam Link but none of the sellers had stock or were outdated listings. We eventually found ONE shop in Funan selling an overpriced capture card device (it was a j5create).

With Singapore being full of opportunists, a quick online search now will lead you to many cheap capture card devices available everywhere (although we cannot vouch for their quality). We just invested in the Blackmagic Atem Mini and we're loving the capability to easily capture and switch between four HDMI inputs. We do hope that Facebook will quickly invest into increasing the bitrate cap for live-streams and roll out options like the one to 'ticket' your show, as well as less cringy options to accept money tips.”

Since the lockdown restrictions were lightened, Tonehouse Studios has organised a series of live-streaming sessions (Credit: Tonehouse Studios)

“We're actually offering our live-streaming services (both multi-cam video and audio) at very affordable prices, which you can see here. We appreciate any kind of support and help, as much as many of the other music studios do. But we do need sponsors for subsequent Live Sessions where we continue to record and film local bands NPR Tiny Desk-style. Hit us up if you're interested!”

“There's a saying that idle hands are the devil's tools – I suppose an idle mind would be its playground. It helps to keep busy doing anything really. By 'doing', that doesn't include binging Netflix, but go and actually do something. Plan something. Create something. Always try to have something to look forward to. I think that really helps in staying sane.”

Tonehouse Studios, #03-09 Parklane Shopping Mall, 35 Selegie Road, Singapore 188307. Tonehouse Studios is currently available for rehearsals, recordings, live-steaming, and as a workspace for teachers and creators during weekdays (before 5pm).