(Boulevard Recording)
34 best recording studios (for every budget) in Southern California
Despite the increase in amateur and professional musicians recording songs, even whole albums, on their home equipment, Los Angeles and its outlying areas still boast the highest concentration of top-notch recording studios in the world, where the vibes are immaculate, the gear state-of-the-art, the engineers savants and the ghosts of rock stars past inspirational. Here, you’ll find a studio for every need and every budget, whether you’re aspiring to make your first demo or your long-plotted change-of-musical-direction opus (with orchestra).
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Apogee Studio
Santa Monica Recording studio
Built by Bob Clearmountain, the legendary engineer-/mixer-/producer known for his work with Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie, Apogee Studio is a modern recording facility and performance space. Clearmountain sits behind a vintage 8068 Neve 8068 console, imported from the historic Power Station Studios in Manhattan. Sharing a building with Apogee Electronics, the studio has 10,000 square feet of recording spaces, a small stage, a kitchen and lounge areas. Apogee is also a live venue used frequently by KCRW to record performances by special guests (from Tom Jones to Gary Clark Jr.) for the station’s popular “Apogee Sessions” series.
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(Boulevard Recording)
Boulevard Recording
Hollywood Recording studio
In 2021, a fire almost gutted this room where Pink Floyd tracked for “The Wall,” and where Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac cut peak-career records. In the ‘90s, Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz rechristened it Westbeach Recorders to lay down punk classics by Rancid, Sublime and Blink-182. But new owner Clay Blair put in the sweat to save it, with a reopening planned for this summer. Blair has a NoHo mix room as well, but if you want that ‘70s magic (with an impressive collection of vintage gear), you can’t beat the original. Pro tip: Ask for Tom Biller, Jon Brion’s former in-house engineer and a Grammy winner behind beloved Fiona Apple and Elliott Smith records.
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(/Capitol Studios)
Capitol Studios
Hollywood Recording studio
Beginning with its debut recording, 1965’s “Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color,” Capitol Studios has been the choice of leading artists for half a century. Recent years have included modern classics like Frank Ocean’s “Blonde” and Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version).” The unusually roomy and elegant recording spaces rest beneath the world-famous Capitol Records tower in Hollywood, and have space enough for large orchestral ensembles with strings and horns. The two main studios, with a third for mixing, are set up with vintage Neve consoles, a dazzling collection of new and ancient mics, grand pianos and private lounge areas. Among the studio’s most unique features are eight concrete echo chambers built 30 feet beneath the tower for capturing reverb, and used to great effect by Brian Wilson and generations of visionary artists.
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Producer Rodney Jenkins lays down a track with singer Ciara during the “We Are Family” recording session at the Chalice Recording Studio in Los Angeles.
(Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
Chalice Studios
Hollywood Recording studio
Speaking with The Times last year, producer Hit-Boy, who has his own room at Chalice Studios, proclaimed that the building “has a certain energy to it.” A brief list of some of the magic he’s created here: Nipsey Hussle’s “Racks in the Middle” (the final song released before Hussle’s death); the entirety of Nas’ Grammy-winning album “King’s Disease”; and Big Sean’s “Bezerk,” among others. Hit-Boy isn’t the only one in love with Chalice; Compton rapper the Game is another studio mainstay, while Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Bruno Mars have also graced the microphones.
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(Conway Recording Studios)
Conway Recording Studios
West Hollywood Recording studio
Located near a busy intersection in Hollywood, Conway is a surprising idyllic getaway behind its walls, with a tropical garden and courtyard that seem far away from all city commotion. Since opening its doors in the mid-1970s, the three recording spaces at Conway have attracted a range of musical stars, including Green Day, Jay-Z, KISS and the Weeknd. It has Neve and SSL consoles, Pro Tools and other modern tech, concert pianos and a long list of dynamic, condenser and tube microphones. Tape machines are available for the analog-minded by request.
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(EastWest Studios)
EastWest Studios
Hollywood Recording studio
Calling itself “the world’s premier recording facility,” EastWest Studios has a rich history few can match, as the site of such classics as the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds,” Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” and Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s hit “Something Stupid.” Of the two main live rooms, Studio One is the largest, connected to an 80-channel Neve 8078 console and has room for a 70-piece orchestra. Studio Two is nearly as spacious, with a 40-channel Neve RCA custom 8028 console. Both have grand pianos onsite. While its former sister studio next door, United Recording, ceased day-to-day operations in April, EastWest remains an especially facility for popular-music-making, with elegant private lounges, concierge services and an unsurpassed collection of new and vintage gear.
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Eldorado Recording Studios
Burbank Recording studio
Originally located at Hollywood and Vine, Eldorado began as Johnny Otis’ personal workshop in 1954, and it still enjoys a deep collection of gear dating back to that first decade. One coveted piece is a half-century-old Telefunken 251 condenser mic. After a major earthquake in 1987 and multiple relocations, the studio landed for good in a concrete box-shaped building in downtown Burbank in 1996, where it’s hosted sessions with Sigur Rós, Ben Harper, Alice in Chains and Alison Sudol. With a spacious 28-by-28-foot control room, the studio offers two live rooms, SSL and Neve consoles, plugged into Pro Tools or tape, and guitars and keyboards within arm’s reach.
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(Zoe Joeright/Gatos Recording Studio)
Gatos Trail Recording Studio
Recording studio
Ever since Gram Parsons first communed with his muse in Joshua Tree, rockers have gone east from L.A. in search of the unspoiled cosmos and fresh thinking. More recently, SZA is among the many who have stopped by this studio from owner Dan Joeright, which offers onsite housing (and an outdoor hot tub) for psychonautically inclined artists to truly immerse themselves in the expanse.
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A view of studio 6 in Gold-Diggers Sound.
(Gold Diggers)
Gold-Diggers Sound
Hollywood Recording studio
Leon Bridges dug this place so much he themed a whole album around it. While most Angelenos pass through the lively downstairs bar (a favorite for tasteful disco DJs and live performances) or stay in the upstairs boutique hotel, you can also do like Bridges did and cut a whole LP around back. There are nine studios and a larger soundstage for you to work off your hangover from next door, and if you really like the vibes you can buy candles and beard oil that smell just like the place.
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A view of Green Tea Studios’ recording area.
(Green Tea Studios)
Green Tea Studios
Pico-Union Recording studio
Founded in 2015, Green Tea Studios has become an all-encompassing hub for up-and-coming artists. Here, monitors, mics and mixing boards are only the beginning; the Green Tea Academy offers courses on music production, basics of the business and social media strategy, among other topics. The studio even hosts mini music festivals about every other month, platforming a bevy of artists in a sun-drenched, daytime setting.
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(Kevin Chubirka)
Haven Recording
Downtown L.A. Recording studio
Located within an imposing Arts District industrial complex, Haven Recording offers a full-slate recording studio experience at flexible costs.
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(Courtesy of The Jim Henson Company)
Henson Recording Studios
Hollywood Recording studio
Henson is one of the top recording studios in the world, and the site of decades of historic sessions with the Rolling Stones, Burt Bacharach, Diana Ross, Guns N’ Roses, and, famously, the 1985 all-star cast on charity single “We Are the World.” Located on the cottage-style Hollywood studio lot built by silent auteur Charlie Chaplin (then amid acres of citrus trees), this first-class recording facility was created for A&M Records in the late 1960s. Owned since 2000 by the Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets, the recording operation maintains four comfortable studio spaces of various sizes, each loaded with the finest vintage and modern gear for recording digitally or to tape.
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(Igloo Studios)
Igloo Music
Burbank Recording studio
With two fully equipped locations blocks from each other in Burbank (other location: 931 W. Olive Ave.), Igloo Music offers state-of-the-art recording and post-production in comfortable, tastefully designed rooms. Its clientele includes a full schedule of film and television productions (with multiple spaces for dubbing), but has also been the location for albums by Santana, Chrissie Hynde, Rufus Wainwright, Jerry Cantrell and Engelbert Humperdinck. Founded by owner Gustavo “Gus” Borner, Igloo has four large control rooms, lounges, ample parking, car service, and a remote recording option.
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A view of an Infrasonic recording station.
(Magda Wosinska / Infrasonic Sound)
Infrasonic
Highland Park Recording studio
Under the stewardship of engineer Pete Lyman, Infrasonic has expanded into a bicoastal (well, L.A. and Nashville) complex where albums from Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile and Fall Out Boy have gotten their finishing touches. If you’ve knocked around the L.A. music scene for a while, you’ll probably recognize Phil Feinman (of the late, great Bedrock.LA) and J. Clark (of Pretty Girls Make Graves) manning the boards in the West Coast facility. Plus, they can cut their own vinyl on site with a Neumann VMS 80 lathe.
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(Kingsize Studios)
Kingsize Studios
Glassell Park Recording studio
Engineer and producer Dave Trumfio built out the Gold-Diggers recording studio, but he made his reputation with this warren of studios in Northeast L.A. He’s helmed and mixed records from Sia and Wilco, and if you ask really nicely, he might let you rent his home studio in Silver Lake (complete with a pool) for your project.
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(Adam “Yukon” Harr/LemonTree Studios)
LemonTree Studios
Highland Park Recording studio
Whenever Billie Eilish is back in her home neighborhood of Highland Park, Lemon Tree is on a shortlist for places to work. The Highland Park complex, owned by the gregarious Erik Nilsson, has 12 recording studios (a second Arts District outpost has seven) up for long-term lease or shorter-term use, and it’s right in the middle of one of the most music-driven neighborhoods in L.A. — you can get your guitar fixed, record an album, sell your vinyl and spin it at a bar all on the same few blocks.
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A view of Melrose Sound recording studios.
(Cassandra Isbell Photo + Video/Cassandra Isbell Photo/Melroe Sound)
Melrose Sound
East Hollywood Recording studio
Skrillex, Charlie Puth, Kehlani and Bebe Rexha have made this a busy stop in the Hollywood-area recording circuit. Pick from four color-themed rooms for the exact right vibe, or head to their Hollywood Hills outpost near the Bowl for a more sylvan atmosphere to cut tracks.
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(Andrew Wong)
Mint Room Studios
Glendale Recording studio
Inside a pink, unassuming building along Glendale Avenue sits Mint Room Studios, a popular spot for L.A’s hip-hop scene. Remble, Blueface, Kalan.Frfr are some of many who have spit 16s into the studio’s microphones, while out-of-state talents such as Bobby Shmurda, DDG and Desiigner have ventured through the doors as well. And it also serves as the home base for Treacherous Records, the independent label founded by Mint Room owner Mickey Aram.
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A view of the Nightbird Recording Studios.
(Pablo Martinez/Nightbird)
NightBird Recording Studios
West Hollywood Recording studio
Created in the basement of the Sunset Marquis, a hotel noted for embracing the culture of rock ‘n’ roll (not to mention the Morrison Hotel Gallery in the lobby), NightBird offers three cozy but well-equipped tracking rooms and a long list of mics and instruments. Founded by producer-musician Jed Leiber, the discreetly located facility has drawn major artists (Doja Cat, Post Malone, Sting, Aerosmith, etc.) for tracking, songwriting, demoing and press interviews, with all the available comforts of being attached to the exclusive four-star hotel upstairs.
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(NRG Recording Studios)
NRG Recording Studios
North Hollywood Recording studio
Founded in 1995 by producer-engineer Jay Baumgardner, this modern facility with exotic décor in the NoHo Arts District has hosted sessions with unknowns and major acts, including No Doubt, Fiona Apple, John Fogerty, Linkin Park and Esperanza Spalding. Behind a lobby lined with multiple platinum record awards, NRG offers two large tracking rooms, including a plush Moroccan-themed space, plugged into custom vintage Neve consoles. It offers a mountain of new and classic mics, amps, guitars, pedals, pianos and other tools.
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The Pie
Recording studio
Local Natives, Zack de la Rocha and Anderson .Paak have worked out of this low-key (and surprisingly affordable) studio in leafy Pasadena. It houses a wide range of useful-for-L.A. options, from a big live room for tracking string sections and choirs to voiceover facilities, onsite mastering and reel-to-reel tape transfers.
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(Pirate Studios)
Pirate Studios
West Adams Recording studio
DJs come first at Pirate Studios, the global network of recording booths and practice rooms featuring state-of-the-art Pioneer equipment. Singers, musicians and podcasters are welcome too, however, as both L.A. locations (West Adams and Silver Lake) offer spaces to suit each need. And should your DJ career take you on the road, you can likely find another location to get some quick practice in — Pirate has dozens of locations in Europe and several in New York.
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(David Catching/Rancho de la Luna)
Rancho de la Luna
Recording studio
Among the most distinctive studios on this list, Rancho de la Luna achieved legendary status first through sessions with the high-octane desert rockers Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age, before landing such clients as Iggy Pop, Foo Fighters, Daniel Lanois and Arctic Monkeys. Essentially a studio built in a residential home on the high desert in Joshua Tree, it was founded by Dave Catching and the late Fred Drake in 1993. With the studio sharing living space with a wildly diverse collection of equipment that Josh Homme has lovingly called “esoteric,” the Rancho is an isolated workspace on a dirt road, set up for Pro Tools and moments of desert inspiration.
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Record Plant
Hollywood Recording studio
When Trippie Redd arrived in Los Angeles in 2016, the Record Plant quickly became his new home base: “I have a lot of fun making music in this room,” he told The Times last September. Other notable clients include Rihanna, D’Angelo, Ariana Grande and Frank Ocean, who recorded material for his landmark “Channel Orange” in the building. Like Trippie, the Hollywood studio is not a true L.A. native; instead, engineer Gary Kellgren and businessman Chris Stone first started the Record Plant in New York in 1968, before opening a Los Angeles location the following year. (The New York location was closed by 1987.)
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A view of the Live Room at the Silent Zoo Studios recording rooms.
(Holden Woodward)
Silent Zoo Studios
Glendale Recording studio
Once known as the Bridge Recording, this giant space has been a favorite of filmmakers and composers for generations, with a 1,750-square-foot live room that can accommodate a full orchestra. Films like “Straight Outta Compton,” shows like “The Walking Dead” and video games like “Assassin’s Creed” have all found their moods within this tracking room. It’s open for bands and smaller projects as well, with a new broadcast rig for livestreaming.
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Sound City
Van Nuys Recording studio
You don’t need us to vouch for the importance of this Valley landmark where Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana and Tom Petty cut some of the bestselling albums of their eras. Just watch Dave Grohl gush about the space in his 2013 feature-length documentary “Sound City,” which is both an adoring, star-packed tribute to the room that made his life and work possible, and an elegy for an era of big-budget, close-quartered, analog-magic recording culture in Los Angeles.
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Sound Factory
Hollywood Recording studio
Sunset Sound isn’t the only Hollywood landmark that the late composer/producer Tutti Camarata helped popularize. Sound Factory, just down the street, first came to life as Moonglow Recording Studios in the 1960s. Soon rechristened Sound Factory by RCA/Warner producer David Hassinger, the space hosted Linda Ronstadt for many of her her landmark folk-country hits, as well as Gram Parsons, Marvin Gaye, Dolly Parton, the Jackson 5 and Elton John. Camarata took it over in 1981, and today it sports two world-class rooms where Dua Lipa, SZA and Kali Uchis have recorded.
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(Miles Bitton)
Sunset Sound
Hollywood Recording studio
Sunset Sound was opened six decades ago by Tutti Camarata, onetime director of recording for Disney, and among its first projects were songs for “Mary Poppins” and “101 Dalmatians.” But it soon evolved into an essential venue for groundbreaking rock, pop and soul, as the location of hit albums by Sly Stone, Van Halen, Weezer, Prince and more. While the studio is a fully up-to-date digital operation, it still offers the historic analog experience, with tape machines and other vintage gear used to make recordings in the classic rock era. And like Capitol Studios less than a mile away, Sunset Sound has kept its standalone echo chambers for recording natural reverb effects, like those used on Jim Morrison’s torrid vocal on the Doors’ 1967 smash “Light My Fire,” channeled through the facility’s historic Studio One chamber.
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(Total Access Recording)
Total Access Recording
Redondo Beach Recording studio
Fabled rockers have laid down vocals, guitar riffs and drum fills at Total Access Recording — Guns N’ Roses, No Doubt and Foreigner, to name a few. Less than two miles from the Pacific Ocean, the studio has been in operation since 1980.
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(Bigg Boo)
Track 9 Studios
Torrance Recording studio
For years, L.A.’s underground has fortified their skills at Track 9, the Torrance studio owned by producer-engineer Bigg Boo. 1TakeJay, Remble, Drakeo the Ruler, 03 Greedo and more have recorded at Track 9, often rapping over beats produced by Bigg Boo himself. And of course, the studio is always open for the next aspiring rapper looking to break out of Los Angeles.
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(Truth Studios)
Truth Studios
Torrance Recording studio
Great artists have made some of their greatest work at Truth Studios — TDE’s star songstress SZA is one such artist, after recording a verse for her song “Doves in the Wind” here. Truth Studios is owned by producer-engineer Nick Breton, who recorded artists out of his L.A. studio apartment for over three years before securing the Stanley Avenue building. Aside from SZA, friends of the studio include Slowthai, Smino, Clairo and many more.
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(Steven Dewall)
Valentine Recording Studios
Valley Village Recording studio
Valentine Recording Studios is a time capsule to an earlier analog era, with pristine Midcentury Modern décor and vintage equipment dating back to its opening in 1963 and a 1975 remodel. Named for its late founder, recording engineer Jimmy Valentine, the two studio spaces have hosted sessions by Bing Crosby and the Beach Boys in their first era (before closing in 1979), then drew the likes of Haim, Black Keys and Eagles of Death Metal after reopening in 2015. Valentine was sealed off for decades, and left largely untouched, leaving its elegant wood paneling, plush carpeting, custom consoles and ancient tape machines ready for rediscovery by a new generation.
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(Alan Amato/The Village)
The Village
Sawtelle Recording studio
Built in a former Masonic Temple, the Village was made into a recording studio in 1968 by Geordie Hormel, and it remains one of the top facilities in the world. Just inside the front door is a long hallway lined with multiple platinum and gold album awards that chronicles a history recording the biggest names in popular music. Among the hits made there was Steely Dan’s 1977 album “Aja,” still praised far and wide as an astonishing recording achievement. “The building has a palpable energy,” says Jeff Greenberg, owner since 1995, “but every wire and every pipe and every piece of electronics in the building is currently state of the art. The digital consoles and the analog consoles and everything else have been updated repeatedly.” The 22,000-square-foot multi-story building offers three main live rooms, mostly using Neve consoles, plus a stage area for recording larger groups. Less technical are stories of a phantom bassist who “walks the halls at night and drinks the booze and makes his bad bass tracks,” says Greenberg. From the outside, the century-old brick building is also recognizable for a large “Isle of California” mural that overlooks the parking lot with a sunny apocalyptic scene of a freeway collapsing into the Pacific Ocean
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(The Watche)
The Watche
North Hollywood Recording studio
The Watche ended last year with a bang, hosting Brandy’s very first writing camp, where a number of singers, writers and producers — including Ari Lennox and Timbaland — came together to help create material for the R&B icon’s forthcoming project. The studio has been a North Hollywood go-to since 2010, having welcomed John Mayer, Youngboy Never Broke Again and Dave East among others.
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