Exile on Journal Studios

(need i say "tongue-in-cheek"?)

If ever there were a transient establishment, this is it!

Being college students, we haven't the kind of money required to make the kind of recordings for which we're looking in a real studio which charges about $30-$40 per hour. Being adventurous and foolhardy college students, we decided instead to do-it-outselves.
The first such do-it-yourself adventure came in 1995 when we set out to record a demo. We borrowed a cassette-based 4-track recorder (the Tascam 424 PortaStudio, actually) from our good friend Chase K., and rented four microphones from the DooWop Shop; we plugged the 4-track into Neal's stereo, and recorded the master on Scott's Sony cassette deck (since Neal's was broken at the time). To isolate the tracks, we set up the amplifiers in the various other rooms of Neal and Kristian's house at 923 Journal Avenue.
Thus was born Exile on Journal Studios.

While a professional studio is open year-round, Exile exists only when we've rented or borrowed equipment - threfore qualifying as a trasient establishment... This doesn't mean, however, that its capabilities are diminished in any way. (no, of course not... not as long as our egos are at work here!)
As you might have noticed, the liner notes to Leave Bronx and Brad's Sleeping, refer to several different studios at Exile on Journal:

• STUDIO A: NEAL'S BEDROOM
  Neal's room, which in the off-season serves as As of Yet's practice space, holds the crown and royal seat of Exile on Journal Studios; most recording actually happens here, and as Neal owns possesses the stereo with mix-down compatibility, all of the final mixing and tweaking happens here. For Brad's Sleeping, only the drums, vocals, and a few overdubs were actually recorded in this room, as the live recording mandated the placement of imstruments and amplifiers in the various rooms of the house. Interestingly (well, to some of us it's interesting), all of the recordings on Leave Bronx sprang forth entirely from Studio A; the live drum tracks, the instrument and vocal overdubs and layering, and sub-level and final mix-down.
  
  
• STUDIO B: KRISTIAN'S BEDROOM
  Studio B comes in a distant second to studio A in terms of the amount of output, but makes up for it in quality. The first use of this room's hardwood floor and ambient walls was simply to isolate Kristian's amplifier during the Brad's Sleeping sessions, but over time we've come to appreciate it more. As a break from the Leave Bronx sessions in June '96, we toted the four-track and microphones all the way across the hall from Studio A and set up an informal, mostly ambient acoustic studio, replete with a mic dangling from the ceiling fan. The resulting sound boasts a live and natural quality that seems all too rare these days. The four or five tracks recorded in Studio B remain unreleased, however....
  
  
• STUDIO C: THE REST OF THE DOWNSTAIRS
  The first two studios actually claim 90% of the work done at EoJ, but for some things they just don't cut it; for example, the hall closet makes an excellent isolation booth for a small bass amp, and the bathroom is a great place to get that reverb-y, hey-we-recorded-this-in-the-bathroom guitar sound.
  
  

(this unfinished space for rent)