LISTENCAREFULTONSTUDIO

Recording at the studio in Vienna

At Listencareful in Vienna's 17th district, I record bands live in the room, plus overdubs, vocals and voice-over, from demo to album. The atmosphere is more living room than studio: no stress, no feeling of racing the clock.

  • €400 to €600per recording day
  • 3 to 6musicians in the room
  • 8 to 9 hoursper recording day
  • from €350shortest booking, 4 hours

The live room

The live room is built out in wood and fits 3 to 6 musicians with drums and amps. The acoustics are tuned for a lively but focused sound. The sloped ceiling keeps things clear, and gobos let you shape the room further. I've kept refining the acoustics over the years.

The full width of the live room: drums between red and light gobos, a sofa on the left, windows and guitars on the right.

The live room, set up for a band recording. Photo: Alex Lausch

Headphone mix and monitoring

Up to 8 musicians can record at the same time when the control room and the side room are used as well. The monitoring provides 4 separate stereo mixes in the room, plus 3 more on headphones via a Presonus HP6. Since 2025, conversion runs through a Lynx Aurora with 32 inputs and 32 outputs, connected via an RME Digiface. A good headphone mix makes one of the biggest differences to how a session goes, so I always put real care into it. Even so, it usually comes together quickly and without fuss.

Drum kit in the live room, miked up, between red gobos and wooden diffusers.

Drums, miked up. Photo: Alex Lausch

A recording day

A recording day starts at 10 a.m. and lasts 8 to 9 hours. We record Monday through Friday, and on Saturdays only by exception. Before the day, we agree on what should be finished and what you expect. That includes what happens to the tracks before I hand them over: whether you get them raw or edited. If I also mix the songs, editing is included. The tracks reach you via Swisstransfer.

Price

  • Recording day, equipment and engineer included€400 to €600 Where your day lands in that range depends on the scope and on how many days you book. Consecutive days cost considerably less than a single day.
  • Shortest booking, 4 hoursaround €350
  • Mixing, mastering and producingbilled separately See the page for each. All prices are VAT-exempt under the Austrian small business scheme.

Equipment, a selection

  • Console: API The Box 2, analog on the patchbay, since 2021
  • Converters: Lynx Aurora with 32 inputs and outputs via an RME Digiface, since 2025
  • Preamps, EQs and compressors: API, SSL, A-Designs and Universal Audio, plus Neve 1073, Pultec and Neumann clones
  • Microphones: Stam Audio SA-47F, Advanced Audio CM67se, Sennheiser MD 421, Electro-Voice RE20
  • Monitors: Focal Twin 6 BE
  • Drums: Sonor Champion from the late 1960s, fully restored, with its original snare
  • Guitars, basses and amps: guitars by Fender, Gretsch and Guild, active and passive basses, plus a Fender Princeton, an Engl Classic 50 and a Plexi Super Lead clone
  • DAW: Cubase

This is just a selection from a much larger collection. Anything else you need can be rented in by arrangement.

View from the drum kit across the live room, toms and cymbals in the foreground, the open door to the control room at the back.

Seen from the drums. Photo: Alex Lausch

Getting here

Halirschgasse 18, 1170 Vienna. By public transport: tram 43 or S-Bahn S45, both to Hernals. The street is in a short-term parking zone, but there's usually room to unload right in front of the studio. The studio is up a steel staircase in the courtyard, so it isn't step-free.