Leeds Studio Cooperative

Leeds Studio Co-operative has been set up to try and fulfil the needs of musicians and creatives who need soundproof environments in which to work. These spaces are few in number and often expensive to rent due to the high cost of their development. We hope that by building a community of musicians and other creatives who require such spaces we can facilitate the creation of more of them to allow more people to have a place to base their creative work. Based in an old Warehouse in Headingley, we will create 7/8 such spaces available for long term lease (2 live rooms and 6 control rooms), with shared access to recording spaces and other resources such as reel-to-reel tape recorders, plate reverbs etc. We also aim to create another control room with post-production facilities for video editors, as well as a small drum-tracking studio which will both be available to hire by the day/hour to a wider membership beyond the leaseholders, thus allowing the benefits and resources of the facility to reach beyond the resident members and help support a much wider section of the creative community, as well as helping to raise funds for the Co-op. We will also have the capacity for live-streamed (and live-edited) performances for online broadcast. We aim to keep rates affordable for (generally low-income) musicians and will try to operate as a carbon neutral organisation, with power generated by a PV array on the South-facing roof of the warehouse. We also hope to give as many rooms as possible access to natural light, as we believe it's detrimental to well-being and mental health to be working long days in windowless environments. Longer term, we hope that the co-op can grow beyond this facility and take on larger spaces that will allow full bands to have their own leased rehearsal spaces, to give them the time and space needed to create their best art without the constant disruption of moving gear in and out of storage and into hired rehearsal rooms.