The boss division at the famous Capitol Studios in Hollywood has closed, with several employees fired, Universal Music Group confirmed Tuesday night after the closure began spreading on social media.
The recording studios themselves, a tourist site and a magnet for the best recording artists since opening in 1956, will remain open. But the master rooms of Capitol Studios, which were honored almost equally by engineers and manufacturers, will not, because those spaces will be converted into recording studios – presumably much smaller than Studio A, where Frank Sinatra previously recorded with a full orchestra .
A spokesman for Universal Music Group said: “While demand for recording studios remains high at Capitol Studios, there has been an overall decline in requests for boss services – to the point where we have decided to expand Capitol’s boss facilities. and in other areas of the recording process that artists are asking for more, including the use of space to build additional recording suites. ”
Also closed: Capitol Studios’ tape repair department, where older recordings from the UMG catalog have been digitized. According to UMG, most of that work has already been outsourced to Iron Mountain in Hollywood over the past few years.
UMG did not confirm that the number of employees had been cut, but the boss division had four employees. But one key employee affected during the changes that took place this week was not only attached to the departments for mastery or tire repair, but Capitol Studios in general: Paula Salvatore, a vice president in the studio who recently celebrated her 30th anniversary together celebrated with the company, and which is widely regarded as the face of the whole facility.
Salvatore will no longer continue in that role. It was announced in the music community on Monday and Tuesday that Salvatore had been fired, with growing concern about the possible departure of an institutional instrument facing Capitol Studios, according to Capitol Studios. UMG sources say she will continue to define in another role with the company. On the outside, it remains unclear whether she will continue as an associate or consultant. Variety could not reach Salvatore for comment.
All recordings must be mastered to be released, so it is not entirely intuitive why the demand for studio sessions would remain high in future, but the mastery of work would have slowed down to the creep that UMG’s statement suggests. It may be that additional recording studios in such a famous place can offer more premium than boss work, which can be outsourced. UMG has outdoor facilities it uses for mastery in Los Angeles, which is expected to tackle work previously done internally. The company does not plan any cuts to boss facilities in the studios it owns in New York, Nashville, Canada and Mexico.
Capitol Studios’ master rooms, with Ron McMaster retiring since 2018, were in operation in 2018
Chris Willman / Variety
Top engineer Steve Hoffman, who oversees the popular message boards of Hoffman Forums, was one of those surprised by the closure of the boss division. On his Facebook page, he expressed relief that the recording studios would reopen, contrary to initial rumors that they could also be permanently closed. ‘I hope it’s true,’ he wrote, ‘but why shoot and careful mastery? Are they never going to release music? ”
Capitol Studios as a whole was closed in the early stages of the pandemic, then reopened under COVID protocols, with a slowdown in activity as fewer people were allowed on site and extensive cleaning work had to take place between sessions. The entire facility was recently temporarily closed again when the County of Los Angeles imposed new restrictions on the production of entertainment due to a severe increase in COVID infections; there is hope that the studio could be allowed to reopen if the effects slow down at the end of January, although this seems less likely as the days go on and hospitalizations increase.
Capitol Studios’ boss division has been best known for its role in the vinyl revival over the past few years, although CD mastery has been done there as well. The studio’s website, which has not been altered to reflect the department’s closure, still boasts: “Capitol Mastering proudly boasts the living legacy of vinyl lacquer mastery with two legendary full-time Neumann lathes. We cut lacquer masters for all formats, including 7 ”, 10” and 12 ”.
According to sources, the lathes and other vintage or analogue equipment will be kept on site and not sold, although it will be moved out of the master rooms as it is converted into recording spaces.
The department’s oldest veteran, Ron McMaster, made headlines (including a Variety profile) when he retired in 2018 after 38 years in the Capitol Tower. He then said he was retiring because the influx of requests for vinyl masters was so intense – sometimes to cut four coats a day – that he no longer had the energy to keep up the pace.
Rumors are still circulating about the future of the Capitol Tower, which was sold in 2007 and then leased to the Capitol label group. The building has a distinctive status, and the studio floors are at least apparently safe for conversion to other uses. UMG maintained that any rumors of conversion to apartments remain off the table.
Salvatore’s tenure at the company recently was not unnoticed. In November, another tenant of the Capitol Tower, Capitol Records, posted a video on Salvatore on his Facebook page in which he gave a tour of the famous basement studio, with the caption that it ‘in celebration of Paula Salvatore ‘s 30th year of existence ‘was (below).