My Recording Studios
Decades of Fun and Madness
Or how I learned that even the best equipment is nothing without a good song
1978
Record Star
It all began in a backyard downtown St.Pauli - in a former bakery. No real heating, just an old oil oven. And John and Loo across the yard...
1980
Brunwey Studios
Professional record production begins at Stresemannstrasse. Voice- and Sound-making for Ad clips and a growing number of Feature films for TV and Cinema follow.
1986
Loft Studios
Record/CD production growingly lost significance. In 1992 we finalised the move toward focussing on film sound post-production.
1978
Record Star – The early years
However, Manfred Brunwey had the idea of building a demo studio for bands and solo artists in our rehearsal room. We founded the Brunwey & Drewling oHG as „Record Star“ - and the ride began. That happened in 1978 ...
Manfred Brunwey hatte die Idee, in unserem Übungsraum ein Demo-Studio für Bands und Solo-Künstler aufzubauen. Als Record Star haben wir dann die Brunwey & Drewling oHG gegründet und losgelegt. Das war 1978…
1982
Brunwey Studios
The label Record Star quickly sounded dull to us. Brunwey had a good feel to it, even internationally. And for Manfred, the initiator of the studio idea, this worked.
Bands, such as Die Ledernacken, Trio, Inga Rumpf and many more came to work with us. At the same time we recorded quite a lot of German folk music (to be fair: Deutsche Schlagermusik). Jonny Hill, Thomas Anders and, yes, myriads of demo tapes for Dieter Bohlen during his Intersong period.
From 1982 and onwards at the Stresemannstrasse. With stylish wooden panelling and a QuadEight mixing desk we recorded the Neue Deutsche Welle, the new german music wave, or NGW (NDW). Climaxing in 1982 Hamburgs’ music scene wanting to participate and came to us.
During his european tour leg Stevie Wonder recorded two songs with us, „Weakness“ and „Don‘t Drive Drunk“ ... a major experience of course! I thought back then: well, they also put on their trousers one leg at a time. But, however, fashion stiles make the difference ;-) ...
1986
Loft Studios
We bought a used Solid State Logic 6056 mixing desk. Still for the price of an nice apartment. With the acquisition of the first digital multitrack machine (now rather the equivalent investment to buying a house - or better 340.000 Deutsche Mark for 48 band-based digital tracks), we achieved world standard in recording technology.
The 80s were about Music Production
What we did not know at that time: german-language based „New German Wave“ had excluded the international music markets from participating. And Germany, at that time, had been the worlds second largest market for music - and it belonged to us! A good basis to start a recording and production studio. However, with the decline of the NGW the situation changed. No newcomer bands came anymore. And the established acts could afford to choose studios the world over. Thus, we quickly changed the business model and went into feature film sound production.
Manfred Brunwey
Stevie Wonder
Andreas Drewling
Klaus Ebert
Milva
Manfred Brunwey
Peter Maffay
Andreas Drewling
Inga Rumpf
Astrud Gilberto
Hansi Last
When our third partner joined in 1987, Richard Borowski, we began to offer feature film sound production in a large mixing studio. Also in this area we co-formed the development of Dolby Stereo (4-channel) to Dolby 7.1 (8-channel). Today, Dolby Atmos is the perfect sound for a cinematic experience.
We sound produced many Cinema and TV-films of the coming 30 years. Countless advertising spots, too.
2021
A New Generation
The big screen at Stresemannstrasse. Here, TV- and Cinema features are being sound produced and mixed.
In addition, advertising spots for TV, Cinema and online will find their final sound at Loft Studios.
The Loft Studios Hamburg today are being led by Jan Dejozé and Sascha Heiny. More info on Loft at loftstudios.de. loftstudios.de
