Solar-Powered Recording Studios Lighting The Way For Music Industry

From EarthTechling's Steve Duda:

A professional recording studio is an impressive sight to behold. Inside the expansive recording rooms, it is extremely hushed due to the pains taken to insulate the rooms from outside noise. Surprisingly, it's also often very warm due to the imposing stacks and stacks of mysteriously blinking equipment humming quietly along the walls and in the control room. Those mixers, effects, compressors, recording decks and remixing desks use an enormous amount of energy. But now, the idea of a solar-powered recording studio seems to be gaining traction as studios convert and bands both big and small seek out an alternative energy recording solution.

Among the most notable solar-powered success stories of late is the band Cake. Back in 2004 the band purchased a home in Sacramento, Calif., and began to convert it into a recording studio. Five years into that process, the band started moving toward solar power. By the time the band was ready to write and record their 2011 album, "Showroom of Compassion," they were able to complete the entire project using solar power. According to trumpet player Vince DiFiore, "The conversion box is continually making electricity, which is either used in the house or sent back into the city's grid, and you get credited for it on your [electric] bill. We have a negative balance on our SMUD [Sacramento Municipal Utility District] bill. It's working out really well."

Now, solar powered studios have sprung up across the world and the list seems to be continuously growing. Treesound Studios in Atlanta, whose clients include Whitney Houston, Sevendust, Outkast and the Roots, not only keep diligent track of their solar power consumption on their website, but also offer clients use of their biodiesel car service.

In London, the Premises runs its Studio A entirely via an 18-panel rooftop solar array, giving artists the option of completing an entire project via the power of the sun. So far bands like The Klaxons and Bloc Party have taken the opportunity to reduce their energy footprint.

Other solar-powered studios include Hawaii's Maui Recording Studio (Carlos Santana, Led Kaapana, Hapa), Jamaica's Sugashak (Keke-I), Victoria, B.C.'s Bubbs Lane, Northern Michigan's Martini Hill and the LA studio owned by singer/songwriter Jack Johnson.

Solar powered studios are not just for big name bands. Indeed, much of the movement seems to be based on a grassroots, ground-up ideology. Both Cake and Johnson are artists who operate independently of major label record companies and the movement has resonated among many smaller, independent artists like Portland-based musician Graham Smith-White, who is using a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his latest solar recording project.

Related Stories From EarthTechling:
CES 2012: Eton Rukus Solar Sound System
Green Festival San Francisco 2011
Organic PV Ready For Consumer Electronics?
Phone App Oriented Toward Solar Installers
Personal Solar Charger That’s Tough As Nails

Comments

[Tad Snyder]

08:42 PM on 01/26/2012

Wow, solar powered recording studio is sick! Next big innovation in sustainable entertainment is the mobile solar powered sound stage. www.gobiproject.com This nonprofit builds and operates trucks that are like a transformer and turn into a stage/nightclub that's all powered by the sun. The goal is to educate people about renewable resources, sustainable living and social environmental responsibility through powerful entertainment experiences. Pretty Amazing!

[vetxcl]

05:57 PM on 01/23/2012

And even more good, green news: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/01/23/hawai%ca%bbis-largest-solar-project-awarded-go-ahead/

[ItsGettingWeird]

06:09 PM on 01/22/2012

Rooftops as we have known them have been one of the most under-utilized and overlooked resources of any building (in my opinion). Mostly, they are just all-weather hats.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that tomorrow's roofing contractor will also be trained in electrical intallation as a routine part of his job. And I expect to see solar roofing that is less conspicuous and more powerful.

This has the potential to decentralize energy production and make the individual home/business owner more economically independent.

[MrBIgp]

12:01 AM on 01/22/2012

How many kilowatt hours of electricity were generated by this system in 2011.

[Michael Tiemann]

12:06 AM on 01/23/2012

If you are asking me about Manifold Recording, the answer is just a few, because the metering system required to energize the system was not delivered until 2 months after the construction was completed. But I will report the 2012 statistics as they roll in...

[Michael Tiemann]

12:24 PM on 01/20/2012

One studio missed in this survey is the TEC Award Nominee Manifold Recording (http://manifoldrecording.com) in Pittsboro, North Carolina. We brought on line a 92kWh array scheduled to generate 134MWh of electricity each year, *plus* the acre of land upon which the panels are situation remains 100% agriculturally productive. In development for more than two year, our solar wizards and farming gurus worked out how to design and build this double-cropping system, detailed here: http://homepower.com/article/?file=HP147_pg26_Solutions

And here: http://www2.nbc17.com/news/2011/nov/06/3/solar-double-cropping-unveiled-pittsboro-ar-1580494/

And more fully explained here: http://blog.miraverse.com/2011/11/06/speech-text-from-miraverse-power-light-solar-double-cropping-ribbon-cutting/

This array more than fully offsets the entire carbon footprint of the recording studio. We are pleased to see so many others joining this club!

[Genders]

06:22 PM on 01/19/2012

Sounds good!

And cheaper than nukes too~!

[MrBIgp]

12:02 AM on 01/22/2012

not.

[sheila]

03:13 PM on 01/19/2012

Thanks for continuing to show how totally viable rooftop solar is. Every day I hear from uninformed people who insist upon repeating the Big Energy propaganda that rooftop and other in-city PV installations can't actually produce any meaningful amount of power, but when high-usage facilities are proving that wrong and are actually producing more power than they use, the truth comes out.

There is no excuse for bulldozing healthy desert ecosystems or dynamiting beautiful ridgelines and charging a fortune to ratepayers and taxpayers for Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Transmission - it has been proven time and again that, with some modest efficiency upgrades (already underway) and local storage facilities, 100% of CA's energy could be produced from within its built environment by 2038.

In the meantime, why not start with the "do no harm" principle and stop the bulldozers and tortoise slaughter for Big Energy/Big Bank monopoly profits, and start the programs that will decentralize, democratize and clean up our grid (while improving property values, jobs and local economies) like PACE loans and German style feed in tariffs?

[Moose Luck 99]

05:08 PM on 01/19/2012

Reduce GRID STRESS 20%!

And line noise too.

http://electricsaver1200.com/

[paulo one]

02:33 PM on 01/19/2012

Oh cool, now to figure out how to pirate energy from the music Industry....

[PorrickSF]

11:27 AM on 01/19/2012

Every industry needs to migrate toward sustainable energy usage. Even if it's more expensive... it's worth the investment.

Great example they are setting and I look forward to it catching on.

[Al Schrader]

10:54 AM on 01/19/2012

I invented a new solar energy system that puts the solar cells inside the building out of the rain, dirt, and weather. The sunlight is collected with fibre optic panels and "piped" to the solar cells.
Most outdoor solar cell panels lose 30% efficiency in the first 3 months to dirt and soot or weather damage...Al-

[Linus521]

12:37 PM on 01/19/2012

Sounds sooooo good. Good Luck with your planet saving invention. The tragedy in the solar power industry is raping the Earth for dead solar panel fields. Your idea is a win, win for Earth, utilized where people actually live! Right at the source and need and protected from the elements. Killing our ecosystems for any energy source, kills the Earth, regardless.

Thank you and good luck.

[ItsGettingWeird]

05:55 PM on 01/22/2012

"Dead solar panel fields?" Huh?

If such a thing exists, any unused solar panels can be simply unbolted, and stacked onto a truck for removal. I suppose the next step is to rake the grass.

Try that with a gas station, oil refinery, nuke/coal/natural gas power plant.

If you are seriously concerned about the square footage needed to collect sunlight, are you okay with the common asphalt-covered parking lot? That's pretty "dead" from an ecological standpoint (if I understand what you are saying).

[KarmaPatrol]

12:16 AM on 02/09/2012

It's usually installed on something called a "roof", which most homes need anyways.

Only some Southern Californians apartment dweller use it for BBQing.

[sheila]

06:21 PM on 01/19/2012

although i applaud your innovation, your claim that outdoor solar cells lose 30% efficiency in the first 3 months is beyond laughable. they lose less than 1% a year, closer to .5% a year, for over 30 years.