Upholding the legacy

Sing Sing is a renowned local recording studio into its fourth decade of operation. Founded by Kaj Dahlstrom who moved to Australia from Sweden with his parents at the age of 15. They initially lived in Queensland where he was playing in bands before relocating to Melbourne. Dahlstrom built a studio in 1975 in a rental house in East Melbourne to record his own music and friend’s bands. At this stage, he was working for Armstrong’s driving the audio truck sent out for location recordings recording live shows with Ern Rose and Roger Savage.

Dahlstrom acquired an 8-track machine from Armstrong’s and installed this in his home studio. Within a few years, recordings had outgrown the home space and in 1980 he found a room in a warehouse that was running rehearsals in an old Nuttelex margarine factory at 1-3 Gordon St Richmond/Cremorne. Dahlstrom hired the adjacent rehearsal rooms as tracking space for his small control room, and over the years as business grew, the recording studio gradually took over the entire complex. The original small room the studio initially occupied became a storage space as the studio expanded to full capacity.

Renamed Sing Sing in 1983 when new business partners came on board, this studio housed production for countless culturally significant releases in popular music as well as film soundtracks. Many high-profile engineers and producers active in Melbourne since the 1980’s in Australia have worked on projects in this space. Early major releases include The Black Sorrows, Cosmic Psychos, Boom Crash Opera and Painters & Dockers and the vocals for Kylie Minogue’s “Locomotion” which had other production completed at Platinum in Chapel St, South Yarra (later to become a second premises for Sing Sing).

With a similar philosophy to Bill Armstrong of having the best equipment and technology and providing a comfortable environment to work in, Sing Sing Cremorne quickly developed a reputation as one of the top inner-city studios in Melbourne. It attracted high profile local talent as well as visiting international artists and production personnel. It provided an enormous selection of quality audio equipment along with extras such as a table-tennis room, games room, lounges and green rooms to make artists feel at home. Sing Sing became a studio of choice for many including Tony Cohen who is seen wearing a Sing Sing studio t-shirt throughout his interviews on the Long Way to the Top ABC television series 2001.

Broadcast Exchange of Australia-Mediasound

Established in the 1930’s at 32 Market St in Melbourne’s CBD the BEA focused on recording radio drama series and advertising commercials and was the first occupancy of the upper level of 643 Chapel St when it relocated there in 1967. The second level was constructed as a recording space just prior to BEA’s move and features an early acoustic treatment technique of lining the walls in lead sheeting as a sound barrier. The concrete floor also floats above a layer of fiberglass that helps reject low frequency rumble from trams and other street noises. The BEA was renamed Mediasound in the late 1970’s to better reflect the services of the business which by that time was mainly focused on providing sound for the audio-visual industry. The studio engineer was radio actor Monty Maizels who was influential to a young Dave Flett (see chapter 3) in learning music recording techniques.

Yarrabank (1981-c.1982)

In the late 1970’s Mediasound sold the business which was renamed Yarrabank studios. Graeme Thirkell (see chapter 1) was commissioned to redesign the studio and constructed a live-end/ dead-end room which was significantly different to the Westlake design style popular at the time and likely Australia’s first of this style. Working in this space, engineers could record both reverberant reflective sounds in the live area or a more controlled and dampened sound in the dead-end space. The fashion of using dampened spaces was significant in the trend towards capturing highly isolated audio signals that could be later manipulated with effects. This trend for achieving a more controlled sound using close-microphone placement in audio production began appearing in the late-1970’s and 80’s. This technique aims to minimise room reflections or spill from other instruments for the highest level of control in post-production and coincides with advances in studio equipment technology where a clean signal is preferable when adding effects and manipulating the original sound.

Platinum (c.1982-1996)

Rumoured to have gone broke, Yarrabank studios changed hands in the early 80’s with Graeme Thirkell being offered the studio business as payment for his work. Partnering with Ian McKenzie, a producer and engineer from Armstrong’s/AAV, the studio became known as Platinum and began to attract clients of a similar profile to Sing Sing and AAV. Personnel and artists moved between studio spaces with a shift towards more freelance production activity than full-time employment at studios. Album credits for Platinum often share recording credits at various locations such as AAV, Eaton’s, Sing Sing, Platinum and Rhinocerous in Sydney. Big name artists started to flow through the doors at Platinum with albums like Marvin the Album by Frente, Pseudo Echo’s- Funky Town single, some of Goanna’s-Spirit of Place and artists such as Kids in the Kitchen, Uncanny X-Men and Mondo Rock, firmly cementing 643 Chapel St in Australian popular music history.

A new studio section was added to the East end of the building in the early 80’s when Chris Corr came across to work as an engineer at Platinum from Richmond Recorders. This east wing studio was re-designed by studio designer Dave Flett (see also Chapter 3) who had also designed Richmond Recorders. As a teenager Flett had spent time at 643 Chapel St same building when it was operating as Mediasound soaking up knowledge audio knowledge with BEA engineer Monty Maizels.

The sound of the 80’s had really begun to take hold with the introduction of digital effects and new developments in audio technology. Based on making the most of rapidly developing technologies and new approaches to recording, including the introduction of digital samplers and drum machines, the sound of popular music began to change. Keyboards and synthesizers had developed as a standard technology and synthetic sounds were being integrated with organic sounds. Drum machines had arrived making drummers fearful that these machines would leave them out of a job. Production techniques featuring close-miking by placing microphones on each individual component of a drum kit and adding exaggerated digital reverb, delay and time-based manipulation for creative effect was a popular trend. This sound was so fashionable that Corr describes a period in the 1980’s where in an ironic twist of the impact of technology on music-making were he was required to make acoustic drum kits sound like drum machines.

Kiss studios (1996-1998)

Platinum operated until 1995 until it changed hands once again, this time operating as the short-lived Kiss. Meanwhile, Sing Sing in Cremorne/Richmond was thriving and Dahlstom and partners decided to expand their business and operate from two locations where Sing Sing remains to this day.

Farewell to Sing Sing- Cremorne/Richmond (1980-2017)

In 2017 Sing Sing, Cremorne/Richmond, one of the longest running significant spaces in Melbourne recording studio history finally closed its doors. The studio was recently dismantled after years of acoustic refinement and a 37-year history of outputting some of the most important Australian releases during that time. As a reminder of the vulnerability of these culturally significant spaces, the studio was forced to vacate due to pending development by new landlords. This site is in planning for development into apartment towers.

Current Sing Sing, South Yarra is also a significantly vulnerable cultural space with a history of 60 years as a studio since built by the Broadcast Exchange of Australia. This is the oldest purpose-built recording studio for popular music release still in-tact and in use in Melbourne today. Despite it’s incredible history, the surrounds of Chapel Street are rapidly giving way to development. During an interview with business owners Kaj and Jude Dahlstrom at 643 Chapel Street, cranes and demolition equipment pounded through concrete only a few doors away in construction of a multi-story tower. As a rental space, it is only a matter of time before development of this piece of Melbourne music history is threatened by Melbourne’s rapid development, and with a fairly nondescript facade, it is unlikely to be considered for heritage protection.