Shaw Music Studios, our fully-equipped recording studio, is located in Fontainebleau, Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. Our facilities include a control room and studio area. The control room (also known as “the crib”) houses the super computer, musical instruments, keyboard, studio monitors, and pre-amps. It is the heart of technical operations.

Built for comfort, the studio area or booth (also known as “the boom box”) is spacious as well as very functional and houses the headphones and amp. In contrast to the control room it has a funkier look and provides an ideal acoustical space to accurately record.

REFERRALS

“Your work is totally out of this world Jono, your mastering… everything is perfect, thanks again” – Sim Mgijma

“I just want to say I really had a dope session with you today, appreciate your time! Remember to take as much time you need with the mix, always no pressure! See you soon!” – Lungsta, rapper

“Jono, you are the BEST!!! Always willing to help and very professional! Thank you for years of excellent service!!” – Jack in a Box Drama Studio

Sishen de Gama – Referral, 12 December 2019

“You are a star Jon. It’s been such a pleasure to work with you on this project. I’m honestly looking forward to a very long and warm working relationship between us in future. I’m so motivated to work even harder in finding and uplifting more artists for my stable, record them with you and launch their careers. God bless you in abundance my buddy.” – Menziani Yende, manager of jazz band Mekwano

“Jon… I have to say that you’re my best investment ever! What a pleasure to NOT have to worry about all the technical drama involved [recording my songs]. It frees me up to concentrate on what I enjoy most… making music! No worries, no hassles, no grief…” Moss

“I have been impressed by how sophisticated your studio is, and the good way you handle your clients. I would like to work with you for a very long time.” Moeketsi “Serpent” Mothebe, rapper

“I finally proved to myself that I can sing and record, I’ll definitely be back for more!” – Wiida Hamman

“What a nice place to not only record, but Jonathan has such an immense knowledge of the law and music industry. Highly recommend him.” – John Howell & Joslyn Greenwood, musicians

A walkin-in view of the Shaw Music Studios booth

STUDIO SERVICES

Shaw Music Studios, a division of Ibilion, is run by Jonathan G. Shaw, a professional music producer, sound engineer and music businessperson. For an idea of cost, take a look at our rates list at ibilion.com/rates/.

Services provided by the business are:

  • Composition and suggesting music material to record
  • Music arranging and sequencing
  • Scoring and music notation
  • Suggesting and hiring session musicians to perform
  • Supervision of rehearsals
  • Performing both control room and studio work at recording sessions
  • Guiding the artist’s performance, including band, a capella and small choir recordings
  • Post-production work including editing, mixing and masterings
  • Radio, commercial and advertisement work such as podcasts, jingles, audio branding, corporate videos, sound design and voice-overs
  • Audio restoration and forensics
  • Digital marketing services for music, audiobooks and other creative output

GENERAL STUDIO INFO

The following information will help you make the most of using our music studio services:

  • Office hours: We strive to operate at any time of the day, within reason – this means employing wellbeing to provide excellent service. You can call us by phone Tuesdays to Saturdays between 09:00 and 18:00 CAT usually. The studio can be booked in advance for any time. On Mondays, I lecture in the afternoons and is often an admin-only day.
  • Please allow time to finish your production. Rushing means crushing! Creativity has no deadline! Let us be our best for you and don’t pressure us. To avoid disappointment, make sure you plan your production in advance. We are constantly receiving enquiries and bookings and for us to get you the time you need, we’ll need to get your 50% booking fee timely and be able to schedule your production accordingly within our studio diary. I encourage you confirm with us once the booking fee is paid.
  • Referencing: I believe in giving you uniform quality that meets our and your expectations. To do this, we will often ask you to supply a final master recording (if you haven’t worked with us before) that you believe meets this expectation and we will do our best to match your audio to this. Ultimately this allows us to demonstrate we can deliver on your sound, and meet industry, release and media requirements.
  • Production packages: These packages are convenient to independent artists and labels that are looking for high value music productions.
  • Mixing package: Deliver separate instrument / vocal tracks, unclipped, in .wav format (or equivalent) all starting from the “0” position. Record them in 24 bit with -10dBFS headroom. A sample rate of 96 kHz is recommended, although not lower than 44.1 kHz. Audio tracks that do not conform to this standard will not be mixed. The more detail and quality of tracked audio you supply, the better your mix. If you can supply full audio in a Pro Tools session, even better. One revision of the mix is included in the fee. We deliver 24 bit 96 kHz audio files of the final song, radio edit, backtrack and instrumental.
  • Mastering package: Mix files must be delivered in 24 bit, stereo interleaved or LR WAV format (or equivalent), with between -10dBFS to -6dBFS headroom (no clipping) and an RMS of between -20dBFS to -18dBFS. Do not apply fades to your final mix output and leave sufficient silence before and after the music. Buss compress to taste but if in doubt supply a mix with and without buss compression. Do not convert: supply in the original format and resolution. A sample rate of 96 kHz is recommended, although not lower than 44.1 kHz. Audio mixes that do not conform to this standard will not be mastered. Supply applicable music references. One revision of the master is included in the fee. We deliver the data (WAV) master in 16 bit, 44.1 kHz optimised for streaming services and other resolutions for different formats (CD, vinyl) on request. CD authoring, MP3 tagging and music retail aggregation is charged at additional rates, please complete our metadata form accurately if you require these and supply high resolution artwork.
  • Billing: Please fill out our client information sheets to facilitate bookings, billing and tagging. Please note that prices in various currencies include foreign exchange handling fees.
  • Increases: rates customarily increase annually on 1 August but are subject to change. Check out our latest rates.

CORPORATE AND MEDIA WORK

Our established recording studio, Shaw Music Studios, records and provides voiceovers and sound designs for many corporate clients. We have worked with many media houses including HDI Youth Marketeers, Okuhle, Nonzero Agency, Arctic Media, Wia Media, Main Market, Tomfoolery, Tongue Twisters, Autumn DVD, BigSky Productions, Community Media Trust, HWB Communications, VerBatim, Motsepe Advertising, Peach Tree Productions, Just Like That Productions and others for brands such as:

  1. African Bank,
  2. Always,
  3. Aspen,
  4. BBC Lifestyle,
  5. Bidvest,
  6. Bonitas,
  7. Calpol,
  8. Cell C,
  9. Ceramic Industries
  10. City of Joburg,
  11. Dettol,
  12. Dove,
  13. DSTV,
  14. Eastwave Radio (station ID pack),
  15. Enterprise (Tiger Brands),
  16. Fine Music Radio,
  17. FNB,
  18. Game SA,
  19. Hygene Disposables,
  20. Illovo,
  21. Indgro,
  22. Kuehne Nagel,
  23. KFC,
  24. Merck,
  25. Mike’s Kitchen
  26. Milo,
  27. Mix FM,
  28. MTN,
  29. Nutriday,
  30. Nedbank,
  31. Nestle,
  32. Old Mutual,
  33. Pampers,
  34. Pick ‘n Pay,
  35. Radio Today,
  36. Rand Water,
  37. RMA,
  38. Roots Butcheries
  39. SAB,
  40. SAGEA,
  41. SAICA,
  42. Saint-Gobain,
  43. Sasol,
  44. Serengeti Estates,
  45. SBS,
  46. SGS,
  47. Sha’p (Radio Drama),
  48. Suitsupply,
  49. Tiger Brands,
  50. Tree Tops Estates,
  51. Twinsaver,
  52. UNISA,
  53. Virgin Mobile,
  54. Woolworths
Check out this ad from SBS that we did the voiceover for.

The voice over for the above corporate video was recorded by us with VO artist Sigrid as well as edited into the video for Land and Sea Shipping.
The voice over for the above corporate video was recorded by us with VO artist Sigrid for Just Like That Productions for African Bank.
More views of the recording booth at Shaw Music Studios

STUDIO EQUIPMENT

  • A Universal Audio Apollo interface running on a M1 Macbook Pro computer;
  • Yamaha HS80M studio monitors;
  • Universal Audio LA-610 pre-amplifier;
  • Rupert Neve Portico 5012 Duo Mix Preamp;
  • Avalon U5 Direct Box;
  • Korg microKey MIDI controllers;
  • Behringer Power-Play Pro 8 headphone distributor;
  • Roland V-Drum TD-4K electronic drum kit;
  • Neumann U87ai microphone;
  • Neumann KM184 matched pair microphones;
  • Shure SM57 instrument mic;
  • AKG D112 bass mic;
  • and Behringer C-2 acoustic mics.
  • Instruments used include a Cort G300 Pro electric guitar;
  • Seagul 6-string steel string guitar;
  • Djembe drum and various percussion;
  • and Yamaha nylon 6-string guitar.
  • The rooms are acoustically treated with top-of-the-range Auralex Studio Foam which provide an incredible look and sound as well as out-of-this-world Modular Muse 400DIA MuseTube bass traps.
  • Aircon
  • WIFI
  • Backup generator for power outages
  • Tea/coffee/water service
  • Pro Tools;
  • Antares: Auto-Tune and AVOX;
  • Native Instruments: Komplete;
  • Spitfire Audio: Albion ONE;
  • Waves: Horizon, SSL, Restoration;
  • Universal Audio UAD;
  • And others.

INTERNSHIPS

Ibilion offers internships to Music Technology and Music Management students.

Shaw Music Studios control room