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Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is Very Friendly? A professional recording studio and record store at 610 Dean Street in Brooklyn, NY. We specialize in heavy music, rock, and analog-forward production.

Where are you located? 610 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY.

What genres do you specialize in? Heavy music of all kinds—modern metal, classic metal, black metal, death metal, hardcore, doom, sludge—plus rock, punk, and anything that benefits from real amps and real drums.

Rates & Pricing

What are your day rates?

  • Staffed (with engineer): $450-750/day depending on tier
  • Dry hire (bring your own engineer): $350-550/day

What are your hourly rates?

  • Staffed: $55-95/hour
  • Dry hire: $45-65/hour

How much does reamping cost?

  • Base: $50/hour (unattended, 1 amp + 1 cab)
  • Premium: $120/hour (engineer present, full amp selection, A/B testing)

How much for live drums on my song?

  • Base: $300/song (house drummer, raw tracks)
  • Premium: $600/song (drummer + bassist, edited and phase-aligned)

How much for full production?

  • Base: $850/song (1 producer, programmed drums, rough mix)
  • Premium: $2,500/song (full live band, real amps, professional mix and master)

What about vocal sessions?

  • Base: $60/hour
  • Premium: $120/hour (includes vocal producer, full mic selection, tuned stems)

What's included in a session? All sessions include access to house backline, microphones, and instruments. Staffed sessions include an engineer. Premium tiers include outboard gear.

Booking

How do I book a session?

  1. Email us with your project details
  2. We respond within a few hours
  3. You receive a quote
  4. Pay 50% deposit to confirm
  5. Get confirmation with all details

What's your cancellation policy?

  • More than 72 hours notice: Full deposit refund
  • Less than 72 hours: Deposit forfeited unless we can rebook
  • Rescheduling: Accommodated with 48 hours notice

What payment methods do you accept? Credit cards, bank transfer, and cash.

When is payment due? 50% deposit to book. Balance due at the start of the session.

The Space

What rooms do you have?

  • Live Room: Full band tracking, drums, large ensembles
  • Overdub Room: Vocals, guitar overdubs, isolated tracking
  • Control Room: Engineering, mixing, monitoring

Can I see the engineer during my session? Yes. The Overdub Room has a direct window to the control room. The Live Room has video monitors showing the control room at all times.

Do musicians get their own headphone mix? Yes. We have a Hear Back PRO system with 5 personal mixers in the Live Room. Everyone controls their own mix.

Gear & Equipment

What amps do you have?

  • Peavey 5150 (classic high-gain)
  • Soldano SLO-100
  • Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier
  • Marshall JCM800
  • Green Matamp GT120MV (doom/sludge)
  • Ampeg SVT Heritage (bass)
  • Darkglass Microtubes 900 (bass)
  • Roland JC-120, Fender Princeton, Vox AC30, Fender Twin (combos)

What microphones do you have?

  • Neumann U87Ai, U47 FET, TLM 103
  • AKG C414 XLS (matched pair)
  • Royer R-121 (matched pair)
  • AEA R88 stereo ribbon
  • Shure SM7B, SM57 (x6)
  • Sennheiser MD421 (x4)
  • And more

What drums do you have?

  • Tama Starclassic Maple (4-piece, 22" kick)
  • Gretsch Brooklyn kit
  • Ludwig Supraphonic and Black Beauty snares
  • Zildjian A Custom and Meinl Byzance cymbals

Do you have house guitars and bass? Yes. We have 9 guitars including 7-strings, a P-Bass, and three analog synths (Moog Grandmother, Prophet Rev2, Korg MS-20).

What DAWs do you support? Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Studio One, and Reaper. Bring your session or start fresh.

How Sessions Work

What's your default recording approach? Clean capture—mic through preamp into DAW with no processing baked in. This preserves maximum flexibility. You can switch to commit-through-hardware in about 30 seconds if you prefer.

What is reamping? Taking a clean DI recording and playing it back through real amplifiers to capture the tone after the fact. You can try different amps without re-performing.

What is blind tone selection? We set up multiple amp/cab/mic combinations labeled A, B, C, etc. You pick your favorite without knowing which gear made which sound. Eliminates bias—you choose based on what sounds best, not brand reputation.

Can I do remote sessions? Yes. Send us your files, we work on them here, and send results back. Turnaround is typically 2-3 business days.

Do you offer video capture? Yes. We have 5 cameras and can capture multi-angle footage of your session. Options include raw footage, highlights reel, behind-the-scenes edit, and social cuts for Instagram/TikTok.

What to Bring

What should I bring to my session?

  • Your instruments (fresh strings/heads recommended)
  • Reference tracks or session files
  • A hard drive if you want a local copy

What do you provide?

  • Engineering (unless dry hire)
  • Water and coffee
  • Access to all house gear, mics, and backline

Policies

Can I bring guests? Yes, but please limit to those essential to the session. Let us know if you're expecting more than 4 people.

Is there parking? Details provided in your booking confirmation.

Can I eat in the studio? Food and drink are welcome in the lounge. In control and live rooms, water in closed containers only.

Is my gear safe? Yes. We have security cameras on entry points and common spaces, plus an alarm system. You're responsible for personal belongings while here.

About Us

How did you fund Very Friendly? We chose to accept zero outside investors in order to maintain creative control over the brand and the quality of our product. Very Friendly is self-funded and heavily supplemented by bank loans from Carver, a local bank here in Brooklyn we absolutely love.

Contact

How do I contact you? Email hello@veryfriendlymusic.com or use the contact form on our website.

How quickly do you respond? Usually within a few hours.