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A brief history of Alchemix
Marly Lüske - studio founder, writes :
'I started recording music at a pretty young age, and whilst doing so, happened to come across a book titled, the Alchemist. This book seemed to create a lasting impression on me, so around 1996, I started to mention to friends at School that I wanted to set up a studio by the name of Alchemix. Think this was around grade 9.
I was eyeing out the basement of my parent's Queenslander for a little while before the studio idea, and around 95 I started to dig. There was quite a bit of hard clay down there, so flooding the space every now and then to soften things proved beneficial. A puzzling trap door was also built to link up my upstairs bedroom to the basement studio. It was a decent wooden room. Supportive parents, oh you better believe it! A concrete slab was gifted to me on my 15th Birthday. The first bands visited in 1998 and this allowed me to start putting aside any money earned, to secure more equipment.
didn't know about acoustic treatment yet hehe (1999)
1998
1998
didn't know about acoustic treatment yet hehe (1999)
In 2000, I started a Bachelor of Music, at the Queensland Conservatorium. I also worked on my classical guitar ability around this time. The studio operated on weekends and during holidays.
By 2003, I had pretty much outgrown the smaller space and took the gamble at a 3 year lease, at 29 Logan Road, Woolloongabba. March to August 2004 was the period in which the new studio was built, generously with the help of my luminescent parents and some impressive friends. By September 2004, I was hard at work, recording 7 days a week, once again, putting all the earnings back into new toys 🎮
9 years at this location
9 years at this location
These were formative years that ingrained my style, I believe I really just worked and learned so much, and did little to no looking up to idols around this time, was pretty much a fiercely independent thinker.
By 2007, I had collected a good amount of equipment but wanted to have a few extra bits, and more importantly, wanted to cut back on the number of hours I was doing, so around this time I came across some younger talents from the con, Matthew Whitehouse and Tim Baker. They contributed some extra gear and jumped on board, and started to engineer
at Alchemix 🙅🏻♂️
This was a pretty exhilarating feeling to have a chance to work more on my own music, and just leave the keys with someone else. Felt proper weird at first. Writing from my home studio and managing the studio instead, taught me a whole range of other skills too. A couple years later the freelancers using Alchemix grew to include Jake Miller, Brendan Cox, Surya Sumantara, Codie Childs, Josh Travers, Andrew Mclellan, and Andrew Nolan 👨👨👦👦
The studio was made up of two main control rooms, connected to 5 unique recording environments. Custom gear and mods were built in-house by
Joe Malone, who also resided at the complex, and still resides within the new Alchemix complex today. We also had Music Media residing in-house, covering music print and media. James actually only moved out recently, in 2021 💿
From 2008 to 2011 Alchemix was also running as an art gallery and boutique live recording space for underground experimental artists/jazz groups and classical ensembles. The main event here was known as Disembraining Machine. I invited Joel Stern to curate a set of live events, of which all the shows were to be recorded. We loaded up the hard drives recently in 2020 and Joel has uploaded them all here!
I really loved tracking and mixing these performances, and I once again grew as a listener, composer, and engineer during this period 🎨
My Brain had been made good 🧠
Now around 2010 or so I started working in the studio a bit more again, and by mid-2012 Alchemix was set for its next big move, that is, moving out of Logan Road, and into its current home in Brereton Street, South Brisbane, and this time, with no publican. I guess this one is known as, Alchemix 3.0 😤
Back in 2012
as we found it in 2012
Back in 2012
Alchemix at Brereton Street Was built in late 2012 and early 2013. My lovely parents, still enthusiastic about my path in life helped out heaps again with the new build, we also had a family friend, Ivan who came in to lend a hand. The larger acoustic baffles were finished off by my Mum, who had her own way to install the fabric and make it look super special. Friends pitched in a ton as well, especially in the deconstruction of the old Logan Road Studio in Feb 2013 🏢
The current space is made up of two studios again, and also includes an upstairs workspace for JLM Audio. In 2016 Alchemix also started to host Modular Synth Workshops, as it was hosting the equipment of Andrew Gibbs, who ran The Cave space, formerly held at the Edge 🎛
Studio B was first used by Regatta Studios, then a mix studio by the lead singer of the rock group, Death By Carrot, Kei Cee, followed by a mix studio for Niyi Ade, then even a massage therapy room, and finally in December 2017, Joff Bush moved in and started working on the Bluey Theme 🐕
This version of Alchemix has a large live room, and plenty of portable acoustic baffles, which makes it a really fun space to record within. Throughout these years we had other freelancers such as Michael Whitney, Josh Bell, and Robert Sharpe. Current freelancers using Alchemix include Andrew Nolan, Erik Williamson, Niyi Ade, Nathaniel Jacobs, and Liam Brimble 🧑🏻💻
As this part of the studio is currently in flux, I'm not going to bother saying much more about it yet. 2023 is the year of instruments, so we are looking to add mostly interesting instruments for our clients and producers to use in writing sessions. If you have an instrument at home you no longer use and think we could borrow it, do let us know :) It's fun to have a theme for each year. Year 24. The latest instrument to invite itself into the studio is a Model D Steinway and Sons Grand Piano, and another cool 80's Casio Keyboard 🎹
The studio is also still a performance space, the current run of shows goes by the name of, Oscillo Scape and is curated by Lindsay Crawford. These Events are always free and are put on with love for the arts and accessibility. Giddyup 🙃
