by Monica Tsai
Staff writer
On the outskirts of Downtown, a lone voice sings out in the night air. It is a voice filled with melody and optimism. Zooming in, one hears rhythm, bass, lyrics. The source: Big Deal Recording Studio in the Beaver Street Enterprise Center, where an aspiring real estate agent also aspired to hit the big time in music.
“The business aspect limits some studios,” said Robert Lester, proprietor of Big Deal Recording. “Studio owners are often artists themselves. They love the music but most lack the planning skills. And they’re not really set up for retail service; most are in a warehouse or a basement. Because I’m not a musician it allows me to focus more on the business side.”
That’s where Lester is carving out his niche. His strategy is to offer the lowest rates on studio time paired with the most comprehensive of services utilizing contracted professionals.
Launched in January, the studio may be an introduction to the music industry for Lester but he is no stranger to the world of business. During the day he works full-time as an information security officer but, when the stars come out, he’s in “the biz.”
What began as an investment in a record label stirred up the entrepreneurial instincts in Lester, who decided there was a demand locally for a recording studio.
“In Atlanta, all the markets are saturated,” said Lester, a Georgia native. “Jacksonville is like an open canvas. Eventually, music has to blow up in a city this size that’s growing this fast.”
Employing a high-volume over high-dollar approach, Lester attracts most of his business so far from local, emerging musicians (and their agents) spinning sounds in the genres of gospel, rhythm & blues, hip-hop and rock-rap fusion.
“We want to be the Wal-Mart of recording studios,” said Lester, a graduate from Florida A&M. “Wal-Mart drove the competition out by being affordable. For this type of equipment and level of production, people would pay $150 an hour somewhere else. Our prices start as low as $45 an hour.”
In the same vein, he produces commercial jingles and public announcements, offers courses in studio engineering and production, and outsources graphic design services for album covers and the like.
Actually, all of his services are outsourced to independent producers, voice coaches, website designers or other professionals in the field. Lester provides his project planning expertise, when required, and the tangible assets - the facilities, equipment, software, sound
booth, etc.
Looking down the road, Lester intends to expand to other cities once he has recouped his investment.
“People are starving to get into the industry,” he said. “I’m riding the whole American Idol thing.”
Next on his agenda is to establish a real estate brokerage firm. Lester already holds a real estate agent’s license from the time he and his wife, a mortgage broker, were house shopping in the area. The couple moved to town in 1997 with their two sons from Atlanta where Lester had worked as an IT consultant. Due to a friend’s suggestion, they looked around in Springfield and wound up buying a condemned quadruplex for $64,000. After more than
a year of demolition and
reconstruction, the building
is now a single-family home
with an estimated value of
$330,000.
“I walked in and there was dust everywhere and people with sledgehammers tearing up the place and I said, ‘Man, I want one of these,’” recalled Lester. “Having come from Atlanta and having seen what they were doing with urban renewal, I didn’t know they had anything like this in Jacksonville. You can’t buy a 3,000 square-foot house in mid-town Atlanta without selling your kids.”
For Lester, change is a good thing. After a rough start out of college with a degree in criminology and then, recovering from the Internet bust of the last decade, Lester is turning another page in his life. This time it’s on a high note.