Headlines

July 01, 2008

Miami's Hit Factory recording studio turns 50...

Associated Press | Read Full Story >

In these days of cheap digital home recording programs, professional studios seem like endangered species — Hit Factory’s original New York studio closed its doors in 2005 and Sony Studios in Manhattan shuttered a year ago. But in Miami, the Hit Factory has brought a second life to one of the hardest-working spaces in the recording business, a place where the technical, creative heavy lifting of making hits has been innovated, defined, and refined for five decades.

A who’s who of artists — from James Brown to Bob Marley to the Rolling Stones to Michael Jackson to Madonna — have worked at the studio now known as the Hit Factory Criteria. A recent check of the Billboard Hot 100 found that virtually every other song — including Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” Madonna’s “4 Minutes,” and Usher’s “Love in this Club” — was cut, tracked, mixed, or remixed in one of Hit Factory Criteria’s renowned high-ceilinged rooms.

“I used to see ‘recorded at the Hit Factory Miami’ written in the back of some of my favorite CDs,” says Nelly Furtado, who recorded her 2006 album “Loose” there. “When I finally cut an album there, I understood why. The whole building has this creative magic.”


Post a comment


1 Comment

#1 Anonymous says:

Oh, it's the same age as Madonna. That's interesting. And that sucky "4 Minutes" was tracked, mixed, or remixed there...Interesting.


Click Here