Density Studios: Professional Audio Services and Music Lessons

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Density Studios is a new music production facility in Milwaukee equipped with state-of-the-art technology. Recently opened in the heart of Walker’s Point, Density Studios is committed to helping artists achieve their creative goals by way of professional audio services and music education. It is located at 117 W. Walker Street.

Jacob McDonald is the owner and full-time engineer of Density Studios. He has over 20 years of experience with audio recording. “I got my first mixer when I was 11 or 12,” McDonald recalls. “I honed my mixing skills over time and recording music just became my passion. That lifestyle eventually morphed into my career.”

He holds a BFA in Guitar Performance from UW-Milwaukee and has played in several local bands, most recently Shoot Down the Moon.

After building up his own basement studio during COVID times, McDonald hit a ceiling with how professional his setup felt without a proper space. He completed an internship at Chicago’s Gravity Studios, which helped get him more chops. “It was literally what I’d been doing already,” McDonald affirms. “I just needed to upgrade my equipment and make it more appealing.”

Leap of Faith

Once he found Density Studios’ current location, everything fell into place. “It was perfect because the majority of the room had already been built out as a studio,” McDonald notes. “I took a leap of faith, and it turned out great.”

Density Studios officially opened in June 2023. The facility offers recording, mixing and mastering services and features a wide range of high-grade microphones, preamps, compressors, instruments and DAW software options. In addition to music, audio enhancement services extend to video, podcast and film projects as well.

McDonald also offers guitar and audio production lessons for both beginner and advanced musicians at Density Studios. “It’s definitely been good for getting the name of the studio out,” he adds. “In addition to guitar I can teach bass and ukulele, and I have a couple beginner piano students too.”

Creative Vision

A unique component of Density Studios is how McDonald helps artists achieve their creative vision through songwriting sessions. “I’ll get clients who have phone recordings of themselves humming a vocal or guitar part, and I have been able to work with them and literally turn that into a real recording. I can play all the instruments so that’s all covered here, and I think that’s a really cool thing about the space.”

All styles of music are welcome to record at Density Studios, whether it be rock, hip hop, folk, classical music or anything in between. McDonald names a few artists and bands he has worked with, “I had a really awesome group called Voices of Prophecy that did some really cool stuff here; they’re basically a family band of a father and five kids who all have amazing voices. Everything they do is improvised and they each took turns rotating in and out of the booth … it was one of the most amazing recording sessions I’ve ever been a part of.

“There’s also this band Select Sires I’ve been working with since prior to the studio opening, and they’ve been coming in almost every Monday Night for quite a while now. Then I’ve had rapper KD Lilphat here a few times; one of his tracks we worked on ended up getting played on Riverwest Radio.”

Density Studios is continuing to build a clientele. A Soundcloud playlist of music recorded at the studio is available for listening at soundcloud.com/densitystudios. McDonald hopes to encourage some of his music students to eventually start recording their own material. “None of this feels like work to me,” he concludes. “I’m excited to grow and keep meeting all kinds of artists. I love music so much and doing this is a ton of fun.”

Visit Density Studios’ website at densitystudios.com to get in touch.