Guilford Sound

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About Guilford Sound

Guilford Sound is New England’s premier recording studio and musicians’ retreat space, located in Guilford, VT. The scenic and private 400-acre property in the heart of arts-rich Southern Vermont is minutes from the vibrant cultural meccas of Brattleboro, VT and Northampton, MA, a two-hour drive from Boston, and three hours from New York City.

The state-of-the-art, eco-friendly studio offers a full range of recording and sound engineering services from tracking and overdubbing to mixing, editing, and digital composition. Clients can opt to work with Guilford Sound’s team of audio experts or rent out the studio spaces and equipment for private use, including recording, mixing, or production, as well as educational and training purposes. The property also features spacious and comfortable artist accommodations for up to 15 guests, which can be booked for overnights or extended stays during recording sessions, songwriting retreats, music/recording camps, workshops, or training sessions.

A rarity in the recording industry, all facilities feature green building technology and renewable energy sources allowing for 100% net zero carbon emissions. Guilford Sound holds Passive House Certification and LEED Gold Certification (pending).

Studio founder, Dave Snyder, got his start in the music business in the early ‘90s as the drummer for New York pop punk trio Ruth Ruth, who were signed to Rick Rubin’s American Records. Dave went on to establish a successful career in audio engineering and production as co-owner of Jarvis Studios on E 4th Street in NYC, where he worked with a host of major artists, including Susan Tedeschi, Los Lobos, and Patti Smith, as well as top engineers and producers, including Chris Lord-Alge, Ted Niceley, Hal Willner, Dave McNair, and Carl Glanville.

In 2004, Dave and his wife, Sara Coffey, relocated to Vermont with a dream of creating a place where musicians, bands, and producers from around the country could come and enjoy the same caliber of design, expertise, and equipment offered at high-end urban studios, but in a private, tranquil, down-to-earth Vermont setting. The couple settled on a breathtaking parcel of sweeping fields and woodlands in Guilford; making it possible for them to dream big and design comfortable, inspiring spaces where clients from solo artists, to bands and larger ensembles, to educational institutions have ample room to create, collaborate, relax, and explore a broad range of creative possibilities in music and sound.

Over the next several years, Dave brought in some of the top names in the audio industry to help make Guilford Sound a reality, working with architectural acoustics guru, Francis Manzella of FM Design, technical consultant John Klett, and Matt Marinelli of Coral Sound to design studio spaces for stellar performance and curate a collection of top-of-the-line control-room equipment and outboard elements, ranging from highly sought-after analog pieces, to rare vintage and specialty microphones, and up-to-the-minute digital sound technology.

Constructing a custom sound studio from the ground up not only afforded Dave the opportunity to employ the savvy and know-how gained from his years in the music business in New York City, but also allowed him to adhere to Earth-friendly principles when it came to sourcing building materials and employing the latest technology in green energy solutions to reduce the studio’s carbon footprint.

The main studio building (Studio A) features building materials sourced from the property itself or within a few miles, a 30 kilowatt roof-mounted photovoltaic passive solar array system, ground-source pumps for HVAC and radiant heating/cooling, high-performance floor-to-ceiling windows for maximum natural light influx, extensive use of LED lighting, and a wood-fired gasification boiler fed by wood from the property.

Since opening in 2010, Guilford Sound has hosted a wide range of recording artists, including Speedy Ortiz, Ruth Garbus, Sam Moss, Valerie June, Metric, and So Percussion with Caroline Shaw, as well as providing working space and equipment for songwriting retreats, audio tech trainings, and music production camps for Berklee College of Music, The New Yorker, and Vermont Performance Lab.

Guilford Sound currently offers two studios for rent or hire. Studio A is a large format tracking and mixing studio, featuring four spring-floated iso-rooms, an echo chamber, and a 500 square-foot control room with a 64-input API Legacy console and 12-channel Neve Melbourne sidecar, both with Flying Faders. Studio B, opened in November 2019, is a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to mixing, editing, mastering, and digital composition.  For more information and a complete list of equipment available in both studios, click here.

Clients are invited to stay on the premises in one of two spacious and comfortable artist residences. Earth House offers year-round accommodations for up to 10 people in five double rooms, each with private full bath. During the warmer months, guests are also welcome to stay in the Ashworth House, a beautifully restored 1790s farmhouse with five bedrooms and two baths. Both lodging options feature fully equipped kitchens and dining areas, and ample common space for lounging, collaborating, and jamming. For more information on artist accommodations, click here.

In addition to Owner/Engineer Dave Snyder, the Guilford Sound team includes Engineer and Production Assistant, Matt Hall and Studio Manager, Cynthia Larsen. Hall has extensive technical expertise in recording, mixing, editing, and producing many forms of acoustic and electronic music. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Recording  Arts from Full Sail University and has been working full time at Guilford Sound since 2010. Larsen handles booking for the studios and artist accommodations and can assist with any arrangements clients may need during their stay, from catering services to recommendations for things to do in the local area.

For more information or to book a session at Guilford Sound, visit www.guilfordsound.com.

Dave Snyder – Owner/Engineer

Dave Snyder is the Founder of state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, residential recording studio Guilford Sound, located within a three-hour drive of New York City in idyllic Guilford, VT. Together with his wife, Sara, Snyder built the studio from the ground up over the course of six years, using his prior experience at NYC recording studios to create the perfect acoustics, obtain the best equipment, and achieve true hi-fidelity sound, all with a markedly smaller environmental footprint than traditional studios. Opened in 2010, the studio also offers amenities such as a kitchen with meals catered by a local chef, high-quality accommodations for over 10 guests, and beautiful woodlands and foot-trails to inspire creativity during songwriting camps, extended studio sessions, and much more.

Snyder got his start in the music industry as a drummer for New Jersey power trio Ruth Ruth, who were signed to Rick Rubin’s American Records. During this time, he became increasingly interested in music production, leading him to co-rent a 100-square-foot room with an attached rehearsal space in the basement of a tenement building on Rivington Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He turned it into a recording studio, quickly acquiring the high-end equipment required but discovering that the space itself was unable to produce the hi-fidelity sound he desired. Snyder and fellow engineer Aaron Keane then bought another studio on E. 4th St. above Tower Records in NYC, which became Jarvis Studios. Over the next five years, Snyder’s studio hosted major artists such as Susan Tedeschi, Los Lobos, and Patti Smith and learned from expert engineers and producers such as Chris Lord-Alge, Ted Niceley, Hal Willner, Dave McNair, and Carl Glanville. However, after discovering issues with the studio’s low-end sound that could not be fixed without a complete rebuild, Snyder decided to create his dream studio from scratch.

Dave and his wife, Sara, had always dreamed of returning to live near Marlboro College in Vermont, where they first met, and the dream soon became a reality when they left New York City in 2004 and settled into a small 19th century farmhouse on 175 wooded acres and started looking for suitable land to build a studio. After a year-and-a-half search, they found the perfect spot: A beautiful farmhouse attached to a large parcel of land at the end of an idyllic sugar-maple-lined road. Over the next six years, Dave worked with Francis Manzella of FM Design, Matt Marinelli of Coral Sound, and technical consultant John Klett to create the perfect studio space. The result is Guilford Sound, which has hosted artists such as Speedy Ortiz, Metric, and So Percussion with Caroline Shaw, as well as song camps for Berklee College of Music, The New Yorker, and Vermont Performance Lab.

Snyder currently resides in Guilford, VT, with his wife and two children.