14 Places to Record a Song Besides a Studio

Recorded sound only dates back to the late 19th century. And music recording as we know it today is much younger. Even professional recording studios are often repurposed rooms and buildings that were built for other uses. With the advent of increasingly cheap and portable microphones and mixing devices, it’s never been easier to record wherever you are, whenever you want. Sometimes you might want to record somewhere strange out of convenience, or just for the story. But if you’re a musician, it can’t hurt to mix things up now and again to see what kind of strange acoustics or unlikely inspiration can be found in unusual recording locations.

Legends like Nas, Swizz Beatz, and Just Blaze all stopped by this summer to check out the Sprite Corner, a pop-up bodega on New York’s Lower East Side. MMG member Wale even recorded a song there with a choir, which got us thinking about what other outlandish places have people recorded music. Here are 15 places to record a song besides a studio.

Over the summer, Brooklyn-based rapper Prince Harvey revealed that he’d covertly recorded an entire album using the computers in an NYC Apple Store in Soho. The cash-strapped MC did it out of necessity, after his laptop died, with the assistance of store employees who were in the know. But let his resourceful little scam be a lesson: There are computers out for public use in all sorts of places these days.

DIY studios, particularly ones in residences, are more often than not located in the basement. And that’s largely a logical choice as it’s generally easier to soundproof a basement compared to any other part of the building. But consider, for a moment, that the attic can sometimes work just as well. Annie Lennox and David Stewart were short on money to record their second Eurythmics album, so they borrowed just a few thousand pounds for equipment to self-record in a warehouse attic. One of the songs they recorded up there was “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” and as you can guess, they never had to record in an attic again.

Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James is one of electronic music’s great eccentrics. A large part of his legacy is the story of the former bank he bought to live in during the mid-’90s. He says he kept much of his equipment in the bank’s vaults, to protect it from the rats in the building. He inevitably then recorded some of Aphex Twin’s twisted tracks in that colorful location.

Everyone who’s ever sung in the shower knows that bathrooms have amazing acoustics. On the Future hit “Where Ya At,” Drake even nods to his humble beginnings, using the tub as a vocal booth (“Where ya ass was at when we recorded in the bathroom?”). The Game even recently posted a picture of himself in a bathroom set up, recording The Documentary 2.

Bodegas are a cornerstone of life in New York City, and many other major cities that have been immortalized in the lyrics of countless classic rap songs. And that was the inspiration behind the Sprite Corner, a physical manifestation of the soft drink’s longstanding relationship with hip-hop, located in a classic New York-style bodega on Spring and Bowery streets. Wale hit the bodega, with superstar producer Metro Boomin, to record a smash that hopefully makes it onto his next album.

The idea of building a recording facility in an unconventional place hit primetime in 2010 via the drama Parenthood. One of the main characters, music producer Crosby (Dax Shepard), got help from his brother in buying a historic San Francisco diner and converting the Luncheonette into a full-service studio, retaining much of the charm and furnishings of the building’s original purpose.

The Ohio duo the Black Keys were early in their rise—becoming one of America’s biggest bands in 2004—when they stumbled upon a tire-manufacturing facility in their native Akron, Ohio, as a cheap place to rent as a practice space. The band wound up recording their third album in the factory, while immortalizing it with the title of the record, Rubber Factory.

Dave Chappelle had a gift for getting his favorite rappers to perform in unusual places on his short-lived Comedy Central hit, Chappelle’s Show. In one of the most memorable musical moments on the show, Common debuted a new song with Kanye West, “The Food,” by rapping it in a kitchen. The performance was so lively and inspired, that when Common released “The Food” on his album Be over a year later, he simply bypassed the studio recording and used the audio from the Chappelle’s Show kitchen performance.

There’s no slang for a recording studio as common as “the lab.” Every musician wants to believe that they’re a bit of a mad scientist when they go to the mixing board and start combining elements. But has anyone actually recorded in an actual science lab? The answer is yes. They Might Be Giants visited the historic Edison Laboratories in New Jersey in 1996 and recorded a song, “I Can Hear You,” on one of the early wax-recording cylinders developed by Thomas Edison over a century prior.

As one of America’s most unique and adventurous singer-songwriters, Tom Waits has often used field recordings and unconventional locations to mix high fidelity and lo-fi. His 1999 album, The Mule Variations, opened with a strange percussive sound that could only come from a tape recording of Waits, drumming wildly on a dresser in a Mexican hotel. As Waits himself described, “I started screaming and banging on this chest of drawers really hard, till it was kindling, trying to make it sound like a full band.” He then edited the result into the start of “Big in Japan,” a song that actually does feature a full band.

One of the most famous drum sounds of all time, the widely sampled intro of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” came about because the band had unusual ideas about where to record. Headley Grange, a former poorhouse in South England, had been converted into a recording and rehearsal facility where the band began working on the legendary Led Zeppelin IV. The band liked the sound of John Bonham’s drums as they were temporarily set up in a three-story hallway next to a staircase. They decided to hang a mic from the second story, and the rest was history.

Recording music outside, especially in a populated area, is an intimidating arrangement. You never know what mass transit, barking dogs, or emergency-vehicle sirens are going to pass by and muddy up the mix. But if you’re willing to embrace the chaos, you can get paid back with magical ambiance. That concept was the linchpin of the hit 2014 film Begin Again, which starred Mark Ruffalo as a music executive who persuaded a young singer, played by Keira Knightley, to record an album outside in public spaces around New York City.

The late jazz musician Paul Horn was a pioneer at recording in daring, unconventional places, including canyons and pyramids, that had interesting acoustic effects on his instrument. His most famous album, Inside, was recorded in the Taj Mahal during the Beatles’ famous 1968 trip to India—he was with the band.

Due to the demanding modern pace of hip-hop, rappers like Lil Wayne have had makeshift recording studios installed on their tourbuses, so that they can keep churning out lucrative guest verses and mixtapes—even while playing concerts every night. The pioneer of tourbus recording, however, may be Jackson Browne. His 1977 live album, Running on Empty, featured a collection of new songs recorded onstage, backstage, and in hotel rooms. But one song, “Nothing But Time,” was recorded with Browne and his backing band, setting up shop on a Continental Silver Eagle bus on a highway in New Jersey.