Meet Joe Cannatelli of On The Fringe Studios in North Shore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Cannatelli.

Joe has been engineering music since 1976. On The Fringe Studios began as a home studio in 1993 when he chose to design and build a custom home with a live room designed by an acoustic architect. By 2003 his house was not a home but a studio. The decision was made to purchase a building and transfer the business from home to a separate, stand-alone facility. He purchased the property where they are now conducting business in August of 2003. At that time the facility was approximately 2,000 sq./ft. When purchased it was a single story building with parking and ground floor access (perfect for loading/unloading gear). Soon after acquiring the building, he set out retrofitting the new studio and began enjoying the new recording space.

In 2005, he decided to open the facility to music education as well. The West Newbury School of Music was born. He felt it would be a symbiotic business and could employ session musicians thus keeping them close at hand and making them readily available for studio work. Realizing that although the newly hired staff were all exceptional musicians, they were not teachers. What was needed was a teacher for the teachers. He  brought in retired Berklee professor Les Harris Sr. to “teach” his teachers to “teach” thus being sure, regardless of the instrument being instructed, the lessons would be under a shared teaching philosophy. Harris provides that assurance.

By 2006, the music school had expanded to an award winning business hosting 300+ students with a staff of 12 teaching in all instruments, music theory, audio, and video production while also maintaining a very busy studio schedule. The facility had soon become too small to accommodate both the school and the studio. It became necessary to expand the facility by an additional 1,200 sq./ft. to incorporate a brand new studio space attached to the original building adding a new control room, new piano isolation room, and new live room with additional parking.

The studio enjoys a global community of artists as clientele from Australia, Germany, Italy, Scotland, England, as well as from all over the USA and Canada. On The Fringe Studios has worked on video games, audio books, and of course all genres of music. The studio is also made available to the music school for individual student projects and also student ensemble groups where the participants are guided by an ensemble director to produce a number of songs in a given time period then recorded. Recording day is a great conclusion to the ensemble class and gives the students the true studio experience with a CD to be proud of.

The two businesses work hand in hand and one compliments the other. The music school’s motto,” Real music for real people” is also his mantra. “I wanted to create something that wasn’t available to me growing up. I wished I had someplace I could go to not only learn music but audio production as well. We’re doing just that and I couldn’t be more proud of our staff and students” says Cannatelli. “We do what we love and love what we do”.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Finding and keeping the right professionals to ensure our growth and future success.

On The Fringe Studios – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a standalone, full service music facility. We teach all instruments, provide audio/video engineering classes, ensembles, video game architecture, record, mix, and master all under one roof.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Being able to provide a unique service to the community while making a living doing so.

Contact Info:

• Address: 11 Maple Street
  West Newbury, MA 01985
• Website: www.onthefringestudios.com
• Phone: 978-363-1499
• Email: info@onthefringestudios.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onthefringestudios/

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