What is it?:

 

Avant Garden is a media content production facility in Medford, Oregon, and the multimedia creative workspace of Nick Garrett-Powell. Operating a freelance multimedia production service for years under the name Stray Media, a physical workspace was sought out and by December of 2020 all creative endeavors were relocated to the facility, christened Avant Garden. The location itself is an industrially zoned 946 square foot brick and concrete warehouse with 12 foot ceilings.

 

A fully equipped recording studio with live room and isolation booth, a video sound stage with green screen, photography studio, rehearsal space, lounge and study, comprised of only books on the arts and sciences.

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Recording facility:

With a workflow centered around Pro Tools 12 and an expansive selection of plug-ins and virtual instruments, Avant Garden is equipped to produce music of every genre, with notable standouts including Native Instruments Komplete, Fabfilter Timeless 2, Slate Digital Trigger, Izotope RX, Antares Auto-Tune, and several complete collections of plug-ins by Waves.

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Main speakers are Mackie HR-824's with a KRK subwoofer, and an 18 channel audio interface. The studio is cabled exclusively with Mogami quad balanced cable.

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The facility has over a dozen guitars as well as a selection of multiple basses, mandolins, violins, cellos, synthesizers, countless hand percussion, hand drums and cajons, a decked out 6 piece Pearl drumset, a digital piano, an upright bass, and a 1964 Wurlitzer 140b electric piano.

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Sound control includes a set of gobos to "box in" the drumset when set up in the live room, and a single large isolation booth for vocals, hand percussion, acoustic instruments, and the drumset. 

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Videographic facility:

Our main camera is a Panasonic GH5. This camera is used for capturing 4K video in frame rates up to 60fps, and capturing slow motion in HD at speeds up to 180fps. For the production of special effects resources, the GH5 is capable of recording ultra high definition footage in 6K in a 4:3 aspect ratio, and we're equipped with one anamorphic lens for shooting 6K in 16:9 widescreen, useful for producing music videos, commercials, and short films with a unique vintage character.

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Additional cameras include a Zoom Q4N 4K camera with XY microphone and a modded Canon T3i DSLR with 7 lenses running Magic Lantern firmware, which is controlled by a tablet for special effects photography.

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Lighting for video includes three powerful 160 LED flat panel lights as well as several old fashioned incandescent photography lights with umbrella reflectors.

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The shop is equipped with multiple photographic backdrops including chroma green, bright green, black, white, and beige. The shop walls are white brick.

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Photographic facility:

With multiple photographic backdrops in the facility of various sizes, Avant Garden is equipped to photograph anything, either in house or remotely on location. With a full complement of lenses, flashes, reflectors and more, we also have a soft box for product photography.

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Rehearsal space:

A plan is in the works to create a rehearsal space. Bands needing to practice their set may reserve time at the studio space to rehearse their songs without necessarily needing to bring any equipment. ​A full backline of a Bose PA system, drums, keyboards, amps, guitars and basses are available.

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Lounge and Study:

Our comfy couch is parked in front of a 4K television with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, lots of classic movies and a Playstation 4 Pro. The two bookshelves on either side of the television are organized with books on creative arts residing on the leftmost bookshelf while titles regarding science & languages are stored the right bookshelf. A large pantry and table is stocked with snacks, filtered water, fresh hot coffee and tea on demand, and other amenities. The facility has a single restroom with safety rail.

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Visual Art Space:

A section of the facility is dedicated to visual art and graphic design, with two art desks currently in use. Plans include mural design, stencil art, and contemporary graphic design using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

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(More information and photography coming soon.)