Why are they at risk? Who owns them and who is prposing they be shut down?
And are these the 'live at Helens' studio recording you alwasy hear on National?

Yeh, tht's pretty much it, their lease is up and they've outgrown their current premises in akld so their moving somewhere bigger and giving the space back to radio network, however as said, this could mean the loss of one of the only decent studios we've got left.

Helen young is essentially one of the last great studios of Auckland. The mics are one thing, the fact the studio is acoustically variable and completely floating is another, the ProTools rig is top of the line and the mic pres on the outboard neve sidecar are essential into translating NZ music artists recordings into the same we hear from a world commercial music standard. I respect everyone in their preference to recording ideals and production techniques, but Auckland is steadily losing it's ACOUSTIC recording assets. I beleive it to be a reflection of the times where everything from recording budgets to writing songs is influenced by the fact acoustics aren't needed anymore to produce music which is apparently acheivable in a computer. World music hubs such as New York will never lose it's great studios and the fact that the Auckland studio scene is deflating right at the time NZ music is taking off again from an international point of view is figment to the lack of commitment from major labels and now the government. Helen Young is a national treasure that has captured some of NZ's greatest artists in their rawest forms. It is essentially a very great loss to NZ Music if Helen Young disappears.

by the sound of it, his bathroom with a philips karaoke mic