Listen first
Every track is assessed properly before a single control moves. We are not running a preset over your song — we are deciding, track by track, what it actually needs.
Shade Studios sits in the heart of Bedfordview, Johannesburg. We have spent two decades making records for the recording and advertising industries — and now we bring the same standard to AI-generated music.
We started by recording artists and producing radio advertising — work where a master either sounded right on a car radio in Sandton or it didn't get aired. Twenty years later the equipment has changed completely, but the standard hasn't.
When AI music arrived, we heard the same thing everyone else heard: astonishing songs delivered in seconds, and almost none of them usable as a record. Not because the songs were bad — because nobody had mixed or mastered them. A demo exported straight out of a generator has never sat next to a commercial release on the same playlist and survived the comparison.
That's the gap we close. We don't pretend AI music doesn't need engineers. We think it needs engineers more than ever, because now anyone can write the song and almost nobody can finish it.
20+
Years in the studio
ZA
Bedfordview, Johannesburg
24h
Free quote turnaround
100%
Client ownership
Every track is assessed properly before a single control moves. We are not running a preset over your song — we are deciding, track by track, what it actually needs.
A master only counts if it survives a phone speaker, a car system and a club rig. We check all of them before we send anything out.
You get a fixed price before we start, and we tell you immediately if the track needs more than we first said. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices.
You get your masters, your session files and your metadata. You keep 100% ownership of your song and your publishing — always.
We're on the East Rand side of Johannesburg, minutes from major routes and with parking on site. But most of our work is done entirely online — you upload, we master, you download. Clients across South Africa and internationally get exactly the same studio as someone who drives past the door.
Either way, we'll tell you honestly what your music needs.