It’s not often that an institution in Boston music gets a crack at a new beginning, but in 2021, Q Division found the blank canvas of a lifetime.
What was once a vacant garage is now the two-floor home to 36 years of recording history, preserved at the “new Q” on Rindge Avenue in Cambridge. The storied recording studio officially unveiled its new location this month, roughly two years after its departure from Somerville’s Davis Square. All 2,800 square feet of Studio A is now available for recording sessions, while Studio B — an “atmos” studio ideal for film work — is set to open this summer. A third space, Studio C, is temporarily “on hold.”
This version of Q Division presents a living contradiction, blurring the line between between old and new. Familiar memorabilia line the studio’s recently-constructed walls: Show posters for Juliana Hatfield, a Dropkick Murphys lithograph, a Blue Oyster Cult 8-track and autographed cowbell. Supersized photos of the original Q Division in Boston adorn Studio A, while a notorious artifact from Q’s origins in 1986 — “The ‘Q’ Region,” a joke sketch that graphs quality against number of takes, concluding with the hyperbolic “brain death” — sits square between the control and tracking rooms. Contemporary New England artists like Will Dailey and The Problem With Kids Today lay down tracks with equipment possibly used decades ago by Aimee Mann, Pixies, and James Taylor. Even the recently-refurbished Neve 8068 console from the 1970s runs with renewed vigor.
From a technical standpoint, Q Division 3.0 doesn’t differ much from its former spot in Davis Square. Yet as a studio that was literally built from the ground-up, the new construction represents the most refined vision of Q Division to date.
“I wanted to push it into another category,” co-founder Jon Lupfer tells Vanyaland. “I think it’s more visual than the last studios. Video and Instagram and everything is just part of the fabric of existence, and we wanted to meet that.”
The Q crew has Lupfer to thank for sniffing out their current real estate on Rindge Avenue. When a Davis Square landlord terminated Q Division’s lease in 2021, the studio’s staff struggled to locate potential new rentals, partially due the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We got to a point where no one would show us spaces,” says studio manager Ed Valauskas, recalling the height of pandemic safety precautions.
Around the same time, Lupfer investigated the Rindge Avenue garage, then rented by his brother-in-law as a creative studio for building film props. When presented the chance to construct their vision from scratch in the same space, the Q Division team snapped up a lease, and eventually purchased the property in 2022. For 18 months, architects, acoustic designers, and carpenters fleshed out the ideal Q Division, from its massive Studio A, to the space’s notable details, like a second-floor observation window that overlooks the tracking room.
“We really wanted to do something else at this point,” Lupfer says, reflecting on this final years at Davis Square. “We wanted to build the studio that we really wanted.”
According to artists who have already dropped in to visit or record, it’s the studio they want, too.
“People have been recording here — unannounced — since March,” Valauskas notes. “So far, the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. Longtime clients are super excited about the new space and the updates we have made to the Neve console. The ability to have a large room to track everyone in at the same time, with incredible isolation and great sightlines, has proven to be huge for us after having to record remotely during Covid, or tracking at other less-than-ideal spaces.”
The new Q Division proudly presents the inverse of those cramped pandemic experiences, offering a handcrafted workspace that caters to the many “in real life” needs of musicians.
“There’s nothing quite like recording together in person — musicians, engineers, and producers face-to-face, working as a team — and the magic that experience generates,” Lupfer concludes. “That’s what we’ve always been about, and we’re so happy to get back to it.”
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