Walking down leafy Heath Park Avenue in Cardiff, if it wasn't for the tiny sign on the gate you'd easily miss Henhouse Recording Studios.
That is, unless, you happened to pass just as a band pulled up ready to record with instruments in tow - or spotted a gaggle of children ready to play pop stars for the day.
Otherwise you'd have no idea of the fully fledged recording studio used by musicians all over the world in one of the back gardens.
To read more Cardiff news visit our Cardiff homepage here
Jinx Jones from Cardiff has been a musician all his life and had always dreamed of having his own studio. And so 10-years-ago, he decided to build his 'haven' of a studio in his back garden.
The studio, which started off as a small summer house for Jinx and his wife to relax, has been transformed - now consisting of a recording booth, a reception area, control room, and a larger space for recording bands.
And with the studio being soundproof, and tucked away in the 'secret garden' behind his house, Jinx said "The only way you would know is if you flew a drone over it".
"The studio is about ten years in the making now. The studio originally started off as a little summer house type of thing, me and my wife used to go down and sleep there," said the 62-year-old.
"My wife gradually got a bit more ill and at the time I decided I was going to have a recording studio at a premises on Treforest Industrial Estate, but because she gradually got sicker I decided to make it at home.
"So I started additions and sound proofing and all the rest of it to the building, and I think it’s taken about five or six years to get to where we are now.
"I’ve been a musician for most of my life and I wanted to always have a studio of my own for my sake, where I can record myself and my friends.
"And then it went from there with people saying ‘can we come into your studio and record’ so we started doing that, and it evolved from there."
But even if you entered Jinx's garden - especially in the summer time - you might mistake the studio for an elaborate summerhouse. Shrouded by trees and blossoms, the studio is tucked away in a 'secret garden', to create a serene atmosphere for the artists that use it.
He said he wanted to give musicians a different type of studio to the "clinical" ones that have become the norm in the industry.
"It’s like the tardis. From the outside we’ve kept it to look like a log cabin type thing but it’s actually bricks and mortar behind it and it’s all soundproof.
"That is one of the main reasons I started it, is because it’s quite daunting going into if you’ve never been before. And some can be quite clinical, sterile, so I wanted to make a place that put people at ease.
"I’ve had so many people say ‘I was so comfortable, after 10 minutes it felt like I had been there forever’
"And that was the sort of reaction I wanted. You go down there and it is a homely atmosphere.
"It’s not the right time of year now because the fruit trees are all bare, but in the summer it’s lovely, you can’t even see it. It’s really picturesque."
And if that wasn't homely enough, Jinx also has a chicken pen in the garden - hence 'Henhouse' studios. He said they used to roam free but caused too much chaos.
"You walk down the side of the house, through a sort of secret garden and there’s the studio. It’s quite an odd thing, the website doesn’t really show it to its full potential, it’s a really unique place," he said.
"I haven’t yet had anyone come down and say ‘this isn’t for me’, we have the opposite - it’s fabulous.
"It’s brilliant too when you get someone down who’s a really good singer, a really good guitarist, who says ‘I’ve got so much more done than I expected’ and it’s because they feel so comfortable."
Jinx's wife Selena sadly passed away three years ago. Since then he said the studio has been a "haven" and provided some respite for him.
"My wife passed away three years ago, and I built it so I could work from home while she was gradually getting worse and worse.
"So it was a bit hard afterwards having it there, but then it really gave me a lot of respite being so close to the house.
"It was definitely a labour of love. It’s just been my world for what feels like forever now."
And while the studio might be modest in stature, it definitely punches above its weight in the work it produces, with Jinx working with musicians and composers from all over the world.
"We do alot of recording artists, solo artists. We used to do a lot of composition work so we would work with people all over the world remotely.
"With the digital side of things you can do that. We do a lot of television work so people will come down to do narratives for films or plays."
"A lot of the time, especially when I’m working with people from different time zones, I could be down there until 1am,2am 3am in the morning playing the guitar or making music and nobody knows."
While Jinx originally started the studio to record his own songs and those of his friends, over the years the studio found its own niche in offering parties and experiences - which to his surprise has now become Jinx' favourite part of the whole venture.
Before lockdown ground the world to the stop, he would hold children's parties most weeknd where a group would come and make their own CD, and be "popstars" for the day.
He said he has also had a wide range of people come just for a bit of fun. He once recorded an album for an 80-year-old who had always loved singing but never had the confidence to make a record.
"Now we do things like packages for childrens parties, where they come down in groups of say 10 of them and then they sing to backing tracks and we record them and put them onto a CD for them. It makes them feel like pop stars for the day.
"I love doing them. You will have the parents come along and at the end they will say ‘this is the best party we have ever had’, it’s just great.
"We had a crazy day about six or seven years ago when we did a whole day session for the Follow your Dreams charity. All these people came down to do a Christmas single.
"In fancy dress costumes, we had people from the X factor, we had Lightning McQueen the car from Disney film 'Cars' in the drive, and it was lovely.
"We had a mixture of people from all ages all coming down and singing and we made a charity single."
But despite being a musician all his life, until he started the studio, Jinx was almost clueless about producing - teaching himself all of the essential technology that comes with a studio.
"I couldn’t even use a computer 10 years ago, everything was analogue as far as I was concerned. I’ve taught myself to become digitally formatted
"Everything moves so quickly, I’m constantly updating programs just to keep progressing with technology."
And as the technology changes, so does how people create and produce music, with programs now making it easier than ever to self produce.
Despite this change, Jinx says there is still a demand for studio space - especially more accessible and homely space as he feels he provides.
"It’s quite diverse what we are able to do in the studio," he said.
"With technology these days, people can do fantastic recordings now on their phone. With just a microphone on and guitar, you can make wonderful sounds, wonderful recordings.
"It really has moved along.
"There are still major, major studios, because the recording artists and their record companies will want them to go into big big studios, because that's just the way of the world.
"A lot of these musicians have their own studios at home. But mine's just a little bit, a little bit more. It's not just your home studio, it's a little bit more than that."
To get the latest news from CardiffOnline sent straight to your email inbox click here .
