Robannas Studios

If you’ve ever so much as tried forming a band in the Birmingham area, you’ll have heard of Robannas. For years and years, aspiring youngsters and cynical musos have all practiced plying their trade down there.
Near to the much-​neglected Gun Quarter (the Jewellery Quarter’s outlaw sibling), Robannas has over the years taken up more and more of Cliveland Street. This is no bad thing, as the city centre needs a big, well-​known rehearsal rooms.
Over the years, the place has become cleaner and the standard of equipment in the by-​the-​hour rooms has improved. The staff are always helpful and the owner Rob has a reputation for throwing some very wild parties there.
Over the years, I’ve rehearsed and recorded there with various bands and it’s an experience which has become more and more pleasant over the years. I still have to visit to buy single guitar strings (something they sell which is a big bonus).

Of all the many rehearsal rooms in the city, this is the one I’ve used the most over the years. For about 4 years my band had a lock-​up here and we pretty much used it as our second home. I’ve got a lot of time for Rob, who runs the place, as he’s a music freak and has always been helpful to us when we’ve been back since giving up our space. We’ve hired PAs, pianos and various other bits and bobs from him over recent years for a reasonable rate.
The place has expanded over the years as Rob has slowly started to take over the vacant building next door (Robannas is in a pretty run down part of town). The place offers a mixture of lock-​ups and hourly-​rent rooms of varying sizes. The rooms are crammed in a wee bit, and in places are on top of each other, so if you are a quiet band you may be rehearsing to the sound of a metal band next door.
There is a studio on the main floor which I’ve used once or twice and this has a fairly decent live room (wooden panelled — nice sound) and the engineers are helpful and knowledgeable.
One of the best reasons to hand around Robannas is that Led Zep’s Robert Plant uses the place to rehearse from time to time, so you may bump into rock royalty!

Robannas is an institution on the Birmingham music scene. You ask any musicians from Birmingham that have seriously gigged and I guarantee they will know Robannas.
They’ve had their fair share of famous customers (Napalm Death and Pussycat Dolls to name two) but what about their services? Well my band used them for quite a while until we managed to find free rehearsal space elsewhere and we never had any problems with them. The staff were always helpful and polite, the equipment worked, the rooms weren’t particularly spectacular but weren’t particularly bad either, though it was often fairly easy to hear other bands practising through the walls.
Prices are pretty similar to what you’d expect with discounts for bulk bookings eg fifty pound for an all day session. It’s a good, solid, friendly place that I’ve no qualms recommending to a friend.

Nice new lockouts — good recording facilities, loads of hourlies and some good backline in the rooms — they do hire it out too if you’re stuck for an amp for a gig or something.
Nice people behind the desk — good prices — can’t be bad.