The Stage 3 Story
AUDIO 1954-2010
VIDEO 1980-2010
WEB 2011 and beyond…
Midwest Recording Studios was originally started in 1954. Located at Paseo and Linwood Blvd in Kansas City, in the World War II Memorial Building. Recording radio commercials and music demos for local song writers and performers. One of two recording studios in Kansas City at that time. All recordings were made live. No multi tracking or over dubbing. All recordings were made in mono on a one track reel to reel tape machine. Midwest Recording Studio was purchased from the original owners in 1968 by Don Warnock, a local television and radio personality and electronics engineer. He changed the name to Stage 3 Sound Productions ,Inc.
Stage 3 Sound Productions established in 1968. Founding partners were Don Warnock, Sr., Clara Warnock, and John Lammers. The original location was 12 East 39th street in Kansas City, MO. Don’s vision for his recording studio centered around music recording. He purchased one of the first Eight Track, 1” multi track reel to reel tape recorders. This machine had the newest technical advance of its day called Sel-Sync. Sel-Sync used both sets of audio heads to avoid the delay between the live musician overdubbing and the previously recorded track. The machine used 1” Mylar tape coated with oxide. These heads were one inch tall and had eight tracks that could be recorded individually or in any combination. As a reference point the Beatles recorded their first and second albums on a four track machine.
From 1968 until 1977 the studio operated at the 39th street location. A community of record shops, health food stores, small restaurants, hippies and artistic people. In addition to recording music, Don cultivated working relations with all of the local advertising agencies. Branching out and recording more and more commercials, training tapes and early self help programs. In 1973 Don bought out his friend John Lammers making Stage 3 a family owned corporation. Also in 1973 Don Warnock Jr. came to work at Stage 3. Don Jr.’s main duties at the time were running reel to reel audio duplicator and learning live music recording.
In 1976 Don relocated the business to 1901 west 43rd St. A 5,000 square foot building. He built two control rooms one to record audio and a second room for editing video. At that time video production had two formats 2” Reel to Reel video tape and a more portable format ¾” video cassette.
Over the next 30 years Stage 3 broke new ground in many areas of the audio business. In addition to recording audio for TV and radio, Stage 3 was now producing Television commercials. The company also developed duplication business for audio and video products manufacturing up to 8,000 audio cassettes a month and thousands of video cassettes covering a wide variety of products. Some of our clients included local banks, home improvement companies, the F.B.I., Missouri Highway Commission, Gold’s Gym, Mademoiselle Health Clubs, New Lady Fitness, A.B. May heating & cooling, medical clients, motivational speakers, and many, many more. The company also helped develop new products for their clients such as custom automated phone messaging systems. This was long before voice mail, texting or e-mail. Don Senior passed in 2007. He worked on his passion audio projects until his passing. Don left his son Don Jr, and his best friend a young engineer Don had hired out of school named Kurt Thompson to guide the company’s future. As it turned out hiring Kurt was one of the best business decisions Don Sr. would make for the future of Stage 3.
Marketing your goods or services has changed dramatically. All successful companies now have a serious web presence. Stage 3 Media Group is made up of dedicated professionals with a very diverse skill set. Stage 3 Media Group is focused on helping their clients develop new internet markets to further grow their business. Headed by Kurt Thompson, the company has been hard at work helping clients websites rank higher with Google searches. His understanding of what it takes to make your business rank in the top ten with Google makes Stage 3 Media Group the right choice to help grow your business. As it has done for the last forty years Stage 3 Media Group also produces audio, video and print support for your companies marketing program. Make no mistake that marketing your business has changed. Every day you wait your competition is moving ahead. Take action get started growing your sales today. Contact the Stage 3 Media Group for results you can see.