Rhapsody Street Studios was founded in 1976 by Dub Hankins, a local musician and recording engineer. Dub christened his new studio Low Noise Studios, as it was based in his MonteVista apartment. Dub began his studio career by hawking jingles with a series of well known hits for diverse group of local and regional clients such as Sterling Sound, Bill Miller, Big Red and Santikos Theatres. During the remainder of the 70’s and 80’s, Dub worked in the concert promotion business with JAM productions and San Antonio Ticket Service, hosting Elvis, KISS, Triumph, TOTO, Night Ranger, Santana and countless others.

Dub renamed the studio The Dubby Hankins Studio during the late 80's and continued recording projects there until 1990. That’s when Dub moved the studio to a posh building in Castle Hills in 1990 (the Acropolis Building) and briefly renamed it Expanding Universe Productions. The original studio was 850 sq. ft., with a medium size control room and one small iso booth. In 1992, to coincide with his wildly successful variety dance band, The Oh So Good! Band, it was renamed Oh So Good! productions.

In late 1991, Dub's main engineer, Scott Honsberger, left for greener pastures, paving the way for Matthew Gallegos to take over the reigns (Matt met Dub through a client while on "forced break" from the University of North Texas in the spring of 1992, and showed up early for two weeks until Dub offered him a job. Matt has not showed up early since).

Dub and Matt became good buddies and worked in that space until 1994, when a fire destroyed a majority of the studio equipment, including the large format AMEK console. While searching for a building to relocate the studio, Dub moved the operations back to his house in Shavano Park for a summer. Unable to find a suitable space, Oh So Good reopened in the acropolis location after a remodel and new equipment acquisition.

In late spring 1995, Dub located a suitable property on Rhapsody Street (the studio's current location) and purchased the building. While sessions were still happening in the Acropolis Studio, plans were drawn up by chief architect Hank Lam of APT. This was to be a no-holds-barred studio project unlike any in South Texas (studio construction and documentation can be found on the LEARN part of this website). The new building was finally completed in July 1995, and the studio was rechristened as Oh So Good! Rhapsody Street Studios to commemorate the move!

Our first session was Campanas de America with José Santana. Our workload picked up dramatically from that point on, and we even began to have a "staff". Things were looking bright, as Dub's gig calendar kept getting more and more full and Rhapsody Street’s Studio A was rarely unused. In 1997 Dub and Matt met Willie Bonds while tracking his first album. Matt and Willie became good friends and stayed in touch after the project was completed.

In the fall of 1997, due to the overwhelming success and booking of Studio A, it was decided that a new Studio B should be constructed. Using the same architect and contractors, Studio B was finished in February of 1998. It was a high-tech room, with a 64-track hard disk system; 32-track, 20-bit ADAT and an automated digital console purchased from Jodeci.

However, 1998 saw the widespread appearance of affordable home recording technology, which spelled hard times for studios in this town. Several studios either folded or came very close to folding, and everyone at Rhapsody Street had to work very hard. Matt locked himself in the B-room from 1998 until early 2001 and recorded, produced or mixed more than 45 full length album projects in practically every genre of music. Matt's Rhapsody Street work was seen on major TV networks, MTV, Radio, interactive CD-ROMs, theme parks and the web.

By 2000, the recording scene had come full-circle, with a majority of charting Rap artists from Texas making Rhapsody Street their home. One of the original Shotcallers was an especially colorful personality named D-Money who is credited with the “Mack Damon” (aka Matt Gallegos) origin. Through the course of his album, he began calling Matt "Mack Damon", even going so far as to refer to the name in his verse. The pseudonym became a hit, and appeared on a score of rap records that year by NINO, A-GEE, K-Sam, and a bunch of other South Coast artists. The name stuck and to this day album credits appear with the name Mack Damon on them as producer.

In 2001, Willie and Matt (Mack Damon from this point on) hooked up again to begin recording the second “Instruments of Praise” album, and the two agreed to produce an album that was no-compromises the best they could produce (that album should be released in the summer of 2003). Late that same year, Studio A was completely rewired and a new console (a d8b) was chosen as the center of the install with a new hard disk system and 32 tracks on a new ADAT. Mack's assistant, the lovely Aloyita, helped pick the colors (actually, he didn't want color at all, so she chose shades of grey). The new install was another success, and booking surged.

In the late summer of 2002, Dub decided to leave the recording studio to Mack Damon so he could concentrate all of his efforts on the band. At that point, Mack Damon, Willie Bonds and three other partners (Brian Mikiten, George Byers and Curtis Cannon, esq.) arranged to buy all new gear for Studio A and purchase the remaining assets on January 1st, 2003. This new LLC, Strategic Studio Partnership, now owns Rhapsody Street, with Mack Damon and Willie Bonds running the day-to-day operations.

The new owners agreed that by purchasing only the best gear money could buy, Rhapsody Street could be transformed to a world-class room (one of the very few in South Texas). Studio A was subsequently remodeled and retuned, and new instruments were purchased to achieve this goal.

Fast forward to November of 2003.... Mack Damon and Willie Bonds decided to move in different directions, Willie pursuing what looks to be a promising career in gospel music, and Mack Damon re-focusing on his core studio business. Ken Branca made the shift from studio enigneer to studio owner. Mack Damon's team purchased the remaining shares and now Ken and Mack own a majority share in Rhapsody Street Studios. With a full calendar, releases that are on the charts, and a bold new direction, Rhapsody Street is poised to become a recording destination in Texas. We now have the equipment needed to truly be considered “World Class”, but we’re still bound by our commitment to our ideal:

Making great music is all that matters.