Recording studio, Berlin
cherryontop — Recording studio, Berlin
We put a cherry on top.
One room, one team, one finished track. We produce, record, mix and master: for artists, for brands, and for the films made next door at katsu.media.
Listen
Productions by the team — each track in full, with the song sections marked on the curve.
Nothing here yet for that. Ask us — there is more than what is on this page. Write to us →
Everywhere I Go — Rooby & Mr. Cherry Remix
0:003:14
Advertising / Commercial
0:000:32
Anticipation
0:003:07
Dancing
0:003:35
Friday 13
0:007:07
Get Up
0:003:54
Hungry for Love
0:003:04
Hypnotize
0:003:08
Indie pop
0:003:57
Like Magnets
0:003:39
Out Of Thin Air
0:003:49
Praise The Lord
0:002:30
Remember
0:003:50
Ricophonk
0:002:03
Forever My Muse
0:003:47
Simple Game
0:003:52
Superlife
0:002:54
That's the Way — Rooby Remix
0:003:03
TV Jingle
0:000:11
Wild Dance
0:003:19
20 tracks — scroll the list or
The room
A cozy room under the roof in Berlin-Köpenick you can sit in all day — where almost anything to do with sound gets made: vocals and instruments, voice recordings and podcasts, beats, mixing and mastering, sound for film and video.
How the studio evolvedJan 2025 – today
Jan 2025
An empty room
A top-floor room in Köpenick, half painted. This is where the work starts: the insulation is already on the floor.
The beginning: half the wall blue, the rest still bare paper. 
The roller is still standing against the wall, the floor under a dust sheet. 
Looking up into the roof window. That is where the daylight comes from. Jan 2025
Floor and window
Two days later: the floor is down and the window is set into the wall. From here on it stops being a room and becomes a plan.
Painted, floor laid, nothing else. 
The window is in the wall, the floor is still the bare subfloor. 
Closer in: the frame is up, the cable still hanging loose. 
The floor is down. The window to the booth on the left, the roof window on the right, the radiator below. 
The same corner from the door, at the end of the second day. Mar 2025
The slatted wall
Three months of acoustics: absorbers under the roof slope, the slatted wall in front — here as a timelapse, slat by slat. It is the reason the room does not sound like a room.
The timelapse: slat by slat, over several evenings. 
The first absorber under the roof slope. Black, so it disappears into the room. 
From the side you can see the gap behind it. Without that air an absorber barely works in the low end. 
All slats on — still without light and without gear. 
The first time with light behind the slats. Apr 2025
The booth
A room of its own behind the opening. The pane between them is why you can still see each other while recording.
From the booth into the control room — through the window that went in back in January. 
Absorbers left and right, the keyboard already in place. 
From the booth: absorbers, door, the desk behind them. 
From above: the microphone over the rug. The rug is not decoration, it takes the reflection off the floor. 
The same evening, somebody is already at the microphone. 
Between two takes. The stool is as much part of the kit as the microphone. Apr 2025
The patch panel
Twelve sockets, each soldered and labelled by hand. None of it is visible later — you only notice it because no cable runs across the room.
The back, before the lid goes on: sockets, wires, labels. 
Contact by contact. Which socket goes where is written next to it in marker. 
From the front, before fitting: XLR, jack, USB, network — numbered one to twelve. 
On the wall, one cable in. Every signal has gone through this plate ever since. Apr 2025
The control room
Four and a half months after the first picture: desk, monitors, carpet, instruments. The daylight comes from above and stays.
The control room as it has stood ever since. 
At night, shortly after the desk went in. 
In the slatted wall: bass, tape machine, books. The shelf is acoustics and storage at once. May 2025
Light and details
The rest is handwork: a strip of old wood with knobs, a lamp on top, light behind every slat.
Milled into the old board: MIDI DOBRYN. The knobs above it belong to it. 
The same strip, lamp on. 
A bulb in front of the slats — more an eye-catcher than a light. 
The shelf from below, light behind every slat. 
The instruments move in at the start of June. Oct 2025
In use ever since
Two at the desk, lamp on, machine running. The rest of this page was made here.
In use since the day it was finished. 
June 2025: two at the desk, the screen full. 
A commercial: Yura at the desk, Anna from the recording team beside him, the voice artist in the window. 
The sheet sits next to the keyboard. Not everything in a session is technology. 
An ordinary working day in the finished room.
What we work with
The room was built for listening: a decoupled booth, custom absorbers, calibrated monitoring. The main equipment is listed here.
Monitoring
- Neumann KH 310 A
- Neumann KH 120 A
- Neumann KH 750 DSP
- Neumann NDH 20
- beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro
Recording
- JZ Microphones Vintage 12
- sE Electronics Gemini II
- Triton Audio D20
- Universal Audio Apollo x4
Instruments
- Moog Subsequent 37
- Formanta Polivoks
- Clavia Nord Electro 6D 73
- Akai MPC Live
- Roland SP-404 MK2
- Polyend Tracker Mini
- Boss RC-300 Loop Station
- TC Electronic 2290-DT
- Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol
- Harley Benton Talk Box
On location
- Røde NTG3
- beyerdynamic MCE 530
- Zoom H5
- IK Multimedia iRig Pro Duo
If your production needs something that is not here, we say so before we take the job and rent it in.
What we do
Full production
on request
You arrive with an idea, you leave with a finished song.
- Arrangement and production
- Recording in the studio
- Mixing and mastering included
- Instrumental and a version with backings
- Seven working days, one of them for the vocals
- All rights to the recording pass to you with the fee
Mixing
on request
Your recording, brought into shape.
- Balance, space, frequencies
- Mastering included
- Two rounds of revisions
- Stems included
- No authorship — the recording stays yours
Mastering
on request
The final polish, ready for the platforms.
- Stereo and stem mastering
- One round of revisions
- Streaming-ready levels
- No authorship — the recording stays yours
Beats
on request
Made to order, exclusively yours.
- From straightforward to played parts
- Finished instrumental, mixed and mastered
- Two rounds of revisions
- Exclusive — never resold
- We write the music: share via split sheet
Coming: beat catalogue to buy on the spot — 5 beats in the making.
Recording
on request
The room and the gear, with one of our team at the desk.
- From four hours — that is the smallest booking
- Vocals and instruments
- Producer or engineer alongside you
- By the hour after that: we stay until it is done
Accommodation
on request
Sleep where the record is made — the room is inside the studio.
- Inside the studio, no commute between bed and desk
- For sessions running over several days
- On request, subject to availability
Improve your production
on request
You have already built something. We listen and put a cherry on top.
- We listen to the version you have
- You hear what there is to gain — honestly
- We name the price after listening
- From single tracks to the whole production
Feedback
on request
An honest ear on your work.
- Arrangement, mix, melody, form
- One hour, online or in the studio
- A short summary afterwards
Every project is quoted individually — by effort, by scope, and by what you bring with you. Send us your enquiry and you get an offer in numbers. Mixing and mastering are included where they belong to the job. Every service — the demo included — is paid half up front, the rest on completion. All quotes are net and exclude VAT.
Team
A seasoned team with more than twenty years in the music industry and sound production — numerous releases and productions for clients across many fields. Dan runs the studio, alongside two music producers and an audio producer for sound in video projects.
Founder & producer
Dan aka Mr. Cherry
Runs the studio and brings together what is made here. Behind the desk since 2012: music for Sookee, Blessed Child, Captain Gips, Msoke and Refpolk, releases through Springstoff and Audiolith — working as a beat producer under the name Forbiddan at the time. In 2011 a hip-hop rendering of Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Staatstheater Koblenz. The score for “Palmyra”, a 90-minute essay film. By day video and post-production at katsu.media — which is why sound and moving image are never far apart.
Raised in Yekaterinburg in an artist family, in Germany since 1997. First beats before studying media in Darmstadt, where a soundscape composition for a church interior earned him a master’s degree in 2015. Along the way a lot of work with young people: a CD with children from Manege Berlin, a musical of his own with pupils in Kyritz.
Work and discography
- “Palmyra” — essay film, 90 minutes
- Captain Gips — “Cap is back”
- Sookee — “D.R.A.G.”
- Refpolk — “Über mich hinaus”
- Refpolk feat. Sookee — “Mehr als genug”
- Julian Maier-Hauff feat. R0T0M0D — “Digging For Gold” (Forbiddan Remix)
- Berlin Boom Orchestra — “Retro” (Forbiddan Remix)
- Msoke feat. Julian Maier-Hauff — “Celebrate Summertime” (Forbiddan Remix)
- Music for Sookee
- Music for Blessed Child
- “Acis and Galatea” in hip-hop form
- “Plötzlich Zukunft”
- CD with young people from Manege Berlin
- Sound design for TRIBIT Audio
- Corporate video productions
- Video productions for education and public institutions
Producer
Rooby
Arrangement, production, instruments. Working since 2006, from pop and soul to advertising and film. Looks for the instruments that carry a composition rather than bury it.
Producer
Yura „J.T.“
Psychedelic rock, beats and sound design. His own music as Menk — with an ear for what a track is still missing.
Work and discography
How it runs
So you know where you stand, from the first message to the final file.
- 01
We listen
You send a demo or tell us what you have in mind. If the song does not exist yet, we start with the direction.
- 02
Setting the direction
We build a demo — with AI if you allow it, otherwise on the piano. One day at most, fixed price; if you then commission the production, it is credited.
- 03
Go-ahead and deposit
Once the direction is set, we sign the project contract. As with every service: 50 % when you commission, the rest on completion.
- 04
Lyrics and melody
If you write, we wait for your words. If not, we introduce you to writers.
- 05
Production
Arrangement, recording, instruments. You get at most two work-in-progress versions along the way — enough to have a say without pulling the work apart.
- 06
Mix and master
We bring it into balance and make it ready for streaming.
- 07
Revisions
Two rounds of smaller changes are included, one for mastering. Anything larger we estimate first — never an extra charge afterwards.
- 08
Handover
You get your package. From there the recording is yours.
What you get
- The finished master, as WAV and MP3
- The instrumental
- Instrumental with backing vocals
- The stems
Project files stay in the studio; they belong to the craft. We keep them for ten years, then they are deleted.
Check your material yourself — free
Drop a file here and you see at once whether it meets the points above: format, sample rate, bit depth, size, headroom and clipping. It saves the round where we ask you for a new export.
If you send material
So your session becomes a mix without detours.
- WAV or AIFF
- 44.1 or 48 kHz
- 24 bit or 32 bit float
- No more than 100 MB per file
- At least 6 dB of headroom
- No limiter, no clipping on the master bus
- Readable track names, every track the same length from the project start
If you send stems
The project name belongs in every file name, not just in the folder: a stem is called “01_Kick.wav” everywhere. If two sets end up together, one silently overwrites the other, and nobody can tell afterwards what belonged to what.
Artist_Trackname_No_Track.wav
- Artist_Trackname_STEMS_48k24/
- Artist_Trackname_00_RoughMix.wav
- Artist_Trackname_01_Kick.wav
- Artist_Trackname_02_Snare.wav
- Artist_Trackname_08_LeadVox.wav
- Two-digit number, no gaps, starting at 01 — it sets the order
- Track names short and always the same: Kick, Snare, Hats, Bass, Keys, Gtr_El, LeadVox, BackVox, FX
- Number several tracks of a kind (Synth_1, Synth_2), sides go last (_L, _R)
- Only A–Z, 0–9, underscore and hyphen — no spaces, no umlauts, no special characters
- Sample rate and bit depth once in the folder name, not in every file
- A mixdown as 00_RoughMix — it then sits ahead of the stems without disturbing the numbering
Whether a track really starts at the beginning of the project cannot be seen from a file. So we check that all tracks are the same length — that covers the case in practice.
Frequently asked
Short answers to what most people want to know before the first message.
What does a production cost?
Every project is quoted individually — by effort, by scope, and by what you bring with you. There is no public price list: you send an enquiry, we answer with an offer in numbers. All quotes are net; invoices within Germany carry 19 % VAT on top, invoices abroad carry no German VAT.
How does a project run?
In eight steps: we listen, set the direction, sign the project contract, then lyrics and melody, production, mix and master, revisions and handover. Signing makes 50 % due, the rest on completion. That holds for every service, the demo before it included — it is credited against the production price.
Who owns the rights to the song?
It depends on the level — and the level is clear before we start:
- Service (mixing, mastering, feedback): fee and credit, no authorship. You release, license and sell without asking us.
- Producing your song: fee and credit, no share in the composition. With full payment, all rights of use in the recording pass to you — unlimited in time, territory and use.
- What producers and musicians play you may use without restriction; their own collecting-society claims do not concern you.
- The studio’s sounds, presets and templates are tools, not the work — they do not pass over.
- We write the music: whoever writes melody, harmony or beat is a co-author — under German law that cannot be bought out. The split sheet records before the first note who wrote which share; it concerns the writer royalties for the composition only, never your income from the recording.
- Credits go into the metadata of your release — agreed in the contract.
What will you ask me before release?
We show nothing without your consent — not even as a reference. What we ask is in the contract, as boxes to tick, per project and one by one: an excerpt of up to 60 seconds of the released version as a work sample, recordings from the session, AI tools for the demo, naming you as a reference. Third-party samples and recordings must be cleared before they go into a production. What binds in the end is the contract; this page is not legal advice.
Is the first sketch free?
No — the demo is a service of its own at a fixed price you know beforehand. Two kinds: with AI assistance if you allow it, or played on the piano, with several instruments and a guide vocal if needed. Either takes one day at most; as with every service, you pay half when you order and the rest on delivery. If you then commission the production, the demo price is credited against the fee; if you walk away, it is all you owe.
How many rounds of revisions are included?
Two rounds for full production, mixing and beats, one for mastering. Included: levels of instruments and vocals, reverb and delay adjustments, single instruments louder or softer, overall tone brighter or warmer, slight panning changes, timing and pitch on specific vocal phrases. Quoted separately: re-recording vocals or instruments, swapping several sounds, changing the arrangement, structure, length or order, changing key or tempo, a complete remix. Anything beyond that we estimate first — you learn the cost before it happens.
Can I book the studio just for recording?
Yes. The smallest booking is four hours: the room, the gear and one of our team at the desk, for vocals and instruments. After that it runs by the hour — we stay until it is done.
How do I send stems or a finished recording?
Following the pattern Project_No_Track.wav: project name in every file name, a two-digit number from 01, short consistent track names, no spaces or special characters. Sample rate and bit depth go once into the folder name, a rough mix as 00_RoughMix in front. Before sending, you can have your material checked on the page for free.
I am not based in Berlin — does that work?
Yes. For sessions running over several days there is accommodation inside the studio on request, no commute between bed and desk. Feedback on your work also happens online, one hour with a short written summary.
How discreet is the studio?
Ten written principles every person in the room is contractually bound by: no confirmation that a project exists, no teasers, cameras off, nothing published without written release, raw material stays with you. A standard NDA template reaches you within 24 hours.
Discretion
Ten principles every person working here is bound by.
We do not confirm that you are with us. We do not confirm that you were with us. We do not even confirm that anyone enquired. Unless you say otherwise, this project did not happen as far as the outside world is concerned.
A message to us is a business matter, not content. We post no screenshots, we quote nothing, we do not pass on who got in touch. That holds even if we end up not working together.
We publish nothing about you or your project before you have released it — in writing, for a specific post, on a specific channel, at a specific time. Withdraw the release and the post is offline within 24 hours.
No blurred photo from the control room. No location in a story. No emoji that is meant to mean something. Hinting is publishing — only slower.
No private recording devices are used during your session. Photos and video happen only when you commission them or expressly allow them in the contract — per project, as a box to tick. We point that out to anyone you bring along, too.
Sessions, stems, takes, work-in-progress — none of it leaves the studio without your instruction. We publish nothing without your consent, use nothing as demo material, nothing for teaching, nothing for showreels. If you allow a work sample, it is at most 60 seconds of the released version — unaltered and with your name. What we contributed ourselves is governed by the contract, not by who holds the files: which rights you get is set out under “Rights and credits”.
What you cut no longer exists for us. No anecdotes about the version that did not make it. No “funny stories from the studio”. Not in five years either.
Project data stays on encrypted systems cleared for the project. Share links go only to named recipients, password-protected and with an expiry date — never into open folders. We use AI tools on your material only with your consent.
Engineers, assistants, session players, stand-ins: all work under the same confidentiality agreement, with a contractual penalty, with no end date beyond the project. Discretion here is not a matter of sympathy but of signature.
Should anything get out despite all this, we tell you immediately, correct it at once, and do not defend ourselves in public at your expense. Trust shows in how someone handles their own mistake.
Newsletter
A few times a year: new releases, what was made in the studio, who was here, what we learned. No weekly offers.
You will first receive an email with a confirmation link. Only after that are you on the list. How we handle your details is set out in our privacy policy.
Talk to us
Tell us about your project or simply send your demo. We come back with an estimate of the work and the time it needs.
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