PIRATE.COM - Rehearsal Studios Arvostelua 

Gets a three verging on a two. I've used the facility in Reading multiple times and have had some pleasant and frustrating experiences. The pleasant (and relatively simple to achieve) things - You turn up, the room exists, is fairly clean & you get on with your session.

However on multiple times they have cancelled late citing the popular "electrical or equipment faults". Problems that would have been sorted quickly at regular studios with staff on site. Applying credit to your account instead of offering that and a full refund is cheeky. The default should be a full refund.

They've axed and replaced band rooms with DJ booths at Reading in particular. This is immensely frustrating. When I go to book I see weeks and weeks of band rooms booked solid and weeks of empty DJ rooms. Tempted to book a DJ room and try and squeeze the band into it! Clearly awful decision to scale back the quantity of rehearsal rooms.

And now their prices are creeping up, the fee being their primary advantage over more premium rehearsal studios will lead most to those with other options to beggar the question – Why use Pirate? There are other local studios that are cleaner, better equipment, staff on hand so if you charge the same or there’s a poultry few quid difference, why use you?

Pirate cancelled at late notice.

This is our only experience of dealing with Pirate Studios. Our band were due to practice at Pirate Studios in Salford, Manchester at noon on 08/05/2022. We are booked to play a festival later on the same day in Manchester. As we're not from the city we thought we'd give Pirate a go to squeeze a practice in beforehand as a load of the band have been off on holidays etc. I was impressed with the automated booking system and the ease of booking. However, with 19 hours of notice, at 18:13 on 07/05/2022, I received a message stating that my booking had been cancelled for a fault with their equipment. We had planned to bring our own equipment anyway but I suppose they didn't know this. To their credit, they refunded me the cost of the rehearsal . I then went onto their website to re-book, but their system was down. I attempted to get through their chatbot to be able to speak with someone but there is no-one available. We've decided to go elsewhere. My main issues are the late and summary cancellation in-spite of us using our own equipment, the inability to re-book a room and the inability to speak to someone to resolve the issue.

**Edit - I have changed my review from a 2* to 1* as I now note that their cancellation email states they have credited my account to use "against another booking". I can't even get in to my account to check this as their systems are down. To the person who will respond to this from Pirate Studios, you can make this right by giving me a full refund. We will not be working with Pirate Studios again**

Works always awesome, I love to do sessions there. DJ equipment is expensive and in normal environments you cannot play loud. Pirate Studios solve both - 24/7!

Great experience with friends, booked the studio for 3 hours with 5 homies to listen to future new album and it was totally worth it.

-great speakers
-easy to connect
-air conditioning
-comfy
-easy booking

Its worth an experience if you really want to be loud and dont want to bother anyone !!

Rubbish company. Tried to sign up but they insisted in ID which I uploaded. The issue seems to be that I signed in as Bill but my ID says William and as my name doesn't match up I can't book a room. What kind of fkd up company can't work out that Bill is William??
Avoid and use one of the many local rehearsal rooms that are desperate for business.

I've been to pirate quite some times and it's amazing. It is still hard to believe that you find so quality equipment and rooms for such a fair price.
I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys music.

Dan Hodgson customer service was exceptional. He helped me with everything I needed even with the lack of equipment available. Even though room 8 mixer at Wembley is basically broken with the lows, he managed to help through it all. He made it all worthwhile, thank you Dan.

I travelled an hour on a bus and then walked 30 minutes (on my birthday 😂) because I need to get some pre masters sent off ASAP.

I arrived to a broken chair, a broken sofa and hissing HS8’s (very loud white noise). Plug my stuff in as usual to hear them totally locked at full volume, I mean literally locked. I could have burst an ear drum or gotten tinnitus from how loud it was.

And I’m not talking about the audio interface dial being turned up because it was barely half way up, and the first thing I did when the sound blasted out was turn it fully down. The volume did not change one bit when I turned it down. Fully turned down, the volume coming from the speakers was still maxing out. Basically a major issue with it.

The pirate rules & regulations printed on the door clearly state to call a number asap because they have replacements on site. The words we will replace it ‘fast’ was even included 😂. This is clearly not the case… because it is a total lie. I even sent a picture of this statement to their WhatsApp assistance and they said they couldn't do that.

So why are they writing this on their door? 🤦‍♂️

An hour and a half of very slow back and forth came to no conclusion. My session would have been over by the time we got it sorted, so I just had to leave and take a refund instead. Absolutely nothing accomplished, just many hours wasted.

They even sent me a webpage with trouble shooting info, and the link to the one page that might have helped 'reset your interface' was a broken webpage!!!!!

To top it all off, there were people booked in after me for a 4 hour session (I know this because they told me on WhatsApp). And we know what happened to those people don’t we…They will have spent the first hours of their session trying to get things working properly.

The most worrying part is that Pirate are totally aware of their client base. (Skint beginner musicians that need working equipment, generally trying to complete something for a deadline). And despite this, they put zero care into ensuring the studios are ready and working in between sessions.

I will sadly never use pirate again due to this. I simply cannot risk half a day of my life venturing across a city to a studio room that may or may not work. It’s too risky.

I literally can’t trust a business model that can’t guarantee the thing I’m travelling for and paying for will be working (like what are you even doing guys, isn't that step one of every business in the world? Make sure the thing you are selling actually works?)

My hope with this review is not to aimlessly moan. My hope is that they actually do something about it for everyone else's sake.

15 minute check in between every session. Cannot believe this isn't standard procedure.

** UPDATE

They didn't even refund me like I asked. They credited my account for £2.50 less than what I paid.

I paid £28 and got a credit of £25.50 on my Pirate account after wasting money on buses and all of that wasted time.

** UPDATE 2

Emailed them like they asked me to below but they didn't respond.

Wir haben mit unserer Brickhouse Blues Band (.com) am 27.4.22 zum ersten Mal bei Pirate in Bahrenfeld geprobt. Unsere Erfahrung war top, alles bestens und genau wie auf der Webseite beschrieben. Wir haben daraufhin unseren Probenraum bereits gekündigt und werden zukünftig nur noch bei Pirate proben. Keep up the good work, guys!

Awesome!

Easy to book, quick and helpful service, and had a ton of fun using the CDJs :) Would definitely come back.

Their booking system is horrendous. Accidentally, I booked a room at the time and day I was given by default (right there and then) which already started from 6pm even though, I only managed to book it at 7pm, my bad admittedly as I wanted a to book a different day, as I immediately saw this mistake I contacted the person who was attending the chat but I was told me that there was nothing they could do about it as the booking already begun.
£51 of nada.
Last message I received was "Is there anything else we can help you with???"

The sound from the ear phones and speakers kept going in and out! We couldn’t record and wasted 2 hours of frustration. Not coming back here! Certainly won’t recommend this place to anyone!

I have used Pirate Studios two times in Berlin, and I have had very different experiences in both of them. In the first one, no problem, great equipment, sound system, and there was a slight problem with the AC. I contacted them about it and they offered one hour for free and a discount for the next session in exchange for the problem. Well done, appreciated it.

Next time I booked, my booking was cancelled 5 minutes in the time slot even before I arrived to the place. The guys that were previously using the room continued to be there out of their time slot and they were throwing a party. I was cancelled because of them. I called Customer Service TWICE and they told me after 10 minutes-long phone calls that there would not be a problem. The booking still was not reinstated. I called again and another person told me I would have to file that complaint to another department by e-mail, and they would review it in days. So I lost my money for the time being. I had already lost 2 hours of my time too.
Also, I have to say that after filing a very long e-mail complaint, I was contacted back about 5 days later and the money was sent back to my credit card and I was given a very substantial refund, so I appreciate the last gesture.

Great everything at your fingertips and easy to deal with. Will be our new permanent home for music

We had initially booked a room without cymbals but our drummer forgot to bring them. We got in touch with the customer service on WhatsApp via the number provided in the room (very convenient) and got assistance right away. The person helping us was able to find another room that had the equipment we needed within seconds. Our original booking was cancelled and we were able to book the new room with the credit we were given. Our evening was saved thanks to this 5 star customer service! Many, many thanks again!!

I'm a fairly frequent customer of Pirate Studios. I've attended both the Notting Hill DJ Studio and the Earlsfield Recording Studio many times. The equipment doesn't always work perfectly, which is to be expected with their unmanned 24h space business model, but customer support is always willing to help and make it right. My reason for this review is due to my current experience. The booking system on their website has messed up my booking date, which would've made me lose my booking, however Pete on the Whatsapp support chat (massive shoutout) has been able to refund my credit and let me fix my booking. This does mean a lot, especially from a big company.

Ich wollte einen Audiokommentar Aufnehmen, jedoch waren der große Raum voller Kiddies die die Türen Ihrer gebuchten Kabinen offen hatten und schreind ihren Gabber HArdstyle durch den ganzen Keller gepumpt haben so das mir eine Audioaufnahme ohne Störgerräusche nicht gelingen konnte. Somit hätte ich es auch zuhause aufnehmen können.