After the sale of Record Plant, Stone served as a reorganization consultant for Motown Records, L.P. After the conclusion of the Motown assignment, he was retained extensively as a marketing and financial consultant to provide new diversification and marketing plans for both international and domestic audio recording facilities and professional equipment manufacturers. As an example, he served as operations consultant for "Jazz at Lincoln Center," providing guidance and services for the integration of recording studios into their facilities at Columbus Circle in New York City.
Chris Stone was also involved in many films and live events, including Flashdance, Star Trek, the Oscars, the Grammys and the original Woodstock festival. He was the Associate Producer for audio productions of Woodstock '94 for A&M Records. As Record Plant Scoring, Inc. he operated the film scoring stage and the ADR stage at Paramount Pictures (Stage M) from 1983 to 1989, at which time it was returned to Paramount Pictures corporate operation.
In addition, Stone was a frequent recording industry journalist, providing his Sound Business monthly columns on the business aspects of audio recording for Pro Sound News and Mix magazine in the U.S., and Sound On Sound Magazine in Europe. He lectured and appeared onstage extensively, including the keynote address for the European conference of the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS) in London, and the keynote address for the Audio Engineering Society convention in 2008, during which he presented "The Artist Owns the Industry," with his projections for the future of professional audio recording.
He published the book The Sound of Money – Audio Recording for Profit, with his editor David Goggin (Mr. Bonzai), who also acted as his press agent and collaborator for the past three decades. The book explained the marketing, promotion, management and financial requirements of global music and audio-visual recording facilities today with projections for the future.
Stone served as a member of the faculty at USC, where he taught "The Business and Economics of the Audio Recording Industry." He also taught "Music Industry Entrepreneurship" at the online school of the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
In January 2016, Record Plant Recording Studios co-founders Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone were inducted into the NAMM TEC Awards Hall of Fame, honoring pioneers of the music industry for Technical Excellence and Creativity. Stone is survived by his wife Gloria, son Matt, daughter Samantha and grandchildren Jessica, Zachary and Zoe.
Christopher Stone: Godfather of the Modern Recording Studio
1935-2016
