TRS: Recording, record labels, plenty of gear

Matthew Day

Staff

October 19, 2026

OSHKOSH – Over the past two years, a 150-year-old Oshkosh building has been revitalized with new sounds and creativity. 

Randal Darabosh, Jeff Davis and Jason Goessl brought TRS Recording Studio to life in 2024, at 586 North Main St. 

Since then, the co-owners said virtually every genre of music has filled those historic walls. 

“I like to say we’ll record anything from ambient to zydeco,” Darabosh said. 

Despite the proliferation of advanced digital audio workstations – such as Apple’s GarageBand software application, preinstalled on Mac devices since 2004 – recording studios remain viable, with Kentley Insights reporting 5.2% annual growth in the U.S. industry over the past three years and a 2025 valuation of $1.7 billion. 

Davis and Darabosh said brick-and-mortar studios like TRS are continually making the case for their services. 

From a live room engineered to capture performances at their sonic best, to isolation booths for maximally enhanced recording capabilities, to $15,000 worth of microphones alone, Darabosh said the spaces and the gear are just the beginning of what TRS has to offer. 

“One of our main goals is getting the music out there for people, because you can make the best record in the world, but if nobody hears it, so what?” he said. 

For musicians who are interested in help with distribution and publishing, the co-owners said they have several record labels to aid with artists’ releases. 

Davis said two of these labels were established before TRS: his Tsurumi Records label – specializing in “rock, punk, some indie and, now, some more experimental stuff” – and Goessl’s Sun Goose Records label, which focuses more on “jazz and blues and some ambient-type stuff.” 

“The label part’s pretty cool, too, because bands that record [at our studio] have an opportunity to be considered for both the labels,” he said. “And then what we did, because [an artist] is not always a good fit for the two labels, we created a third label – TRS Records…, and what that does is we can do the distribution for them for all the digital platforms.” 

Davis said the goal is to help musicians – particularly those without much in the way of industry experience – have their creations protected as they promote it: “We provide that guidance.” 

He said this back-end option was brainstormed by Darabosh. 

“Randy said, ‘Hey, anyone can record, but no one knows what to do with it – and you guys seem to know some things we can do with it,’” Davis said. 

The three teamed up under the TRS name, which Darabosh and Davis said doesn’t really stand for anything in particular, but a couple of versions of it are based on labels associated with the building’s present and past. 

The quarter-inch jack of an audio or instrument cable – which is represented on the bottom of the “T” on the studio’s logo – is known as a TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) connector, which Davis said gave Darabosh the initial idea for the studio’s name. 

“But to us, ‘T’ stands for Tsurumi Records, ‘R’ stands for Randy Darabosh and ‘S’ stands for Sun Goose Records,” Davis said. 

In addition to the studio and the record labels, the co-owners said the third major component of the business is TRS Recording Studio Store, offering simple music accessories, performance and touring necessities, items and gear on consignment, access to more advanced equipment, basic guitar maintenance services and more. 

Once the store – located on the front of the building – was ready to open and TRS had joined the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce, Davis said the time was finally right for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 2. 

“Up until then, most people didn’t know there was a studio there, because we didn’t have any outside signage or anything,” he said. “And we spent close to two years recording over 50 different bands, getting the sound dialed in, we got our website up and stuff, but we thought, ‘Let’s just make this the ribbon-cutting of the business as a whole,’ which is TRS Recording Studio and the Studio Store that goes with it.” 

While the studio had been fully operational and well booked, Davis said it was largely only familiar to him and the other owners’ musician friends around Oshkosh. 

“But when you got outside of that,” he said, “people were pretty excited there’s something here that they didn’t know was available downtown.” 

The start of the studio 

Some of the roots of TRS can be traced back to Seattle, where Davis said he met Goessl through the music scene. 

From a friend’s suggestion, Davis said he went to see Goessl’s band, Trimtab. 

He said he eventually released one of the band’s albums on Tsurumi Records and became friends with Goessl. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic saw Goessl moving back to his home state of Wisconsin, Davis said it so happened that his wife was selected for an artist-in-residence opportunity based in Oshkosh. 

“We stayed in Oshkosh for about three weeks, and we were ready to do something different,” he said. “Wisconsin provided something different, so we made the leap.” 

Davis said he took a corporate job, but as Goessl showed him around the Oshkosh music scene, he was inspired anew. 

“We started talking about revamping the [Tsurumi] record label now because there’re so many great musicians around town,” he said. 

When Davis began frequenting local music venue The Reptile Palace, he said its owner, Clint, suggested he meet Darabosh. 

“I worked in the entertainment industry all my life as a stagehand and toured Broadway productions around,” Darabosh said. “I enjoy recording and music, so I had all this gear I was kind of using out of my house as a hobby, and then I had somebody move in and packed all that up. It was just sitting in storage.” 

Meanwhile, Davis said he and Goessl had their eye on the building at 586 N. Main St., which, throughout its 150-year history, had been a bakery, auto shop, bike shop, grocery store, a Salvation Army, a recording studio, music store and rehearsal space, among its iterations. 

Between Davis’ industry/label knowledge, Goessl’s musical network/prowess and Darabosh’s recording gear/expertise, the co-owners said they decided to found TRS. 

With further regard to its nebulous name, they said the record label that had previously operated out of the building, Topsoil Records, made for another “TRS,” as did the top of the building. 

“We say ‘Topsoil Recording Studio’ so it gets the ‘TRS,’ and then someone else said we should call it ‘Tin Roof Studio’ because we’ve got a tin roof,” Davis said. “So, we’re flexible if we need to adjust what it stands for.” 

Similarly flexible, Darabosh said, are the three co-owners’ roles. 

“I’m kind of the head engineer; I do the setup and am the main technician,” he said. “Jason – he’s more engineering and kind of our musician connection. Jeff – we like to say he’s our frontman. He’s a guy who goes out and talks and shakes hands, but he’s also an engineer. So, everyone does that little bit of everything. We all bring a specialty to the table and use those specialties to our advantage.” 

Beyond a home setup 

Per trsrecordingstudio.com, the studio’s mission is “to provide a welcoming environment where you can achieve recording quality that goes beyond what is possible in a home setup.” 

“My goal with musicians and recording has always been to get the musician to be comfortable, because you’re capturing their performance, and the more comfortable they are, the better they’re going to [perform],” Darabosh said. “The musician being relaxed and having a good time instead of being stressed and chasing himself and rushing and whatnot – that relaxed feeling produces a better sound and a better product at the end.” 

A “Session Guide” recently published on TRS’ website, Davis and Darabosh said, is intended to help set up musicians for successful recording – particularly those with little or no prior studio experience. 

“A lot of the younger bands, they’re used to playing in bars and clubs around an hour; they come, they plug in, the sound guy dials a few knobs for 10 seconds and off they go,” Darabosh said. “This isn’t like that… [It takes some time] getting that idea of ‘this is your art that’s going to live forever, as opposed to playing live where it’s here and then gone.”

They also said having an inventory of accessories and gear in the Studio Store – such as guitar strings, guitar picks, drumsticks and drumheads – adds additional ease, as does comfortable seating, snacks, etc. 

Regardless of which of them is more involved in a given session, the co-owners said the experience of the engineer and the dazzling, ever-expanding array of recording gear, instruments, effects and amplifiers all help to encourage musicians to move beyond nervousness to an excited, experimental, confident mindset. 

Another resource TRS can provide, Davis said, is a stable of talented local musicians who can add instrumentation or vocals to projects. 

“We definitely have the musicians in Oshkosh to create pretty much anything at this point,” he said. 

Davis said some engineers will discourage recording suggestions from musicians, with some studios outright prohibiting them from, say, adjusting microphones. 

But at TRS, he said this is never the case; rather, musician involvement and curiosity are welcomed. 

“From a physics acoustic standpoint, the recording process is actually fascinating,” Davis said. 

If TRS has a “signature sound,” Darabosh said it’s probably related to its live room. 

“Overall, we just want clean, high-quality products for people to listen to,” he said. 

Striking the right chord 

As the relative newcomer to Oshkosh, Davis said he’s really enjoyed getting to meet new people by way of the studio. 

“The community’s been super receptive, from the musicians to the other studios,” he said. 

Darabosh said the studio mainly draws customers from Northeast Wisconsin, a region where numerous recording studios were established before TRS. 

But instead of any animosity, Davis said the studio has been welcomed into the local music scene. 

Part of their niche, he said, has been TRS’ willingness to take on studio novices, whereas other studios prefer more experienced clientele. 

In some cases, Davis said, certain studios will have infrastructure, equipment or other unique strengths that others lack. 

Not only will area studios recommend clientele to one another – often handing off a recording project for specific stages like mixing and mastering – but he said the TRS team is in the process of founding a community of recording engineers across the Fox Valley. 

From the early days of recruiting local bands to record for free – as a way of showcasing the studio’s capabilities – to Studio Store guests being invited into the studio for impromptu tours, Darabosh said TRS continues to invite people to experience the scope of what studios can do. 

He said a short demonstration – comparing guests’ own microphones to one of the $1,000-plus ones from TRS’ microphone locker, for example – is often all it takes. 

“Even those who know nothing about recording can instantly hear the differences…,” he said. “Let’s be honest: you get what you pay for. But the easiest thing has always been for me [to have them] just take a listen. The proof is just hearing it.” 

More than music 

Regardless of what financial reports suggest, Davis describes the music industry as “a tough place.” 

However, TRS’ co-owners said they’re all practically permanently hooked on music. 

“I turned 52 this year, and I was thinking, ‘Man, maybe I should go do something else with my life’ – but what else am I going to do?” Darabosh said. “I’ve worked in the entertainment industry all my life. I just love it. It’s one of the most enjoyable careers I think a person could have… It’s a lot of hard work, but I enjoy it. You’re creating art every day, and it’s fulfilling.” 

The Studio Store gives TRS an additional revenue stream, Davis said, and the studio has only just begun exploring its potential for commercial work, voiceover, soundtracks and other production work. 

With their decades of audio experience, the co-owners said it’s as exciting as ever to learn new software, gear and types of projects. 

“We can always keep it fresh and new,” Darabosh said. 

But what’s most rewarding, though, is the sense of fulfillment Davis and Darabosh said they experience when they help musicians find fulfillment. 

“To see an artist smile at the end of the day – it’s like, ‘Oh, their vision is something real now,’” Darabosh said. 

Visit trsrecordingstudio.com to learn more, hear artists who have recorded at TRS and request information regarding rates, specs, etc.