Booking terms

Terms and cancellation

The rules for studio sessions, deposits, cancellations, mixing and your music.

Last updated 5 November 2026

The short version

• A session is £50 an hour, with an engineer included, for between 3 and 8 hours.
• You pay when you book: a 50% deposit with the balance on the day, or the full price.
• Book online and your session is confirmed straight away. We email you the details.
• Cancel at least 24 hours before your start time and you get back everything you paid. Later than that, we keep the deposit and the balance may also be due.
• Overtime is £50 an hour.
• Your music is yours.

1. Who we are

These terms are between you and [legal name of the business], trading as Free House Studios, The Old Malthouse, Little Ann Street, Bristol, BS2 9EB (“we”, “us”). You can reach us at sam@freehousemusic.co.uk or on 0117 9555 236. They cover studio sessions, mixing and mastering, Mix Room accounts and gift vouchers.

2. Studio sessions

• A session is booked in whole hours, from 3 to 8 hours.
• The price is £50 for each hour. This includes an engineer, the use of the studio, and our microphones and equipment[add: VAT is included, if you are VAT registered].
• You can book from 24 hours ahead, up to 3 months ahead.
• Online booking runs Monday to Friday 10:00 to 22:00 and Saturday 10:00 to 18:00. [describe how weekend sessions outside these hours work, and the rate].
• You leave with a Studio Master of your song. Extra mixing and mastering is separate (see section 9).

3. Booking and confirmation

• Booking online: when you book a free time on our website and your payment goes through, your session is confirmed. We email you a confirmation with the details.
• When we book you in: if we book a session for you by phone, email or in person, we either take the payment from a card you have saved with us, or email you a link to pay. The time is held for you for 48 hours. We send a reminder after 24 hours, and if it is still not paid after 48 hours the time is released for other people.
• In the rare case that a time was shown as free by mistake, or we cannot run the session, we will offer you another time or refund you in full.

4. Paying

• When you book, you choose to pay a deposit of 50% of the session price, or the full price. Card payments are taken by Square.
• If you paid a deposit, the rest is due on the day of your session [say how: card on arrival, or a payment link we send you].
• Saved cards: if you tick “save my card for next time”, Square keeps your card and we can use it to take deposits and session fees for sessions you book with us, or that we book in for you. We never see your full card number. You can remove the card at any time from your Log in page.

5. Cancelling and changing your booking

• 24 hours or more before your start time: tell us and we will refund everything you have paid.
• Less than 24 hours before your start time, or if you do not arrive: we keep the deposit, and we may ask you to pay the balance of the session as well.
• Changing the time on the day: a change to your start time on the day of the session may cost extra.
• Changing the date or time: contact us as early as you can. We will try to move you, and moving to a new slot at least 24 hours before your original start time will not cost you your deposit [confirm whether you offer free rescheduling].
• If we have to cancel, for example because of illness or a fault, we will offer you another time or refund you in full, including anything you have paid.

Refunds go back to the card you paid with. They usually reach you within [5 to 10] working days.

6. Your right to cancel

Because studio sessions are for a specific date and time, the 14-day cancellation period for distance sales does not apply to them (Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013). Our cancellation rules in section 5 apply instead. For mixing and mastering, once you ask us to start work and we begin, you cannot cancel the part that has been done. [have a solicitor confirm this wording]

7. During your session

• Please arrive on time. Your session starts at the booked time even if you have not arrived, and time lost to a late arrival comes out of your session [confirm].
• Starting early: if you arrive early and we start early, we may finish early by the same amount of time, or charge for the extra time.
• Overtime: if you want to run over and we can, overtime is £50 an hour.
• Equipment: everything on our equipment list is included. If you need anything else, ask us before your session. Anything we have to hire in for you is charged at cost.
• Food and drink: tea, coffee and water are free. You are welcome to bring your own food and drink. Anything else we provide is charged on top of the session.
• You can bring up to [number] guests.
• Please look after the equipment. You are responsible for damage caused by misuse or carelessness.
• No smoking or vaping inside [confirm].
• If you bring a beat, instruments or samples, you confirm that you have the right to use them. Unmastered WAV files or trackout stems work best.
• We may end a session without a refund if behaviour puts people or equipment at risk.

8. Your music

• You own the songs and recordings you make with us. We do not claim any rights in them.
• We will not release or share your music without your permission [add a line if you want to use short clips or photos for promotion, with consent].
• We keep a copy of your files for [retention period, matching the privacy policy] so we can deliver and revise your work. Please keep your own backups as well. We are not responsible for files on media you bring with you.

9. Mixing, mastering and Atmos

• Prices are those shown when you place your order. Placing an order is a request: we confirm the final price, and how and when to pay, before we start work. [confirm whether you take payment before or after the work].
• You send your files through your private upload page. You must have the right to use everything you send us. Keep the link in your email to yourself, because anyone with it can add files to your order.
• Send the files we ask for, in good order (a session, or WAV files that all start at the same point). If files are missing or unusable we will tell you, and the work starts when we have what we need.
• If your song was recorded at Free House Studios, the mix is half price.
• Mastering is free when you order a mix [confirm whether this also covers Dolby Atmos].
• Each mix includes [3] rounds of revisions. Extra revisions are quoted before we do them.
• Mixes are delivered and reviewed in the Mix Room. Tell us when you approve a mix. Once you have approved it we treat the job as complete.

10. Mix Room accounts

Keep your sign-in details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your account. We can close an account that is misused. Your files stay available to you for [period] after your last activity.

Archived session files. We keep your session files (projects, recordings and stems) on the studio drive while you are working on them. Anything untouched for six months moves to archive storage on the 1st of the month, and we email you a month, a week and a day before. Your first restore from the archive is free. After that, each restore costs £5.

11. Gift vouchers

• You buy a voucher on our website by card, and pay for it straight away. We email you the voucher code, and the recipient too if you give us their email address.
• A voucher is worth the amount of money on it. It can go towards studio sessions: enter the code when you book and it comes off the price, counting towards the deposit first and then the balance. For mixing, mastering or microphone hire, quote the code to us by phone or email.
• You can use a voucher in more than one go until the balance runs out. It is valid for [12 months] from the date of purchase, and we cannot use it after that.
• It cannot be exchanged for cash. If a booking paid for with a voucher is cancelled, the voucher money comes back onto the voucher, apart from the part that counted towards the deposit if you cancel less than 24 hours before the start time, which is kept in the same way as a cash deposit.
• Whoever has the code can use it, so keep it safe. We cannot replace a lost or shared code unless you can show us the purchase email.
• You can cancel a voucher you have not used within 14 days of buying it and we will refund you in full. Email sam@freehousemusic.co.uk [solicitor to confirm the 14-day cancellation wording for vouchers].

12. Microphone hire

• You ask to hire a microphone on our website for up to 14 days. Like a session, every request is approved by us, and until you get our confirmation it is a request.
• You pay a hire fee for each day, plus a refundable security deposit set for each microphone. Both are held on your card when you send the request, and taken when we approve it. If we do not approve it, nothing is taken.
• We are closed on Sundays, so you collect and return the microphone Monday to Saturday, within our opening hours. Collect it from the studio on your first day, and bring it back by the end of your last day.
• We check the microphone and its accessories when it comes back. If everything is there and working, we refund your security deposit in full, usually the same day. It can take a few working days to reach your account.
• If it is late, we may charge [an extra day’s hire for each day late]. If it is lost or damaged beyond normal wear, you pay the cost of repair or replacement, which we take from your security deposit first and ask you for any difference [solicitor to review].
• Look after it as you would your own. Keep it dry, do not lend it on, and use it only for the purpose you told us about. [do you want photo ID on collection?]
• Cancel at least 24 hours before collection and you get the hire fee and the security deposit back in full. Inside 24 hours we keep the hire fee and refund the security deposit.

13. Our responsibility

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit. Otherwise, our responsibility to you for any one booking is limited to the amount you paid for it [have a solicitor confirm]. We are not responsible for losses we could not reasonably have foreseen, or for events outside our control.

14. If something goes wrong

Tell us at sam@freehousemusic.co.uk and we will do our best to put it right. We aim to reply within [3] working days.

15. The law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If we cannot settle a dispute, the courts of England and Wales can decide it. If you are a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland you can also use your local courts.

16. Changes

We may update these terms. The version on this page when you book is the one that applies to your booking.