Lofish Productions Inc, is a cozy, professional recording studio in the heart of Manhattan, New York. With its relaxed vibe and professional yet affordable set-up, it has attracted a wide range of clients, from the jazz guitar superstar (Mike Stern) to the budding musical theater ingénue. Originally founded in 1998 by Austrian jazz musicians Elisabeth Lohninger and Walter Fischbacher, it started out as a CD duplication company in their living room, with one computer and one CD burner, before morphing into what it is today.

The Lofish story begins with Lohninger and Fischbacher deciding to deepen their jazz studies in the Big Apple itself. So in 1994, after studying music in Austria for quite some time, they moved to New York and began their studies at the renowned New School Jazz program. Two years later, school was out and the reality of survival as a musician in New York began to sink in. Rent needed to be paid, food needed to be put on the table. Walter, an astute piano tuner - a skill he acquired as an afterthought while studying piano at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst - began his piano tuning career by putting up fliers on lamp posts throughout the city. Elisabeth donned a black polyester tuxedo and went into the catering business for one and a half years. Living together in a loft space on the Lower Eastside, Walter and Elisabeth finally gave in to the quick evolvement of technology and bought a computer, CD burner, printer and scanner - just the equipment needed to start a CD duplication company. Now the baby needed a name, and through a joke that condensed Elisabeth and Walter's last names Lofish Productions was born (the Inc came a few years later). The name stuck, and once word got out about this new grassroots company down in the Lower East Side, there was no going back. For a few years, Lofish Productions stayed in the CD duplication business, in Walter and Elisabeth's apartment, which came complete with roommates and employees. Sometimes a door would open and a roommate in underwear would make his or her way to the bathroom at noon, while a client, ideally a coloratura soprano in need of duplicating her demo, was sitting in the living room, waiting to have her CD cover done.

The company grew, probably due to the complete absence of overhead (no costs for office space), more equipment was bought, and the clanking of the automated CD burners with their robot arms could be heard throughout the night. Eventually Lofish moved to a vacant commercial space directly under Walter and Elisabeth's apartment. This space came with a basement that could only be reached through a trap door in front of the building. Finally there was enough space to have a small recording studio in addition to the CD duplication business. The live room was set up in this hard-to-reach basement, which also housed various workout equipment that was put to use not only by Elisabeth and Walter but also their roommates. Occasionally a sweaty roommate had to be shooed from the room to make way for the rock band recording for the night. Cameras had been installed in this basement, so that the recording engineer could get an inkling of what was going on down there, but in order to actually get there, the engineer had to leave the control room and climb down the narrow and steep metal stairs hidden underneath a heavy trap door on the sidewalk in front of the building. Eventually the CD duplication part of Lofish faded, mostly due to the advancement of technology that allowed any somewhat computer savvy musician to do their CDs themselves. Walter and Elisabeth built a steady clientele of hip hop artists that, for quite some time, were the bread and butter of Lofish Productions. Throughout this time, the couple kept producing and recording music. Elisabeth branched out into film music, scoring short films, while Walter produced tracks for the occasional hip hop artist. A TV publisher's request for a chill-out electronica track for a TV soap led to a whole CD's worth of songs in that vein, produced and written by Walter and Elisabeth under the alias "teradox". These songs were placed in TV shows numerous times and were released as a CD on the in-house Lofish record label.

But the studio needed to grow. The landlord's reluctance to hand over a long term lease for the commercial space in the Lower East Side led Walter and Elisabeth to look for an alternative space, which materialized through a very fortuitous ad on craigslist. With commercial rent as sky high as it was, things didn't look good, when the ad came along. It was love at first sight. The building, a dingy turn-of-the-century affair with lead paint on the wall and no intercom system, didn't look promising, but the space was perfect, and in 2003 Lofish Productions Inc moved to its current location. The grumpy super/elevator man by the name of Angel just ads to the flair of the building which boasts a long list of idiosyncrasies (The rat story shall stay unmentioned here. Suffice it to say, the rat was NOT in the studio, but this is New York City after all).

Steady word-of-mouth, a very good grand piano that thrives in Walter's competent hands (both as piano tuner and pianist) and a prolific stable of recording engineers have ensured a slow but constant growth of the studio. Local as well as international artists have recorded here, some coming to New York specifically to record at Lofish. Cindy Lauper, Nellie McKay, Slide Hampton, Lonnie Plaxico, Roy Ayers and Antony and the Johnsons are some of the illustrious clientele that frequents Lofish Productions Inc.

Both Walter and Elisabeth are continuing to further their musical careers and have put out several CDs as band leaders on their own label, all of which were recorded at Lofish. Both maintain a busy performing and touring schedule, with regular trips to Europe and performances in New York's jazz hotspots, such as The Jazz Standard, The Kitano and the 55 Bar. Elisabeth is also a faculty member at New School Jazz, the University she studied at, where she teaches Ear Training and Voice.

The art of staying afloat as an independent artist in New York City requires a large dose of improvisation skills (not restricted to the musical kind), a certain flavor for taking risks and a healthy head on one's shoulders. Elisabeth and Walter, married since 1998, have been surfing the crazy waves of this city for many years now, with the epic journey of Lofish Productions being just one aspect of their existence. The roommates are gone, and for a bit over a year now, the "Lofishes" live by themselves, after sharing their space with so many roommates over the course of twelve years that it's hard to remember all of them. Grateful to still be in business, they have taken root here, on 28th Street in Manhattan, making music and meeting interesting new people on a daily basis.