Based at The Art Farm Port Fairy, the new S.L.A.M Studios is a multipurpose arts space featuring a fully-equipped digital multi-track production facility.

To celebrate the new space an open week will be held from November 20-27 offering free recording, mixing and mastering to south-west artists all week.

It's a "dream come true" for studio owner-manager Martin Sullivan.

"We just want to genuinely help and support as many emerging artists to give them that first or second or third rung on the ladder," he said.

"We just felt there was a void in the area, then we hatched the idea that what we need is a dedicated recording studio with the right people because you can have the best equipment and the wrong people.

"Now we've got the right equipment and the right sound engineers, and also the connections. So that's a really good thing to have."

Evie Dalton will be the S.L.A.M. Studios second engineer.

The 16-year-old musician who performs under 'Evie Mae' said the space is "exactly what the south-west needs."

"This is a gamechanger," she said. "Being in school it makes it so much easier because it's less travel and you can shoot out here on a weeknight for a session instead of all the way to Melbourne for a couple of says then come home.

"It's so much easier and helpful, especially for my demographic, young artists, with getting more opportunities in the regions."

It was the Port Fairy Folk Festival that got Dalton interested in sound engineering.

"Watching all the engineers backstage do what they do, there were never any women there so I said, I want to do that just to prove everyone wrong."

The inaugural producer in residence will be Cameron Deyell, best known for his work with Sia on her Grammy-nominated platinum-selling album This is Acting.

He will be drawing on his extensive professional experience to help artists polish their tracks.

"When you're just starting out in your career it can seem a bit daunting of how to get across the finish line in terms of a really beautiful, well-realised song at a professional standard.

"It's quite easy for me just to impart a few tricks of the trade and also help use my experience as a tool to help these artists really make something beautiful.

"A key thing this studio will offer is making music in person. Music is a shared experience - we sit with guitars on our knees singing songs to each other and sharing the same air.

"It's such an acoustic experience and the idea of getting back out to Port Fairy and really working with artists in that studio space, you can't recreate that.

"It's going to be a great resource for artists in the south-west."

Sullivan has spent his life travelling the world as a musician for what he describes has been a "lifetime of enjoyment and entertainment."

He was a DJ on the 1960s pirate radio station Radio Caroline, immortalised in the Hollywood film The Boat That Rocked.

"I was on the original Radio Caroline, the Ross Revenge was the name of the ship," Sullivan said.

"It basically was permanently anchored out in the North Sea, which is pretty rough and choppy... and my god, the music and the quality and the fun and everything kicked off.

"Back in the day in the early '60s all we had was the BBC who were frightfully, awfully posh and played the most boring music on the planet - and that was your option.

"Caroline was one of the big flagships, so if you were on Caroline that was a big deal. And I just happened to find myself in that situation.

"It was one heck of a time, I won't ever forget those days."

These days he broadcasts shows on community radio station 3WAY-FM and is involved in the south-west arts scene since settling in Port Fairy and creating the Art Farm.

"I think life is a wonderful journey and we should be embracing every opportunity," Sullivan said.

"I really want to see an art community, I want to see artists come to the area and work together to bring each other up.

"I think art is so important... if you took the art and the color and the music away we would have a pretty gray life.

"It's also a wonderful pathway for individuals - not just younger people - older people too.

"It's about the magnetism and it's wonderful to nurture that, it just makes people so happy and my god, we need a bit of that don't we."

For more information on S.L.A.M. Studios, visit www.theartfarm.com.au.

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