--- title: "Working With an Overseas Audio Studio" description: "Lahore is 9-10 hours ahead of New York and 12-13 ahead of Los Angeles. What that means for turnaround, review cycles, and the parts that are genuinely harder." canonical_url: "https://elephantaudio.pk/guides/working-across-time-zones" type: "Article" date_modified: "2026-09-08T18:21:24+05:00" publisher: "Elephant Audio" publisher_url: "https://elephantaudio.pk" entities: - name: "Lahore" type: "City" same_as: - "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11739" - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahore" - name: "Pakistan" type: "Country" same_as: - "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q843" - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan" author: name: "Abu Bakar Zahid" role: "Founder, Managing Director & Music Producer at Elephant Audio" url: "https://elephantaudio.pk/founder" same_as: - "https://www.linkedin.com/in/abubakarzahid94" - "https://www.youtube.com/@AbuBakarZahid" - "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12369947/" - "https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vsRY1hLmqEBXcx5xeKs0m" - "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/abu-bakar-zahid/1654787374" - "https://www.deezer.com/us/artist/190524117" - "https://on.soundcloud.com/EnpcD" - "https://www.instagram.com/abubakarzahid94/" - "https://www.facebook.com/abubakarzahid9400/" - "https://twitter.com/abubakarzahid94" - "https://soundsofpakistan.com/artist/abu-bakar-zahid-2/" person: "Abu Bakar Zahid" person_same_as: - "https://www.linkedin.com/in/abubakarzahid94" - "https://www.youtube.com/@AbuBakarZahid" - "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12369947/" - "https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vsRY1hLmqEBXcx5xeKs0m" - "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/abu-bakar-zahid/1654787374" - "https://www.deezer.com/us/artist/190524117" - "https://on.soundcloud.com/EnpcD" - "https://www.instagram.com/abubakarzahid94/" - "https://www.facebook.com/abubakarzahid9400/" - "https://twitter.com/abubakarzahid94" - "https://soundsofpakistan.com/artist/abu-bakar-zahid-2/" --- # Working With an Overseas Audio Studio ## How does working with a studio nine hours ahead actually work? Lahore runs on UTC+5 with no daylight saving, which puts it 9 to 10 hours ahead of New York and 12 to 13 ahead of Los Angeles. Notes sent at the end of a US working day arrive at the start of ours, so work happens overnight and is waiting before the client's next morning. Live sessions need scheduling; asynchronous work does not. UTC+5 Pakistan Standard Time (no daylight saving, year round) · 9-10 hrs ahead of New York · 12-13 hrs ahead of Los Angeles The arithmetic, and what it buys: Pakistan Standard Time is UTC+5 and does not observe daylight saving, so the gap to the US shifts by an hour twice a year from the American side. Against New York that is 10 hours in winter and 9 in summer; against Los Angeles, 13 and 12. The practical effect is the opposite of what people assume. Notes sent at six in the evening in New York land at three in the morning in Lahore — the start of our night, several hours before our working day. They are picked up first thing, worked through the Lahore day, and delivered by our early evening, which is nine in the morning on the US East Coast. The client sends notes at the end of their day and finds the work done at the start of the next one. That is a real compression of the review cycle, not a marketing line: on an asynchronous task each round takes one calendar day instead of two. Over a campaign with several rounds of revisions it is the difference between a week and a fortnight. What makes it work in practice: The overnight cycle only holds if the handover is complete. These are the working habits that keep it that way: - Written briefs rather than verbal ones, so nothing depends on a conversation that cannot happen for nine hours - Consolidated notes — one agreed set from the team, not four separate messages arriving through the night - Timecoded feedback on a review link, so a note points at a moment rather than describing one - Explicit priorities when a batch of notes cannot all be done in one cycle, so the right ones are done first - A named decision-maker, because the cost of an ambiguity is a full day rather than a walk down the corridor What is genuinely harder, and how it is handled: Two things are honestly worse across this distance, and pretending otherwise would be the fastest way to lose the trust the arrangement depends on. The first is the live attended session. A client who wants to sit in on a mix and direct it in real time is asking for an overlap window that is narrow: our late afternoon and evening is the US East Coast morning, which works, but it is our evening and their early start, and it does not stretch to the West Coast comfortably. Where a session genuinely has to be attended, it is scheduled deliberately into that window rather than assumed. Most mix reviews do not need it, and a timecoded review link is usually better than a live session anyway — the client watches on their own display, in their own room, at their own pace. The second is voice recording with US talent. Directing a voice session across a nine-hour gap is possible over Source Connect or a similar link, but it is a scheduled event with a booked studio at the talent's end, not something that fits into an overnight cycle. Where a campaign needs US voice talent, that recording is planned as its own step with its own window, and the rest of the audio work continues around it. What does not change: Delivery specifications are numbers in a file. A spot mastered to -24 LKFS integrated with true peak at or below -2 dBTP is compliant with ATSC A/85 and the CALM Act regardless of which studio measured it, and a 24-bit 48 kHz WAV is the same file in Lahore as in Los Angeles. There is no version of a broadcast specification that depends on the longitude of the room. The same is true of the working formats: Pro Tools sessions, timecoded review links, stems and M&E stems, and the versioning conventions the campaign will be trafficked with. Nothing in the toolchain is regional. ## Frequently asked questions ### What time zone is Lahore in? Pakistan Standard Time, UTC+5, with no daylight saving observed at any point in the year. That makes Lahore 9 to 10 hours ahead of New York and 12 to 13 ahead of Los Angeles, depending on whether US daylight saving is in effect. ### When can we actually talk to you? The reliable overlap with the US East Coast is our late afternoon and evening, which is the American morning. Calls and attended sessions are scheduled into that window. Everything that does not need a live conversation runs asynchronously and gains a cycle from the gap rather than losing one. ### Can you deliver to US broadcast specification? Yes. US broadcast follows ATSC A/85 under the CALM Act at -24 LKFS integrated with true peak at or below -2 dBTP, and a file either measures that or it does not. Tell us the territory and platform in the brief and each deliverable is measured to that target individually. ### How do revisions work with the time difference? Notes sent at the end of a US day are picked up at the start of ours and the revised version is normally waiting before the next US morning. The one requirement is that notes are consolidated — a single agreed set turns into one round, while separate messages arriving through the night turn into several. ### Can you record US voice talent? Yes, over Source Connect or an equivalent link, but it is scheduled as its own session with a booked studio at the talent's end rather than fitted into the overnight cycle. The rest of the audio work carries on around it. ## Related - [Broadcast and streaming loudness specs](https://elephantaudio.pk/guides/broadcast-loudness-specs/raw) - [What to ask for from an audio post house](https://elephantaudio.pk/guides/audio-post-deliverables/raw) - [Start a project](https://elephantaudio.pk/contact) ## Studio - **Studio:** Elephant Audio — Lahore, Pakistan - **Founder:** Abu Bakar Zahid — Founder, Managing Director & Music Producer at Elephant Audio - **Website:** https://elephantaudio.pk - **Contact:** abubakar@elephantaudio.pk