What’s your favourite studio?
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Foel, Dave Anderson's studio in the Mid Wales hills where Ozrics took loads of magic mushrooms and recorded Erpland.
Real World. I had a band rehearsal in the Wood Room and the chap who was looking after us let us have a quick look around the control room with the horseshoe-shaped desk and the view out over the pond.
Many, but Le Studio is always one that appealed to me. Looked like somewhere that smelt of wood, weed, and inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auLBLk4ibAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh5RSv52g6U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKpn0esJ73w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auLBLk4ibAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh5RSv52g6U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKpn0esJ73w
My one, because I can come here anytime I want:
https://www.voltperoctave.com/
Otherwise, Real World.
https://www.voltperoctave.com/
Otherwise, Real World.
Likewise, even though I still have the acoustics to complete the isolation is done and so I can drum in here any time of the day or night without disturbing anyone.octatonic said:My one, because I can come here anytime I want:
None of the bands I was in ever had the money to go into any kind of decent studio. The first one I ever went in was an 8 track tape studio in a shed in Fareham near Portsmouth. We were a school band, about 14 at the time so were quite impressed anyway. I remember it cost £10 an hour and we went down the pub at lunchtime.
Next studio aged 18 was Crystal Rooms in Portsmouth, anyone here remember that place ? . Lovely guy and good engineer but just not the right kind of space for a studio.
Then we went to a few more studios over the next few years ..all of them too small for proper off the floor recordings and all with no nice room ambience. The trend then was to cover all the walls with carpet to stifle the sound of the too close walls and too low ceiling.
So over a beer one night I convinced my partner in the computer company we owned that we should build a big studio ourselves. A proper studio, not a shed or a converted garage. A big studio where bands could track live off the floor. The ideal was if we could lease a 3 to 4k sq ft industrial unit we could half it and operate a studio and computer company in the same space.
So that's what we did. Only problem was the space had been developed into multiple offices and training rooms, where people learnt how to handle explosives. So the first 6 months were spent gutting the building. Then we built the walls, the ceilings, installed all the electrics, the central heating, the air con. Built a green room for bands to relax in. Over 1000 sheets of plasterboard, 2 lorry loads of rockwool, 800 metres of C24, 600 metres of mic cable ... all put into place by the 2 of us with a bit of help here and there from friends. I used to work 60 hours a week minimum trying to get it done.
What makes me love it so much was everything was home made. The acoustic panels we made in the live room from 2 x1 covered in material are filled with rockwool are hanging from stainless steel exhaust pipe, cut and bent into shape. The DMX lights are fixed to the pipe with exhaust brackets. The special shaped skirting was made by running it through a table saw on an angle. I personally wired up 48 balanced inputs, 16 headphone points and 8 speakon pass throughs. I made the patch bay in the control room which allowed any socket to be patched anywhere to the 32 inputs of the consule. Any aux send could be patched to any headphone point in the live room so the artist never had to move or have long cables dangling all over the floor. I laid the live room floor in a 45 degree angle ... the little bit of laminate in front of the consule in the control room is a nod to the control room in Abbey road studio 2. The bass traps in the control room are covered in leather type material and mitred so they fit the corners properly. The pictures on the wall in the control room are diffusers and the pictures were created by our friend who helped us.
The trouble is once you have spent that amount of money on a space ... there's little money left for am amazing desk, mic collection, outboard comps and EQ's etc. So I ended up with the inverse problems of the studios I had set out to better. We had the space but not the gear. They had better gear but not the space. We had good professional workman like gear but not the kind of gear people drool over. We did most projects in the box.
But for better or worse my favorite studio
Next studio aged 18 was Crystal Rooms in Portsmouth, anyone here remember that place ? . Lovely guy and good engineer but just not the right kind of space for a studio.
Then we went to a few more studios over the next few years ..all of them too small for proper off the floor recordings and all with no nice room ambience. The trend then was to cover all the walls with carpet to stifle the sound of the too close walls and too low ceiling.
So over a beer one night I convinced my partner in the computer company we owned that we should build a big studio ourselves. A proper studio, not a shed or a converted garage. A big studio where bands could track live off the floor. The ideal was if we could lease a 3 to 4k sq ft industrial unit we could half it and operate a studio and computer company in the same space.
So that's what we did. Only problem was the space had been developed into multiple offices and training rooms, where people learnt how to handle explosives. So the first 6 months were spent gutting the building. Then we built the walls, the ceilings, installed all the electrics, the central heating, the air con. Built a green room for bands to relax in. Over 1000 sheets of plasterboard, 2 lorry loads of rockwool, 800 metres of C24, 600 metres of mic cable ... all put into place by the 2 of us with a bit of help here and there from friends. I used to work 60 hours a week minimum trying to get it done.
What makes me love it so much was everything was home made. The acoustic panels we made in the live room from 2 x1 covered in material are filled with rockwool are hanging from stainless steel exhaust pipe, cut and bent into shape. The DMX lights are fixed to the pipe with exhaust brackets. The special shaped skirting was made by running it through a table saw on an angle. I personally wired up 48 balanced inputs, 16 headphone points and 8 speakon pass throughs. I made the patch bay in the control room which allowed any socket to be patched anywhere to the 32 inputs of the consule. Any aux send could be patched to any headphone point in the live room so the artist never had to move or have long cables dangling all over the floor. I laid the live room floor in a 45 degree angle ... the little bit of laminate in front of the consule in the control room is a nod to the control room in Abbey road studio 2. The bass traps in the control room are covered in leather type material and mitred so they fit the corners properly. The pictures on the wall in the control room are diffusers and the pictures were created by our friend who helped us.
The trouble is once you have spent that amount of money on a space ... there's little money left for am amazing desk, mic collection, outboard comps and EQ's etc. So I ended up with the inverse problems of the studios I had set out to better. We had the space but not the gear. They had better gear but not the space. We had good professional workman like gear but not the kind of gear people drool over. We did most projects in the box.
But for better or worse my favorite studio
As far as places I've been lucky enough to record, Real World is definitely up there, but a close second would be Lightship 95 in that London. https://www.lightship95.com/ - an actual boat, with their own reverb chamber, some nice vintage mics, and the best my guitar has even sounded on record was through their Bassman.
Usually it's the ears of the engineer that make a big difference, and Seadna McPhail at Airtight in Chorlton is incredible too. https://www.airtight.studio/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSUVxTRbrKA
Usually it's the ears of the engineer that make a big difference, and Seadna McPhail at Airtight in Chorlton is incredible too. https://www.airtight.studio/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSUVxTRbrKA
I've only ever been in two studios, of which my favourite was the second one I went to - Fordhouse Studio in Stirchley, Birmingham. The chap who runs it (named Forbes) moved up from Brighton and built it from scratch in his garden, and it was an absolute delight to go there. A small room really but a lot packed in and I enjoyed watching him work his magic in the control room.
My previous experience was at whatever the one that used to be next to the old Birmingham PMT store, and that was such a rubbish experience it put me off wanting to try again for about 5 years. Was made to feel very rubbish by the lady running the session, was told to use the in-house Line 6 Spider amp instead of my nice Supro, and the whole experience just seemed quite condescending. Thankfully Fordhouse Studio restored my faith in studios in general and I just know never to use that other one again wherever it's ended up at. Was it called mushrooms or something like that?
My dream studio to record at would be Toe Rag Studios in London where the White Stripes recorded Elephant
My previous experience was at whatever the one that used to be next to the old Birmingham PMT store, and that was such a rubbish experience it put me off wanting to try again for about 5 years. Was made to feel very rubbish by the lady running the session, was told to use the in-house Line 6 Spider amp instead of my nice Supro, and the whole experience just seemed quite condescending. Thankfully Fordhouse Studio restored my faith in studios in general and I just know never to use that other one again wherever it's ended up at. Was it called mushrooms or something like that?
My dream studio to record at would be Toe Rag Studios in London where the White Stripes recorded Elephant
RAK studios is my fave. Wonderful space for recording orchestra. Lovely sound and great collection of mics. Very friendly and helpful staff. Totally hassle free and nice chill out room.
Used to like Angel alot but the situation changed when the lease ran out and not been back for a few years.
Would love to know your thoughts. Feel free to post any YouTube video tours or clips of bands playing in there.