The Studio

Just the other day someone asked us whether we were simply a bedroom getup or a professional studio. Bearing in mind the kind of image we’re trying to cultivate, this question kind of unsettled us a bit, and so we asked what had prompted them to inquire. And the simply answer was, “a lack of photos…”

So we have decided to post some pictures (click to ENLARGE) of our working environment to allow you to make up your own mind on whether we are a bedroom getup or a pro studio…

Above is a photo of the main control room. Designed and built by Munro Acoustic back in 2006, this room is an absolute pleasure to mix/listen/record in. All standing nodes/waves and over reverberant qualities have been dampened into a smooth, short-tailed response across the frequency spectrum i.e. an average RT60 of under 0.25 seconds for all frequencies between 20kHz and 20Hz.

The acoustics of this room are ‘perfectly’ complemented with a pair of PMC TB2S-AII studio monitors, which provide unparalleled sonic transparency and amazing separation within the stereo field… It should be said that these monitors work amazingly well for any genre or style of music… Which is why the BBC are now replacing most of their recording studio monitors with a pair.

All this basically allows the listener to hear exactly what is happening in the mix… And do so with the absolute minimum of sonic “colouration” from the surrounding environment or speakers.

The room is also built on a floating floor to isolate any transfer between the Control Room and the Recording Studio.

In addition to all this, and so as to ensure that the perfect “sweet spot” for monitoring could easily be achieved for any listener, we acquired a pair of TS-1 floor monitor stands from TowerSonic. As well as allowing quick and easy adjustment of speaker height and direction, these stands also provide an amazing solution for disruptive resonant coupling i.e. any energy (usually from low/subsonic frequency transmission) that tries to spill over into the floor is drastically minimised by the special dampening units built into the base of these speaker stands. Plus, when the stands are filled with sand, they provide an amazingly stable platform that reduces the effects of backward ‘recoil’ as the speaker coil pushes energy forward, thereby minimising most waveform transients so that the audio stereo image no longer suffers “lag…” The result of which is an overall increase in the sharpness and definition of the waveform being reproduced.

The inside of the Recording Studio… Again acoustically treated in a very similar manner to the Control Room i.e. standing nodes and reverberant qualities have been dampened into a smooth, short-tailed response across the frequency spectrum, with an average RT60 of under 0.20 seconds. This means that a very dry sound, for vocals and instruments alike, can easily be obtained. Why is this a good thing? Basically… If you were to record a sound source in a highly reverberant room, the recording would obviously be ‘colored’ with the natural reverb from the room. If one is considering adding effects later on in the mix, then this can pose problems… For example, when adding effects during the mixing phase, like reverb, chorus, compression, etc…, the recorded reverb can sometimes interfere with overall sound i.e. the reverb tail might upset the threshold at which a compressor might release. OR… If one was to need to add more reverb later, the recorded natural reverb of the room AND the reverb effect itself can sometime interfere with each other i.e. sounding too “washed out.” However, if a dry sound is initially recorded at source, then one will usually be able to add effects later without any of these issues, or similar ones, arising. The colloquialism, “You can always add, but you can’t take away…” perfectly fits the bill here.

From the junction box, coming out of the Recording Studio and going into the Control Room, we have a total of 10 channels, offering both XLR and Instrument line levels, which are divided into the following selection of Mic Pres:

2 x Focusrite ISA 428s (offering 8 channels of crystal clear sound)

2 x Neve 1081s (providing 2 channels of that classic Neve console sound that defined so many classic records back in the 60s, 70s and 80s).

And coupled with a great selection of microphones to work with:

2 x Neumann U87

1 x Neumann M150 Tube

2 x AKG C12

1 x AKG D112

3 x Sennheiser MD421

1 x Sennheiser MKH 416

1 x Sennheiser MKH 40

1 x Sennheiser MKH 30 – which can be combined with any of the above Sennheiser mics in a Rycote shell for “all-season” MS stereo location recordings.

1 x Neumann KM140 (amazing for close miking instruments)

1 x Neumann KM143 (amazing for ensemble recordings)

3 x Sennheiser E614

2x Shure SM58

2x Shure SM57

2x Shure Beta 57A

2 x Beyerdynamic M201

…most sounds can be captured in hi fidelity and with great ease…

The window between the Recording Studio and the Control Room makes it easy to signal/maintain eye contact with musicians while talking to them via the TalkBack system… Plus, we are also able to distribute up to three separate mixes to 4 different headphone sets, offering tailored monitoring to suit each individual’s/performer’s/musician’s needs.

Outboard gear includes:

1 x TubeTech LCA 2B

2 x Drawmer DS201

2 x Lexicon MPX1

1 x Yamaha O2R96 (offering great selection of 24 Bit, 96kHz on board, built in FX)

1 x Neve 8816 Summing Amp

And various vintage analog synths… Too numerous to mention them all.

All that coupled with a great creative selection of UAD2 plug ins, the complete Sonnox set of plug ins, and all the SSL Duende plugins… Well… You know you’ve got a great comprehensive set of digital effects emulations with which to carve/mould/forge some great sounds from!

Plus with iZotope’s RX and Apple’s Soundtrack Pro we now offer an Audio Restoration Service… So if you have any recordings, samples, or media that needs to be cleaned up, then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

And as if all that wasn’t enough… We acquired some of the best AD and DA converters available on the market today… Namely the Apogee AD16X and DA16X, which are both synced to an Apogee BigBen master clock to ensure a rock solid house sync between all of the digital units in the studio. This minimises jitter, keeps the stereo image as defined as possible and ensures near on perfect audio reproduction quality. Never has sonic digital reproduction sounded so good in a studio… Not even with a Pro Tools rig! And we should know… Because we also have a Pro Tools HD system in our editing/5.1 suite.

We also offer some really interesting and innovative sound design skills…

Basically, we use two ‘cutting-edge’ programs, which allow us to manipulate sounds in amazingly diverse and innovative ways i.e. modulating rhythms, tonal spectra or melodic forms, either simply using LFOs or more complex and obscure algorithms, such as fibonacci sequences, polynomial and iterative functions, or even data sets processes… And all in realtime:

1. Max/MSP 5

2. Kyma

Having been working with these programs for over 5 years now on a daily basis, we have become pretty well versed in designing patches to realize any sonic ideas that one might need to express… Whether you need advice on how to experiment in the field of algorithmic music and/or rhythmic flow, or if you simply want to modify and enhance tonal aspects of your sonic recordings to emphasize a particular motif that you have in mind, the only creative limits here are your imagination and sensibilities.

We “hope” that has somewhat set the record straight about where we stand between the modes of “bedroom getup” vs. “professional studio…”

For further information about anything we do and/or the services we provide, please feel free to contact us here.