4. Columbia 30th Street Studios, NYC
This is the live room at Columbia 30th Street
Studios in New York. The four grand pianos give
some idea of the space. Miles Davis's masterpiece,
"Kind of Blue," was recorded at 30th Street, and so
too, just a couple of months later, was Dave
Brubeck's album "Time Out."
5. Studio Stories by David Simons
In his book Studio Stories, David Simons suggests that
‘the success of those two records owed something to
how they sounded, something that wasn't just a function
of the quality of the recording equipment. There was the
sympathetic resonance of the studio's unvarnished
wood floor and the distant reverberations reflected by
its towering architecture’.
6. Audio: Take Five - Dave Brubeck Quartet
"To hear 30th Street is to hear drummer Joe
Morello's snare and kick-drum shots echoing
off the 100-foot ceiling during the percussion
break in Dave Brubeck's great 'Take Five’.”
Studio Stories, David Simons
7. A number of other great albums and artists recorded at 30th Street........
8. Motown Studio A
Similarly, it takes only a few seconds to recognise a
classic Motown recording. Much of that is due to
the inventive, custom electronics that Berry Gordy
Jr. had made for his studio. But it is also thanks to
the funky fidelity unique to "the pit," a concrete-
block room where most of the label's hits were
recorded.
9. Studio Stories by David Simons
"The secret of the so-called 'Motown Sound' was room identity," Hank Cosby
once told an interviewer. A producer, songwriter and saxophonist for the label
in its heyday, Cosby said: "The drums sat in the same place for years; nothing
was ever disturbed. If you moved any of the instruments a couple of feet in
either direction it would have changed the sound completely."
10. Audio: Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run. Recorded at Hitsville U.S.A. (Studio A); October 21, 1964
Microphone positioning was also fixed. Note the hanging mics!
13. ‘regardless of the music we listen to, the media we use or the location we choose, what we
hear has been tempered first and foremost by the technology used to record it and the
technical and aesthetic decisions made in the studio’.
Engineering the Performance: Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge
and the Art of Controlling Sound.
Susan Schmidt Horning, 2004
15. How would we best describe the studio facilities at the ATRiuM?
ATRiuM Studio Design
16. An In house Production facility capable of handling an array of recording projects. these include:
• Commercial music recording (pop/rock/classical)
• Film music recording
• Film/tv post production sound
• Surround sound
• Radio broadcast and recording
• Audio mastering
ATRiuM Studio Design
18. Here at the ATRiuM we have 8 control rooms.
Room Application
CB201b Soundcraft Studio Mixing/Mastering/Surround sound mixing
CB202 Audient Studio 1 Recording/Mixing
CB204 Audient Studio 2 Recording/Mixing
CB301b Control 24 Recording/Mixing /Surround Sound
CB302 SSL Duality Recording/Mixing
CB303 Gus Dudgeon Suite (MCI Console) - Classic Studio
CB401 Digidesign Pro Control Post Production/ADR/Mixing/Surround Sound
CB402 Digidesign Control 24 Recording/ADR/Post Production/Surround Sound
Control Rooms
19. Pre amps
Outboard
Two track
Audient ASP
Console
Patchbay
Apple Mac Outboard
Audient power
supply
Pro Tools
Mid field Monitors
Audient CB202
Near field Monitors
20. Audient CB204
Mid Field Monitors
Mackie Control
Outboard
Near Field Monitors
Patchbay
Audient Desk
Pro Tools
37. Terminology
Microphones
Of which there are many different brands (Shure, AKG,
Neumann) and designs (dynamic, condenser and ribbon).
D.I. Boxes
Direct injection boxes for line level sources i.e. bass,
keyboards, mixers.
38. The cables we use to connect microphones are called
XLR. These are balanced connections which reduce
interference.
Terminology
39. Tie Lines
24 balanced lines in the Audient studios
6 returns for foldback/headphones
Terminology
41. Recording
Stand Alone Hard Disk System (IZ Radar)
Computer Based Hard Disk System (Pro Tools)
Terminology
42. Monitors or Speakers
In both Audient Studio we have Avantone Mixcubes.
The main monitors in Audient CB202 are Adam S3.
The main monitors in Audient CB204 are Genelec 1040.
Terminology
45. References
References
• Engineering the Performance: Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge and the Art of Controlling Sound.
Susan Schmidt Horning, 2004.
• http://realworldstudios.com
• Abbey Road and the Day Studio Music Died.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703444804575071351719588986.html
• Studio Stories - How the Great New York Records Were Made, David Simons, 2004, Backbeat Books
• http://www.stuartjones.org
Audio
• Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (1964) Nowhere To Run [CD], U: Motown
• Dave Brubeck (2007) Time Out [CD], US: Columbia Records.
46. An Introduction to the Recording Studio
stuart.jones@southwales.ac.uk
www.stuartjones.org
Editor's Notes
Recorded Hitsville U.S.A. (Studio A); October 21, 1964
Note in this picture how the microphones hang from the ceiling - no microphone placement needed.
During the 1970’s, studios were generally small. Because of the advent of artificial effects devices, these rooms tended to be acoustically absorptive. The basic concept was to eliminate as much of the original acoustic environment as possible and replace it afterwards with artificial reverb.
During the 1980’s, many commercial studios began to move back to the original design concepts of the 1930’s and 1940’s when studios were much larger. This increase in size (along with the addition of one or more smaller iso booths) re-popularized the art of capturing the room’s original acoustic ambience along with the actual sound pick up.
However, Increased land and rent premiums and the advent of home and project studio recording has seen a move back to the smaller studio design of the 1970’s.
Then, of course, there is the technology.
In her 2004 paper Engineering the Performance: Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge and the Art of Controlling Sound, Susan Schmidt Horning suggests that,
‘regardless of the music we listen to, the media we use or the location we choose, what we hear has been tempered first and foremost by the technology used to record it and the technical and aesthetic decisions made in the studio.’