Studio A

Studio A has three performance spaces and a spacious control room with a custom Neotek Elite mixing console with an abundance of outboard gear. Sessions can work to tape on a Studer A820 multitrack and Ampex ATR-102 for mixdown, or record digitally on the Apogee Symphony-based Pro Tools HDX rig.

Studio A has two grand pianos, a 1920s Steinway H (converted from a player piano) and a Baldwin SF10, plus a spinet tack piano with metallic hammers. The studio also houses our Hammond B3 and Leslie cabinets.

The Performance Spaces of Studio A

Center Field - The largest playing room in Studio A. Center Field is where we most often do string or small orchestral sessions, full-band acoustic ensembles, jazz, bluegrass, choral sessions, and other groups who want to share a single room during recording. It has a long decay, not as bright as Kentucky, but not boomy. Very good for general room ambience on amplifiers, vocals and acoustic instruments.

Kentucky - Bright, reflective medium-ambience room. Perfect for lively, energetic drums kits, brass, and acoustic instruments that want a close ambient sound. This is the room in Studio A most often used for drum kit recording.

Alcatraz - Supremely dead acoustics for dry, detailed and intimate sounds, where the room acoustics are effectively removed from the recording. Alcatraz is perfect for crisp, dry drum kit recording, or generally for isolating amplifiers, a vocalist or acoustic instruments from the rest of the ensemble.

The control room, Alcatraz and Kentucky all utilize a floating-isolated floor system that provides isolation between rooms, and have a vented perimeter that couples the interior air volume with a similar volume in the basement, for extended flat low-frequency response.

The Control Room of Studio A

The control room has a flat response down to very low frequencies and is exceptionally even in sound quality—regardless of listener position. It’s designed to have minimal reflected energy and provide uncolored sound from the loudspeakers. Acoustic geeks call this type of listening environment “once past the ears” because the sound leaving the speakers goes once past the ears then disappears. This provides accurate, even sound—great for studio monitoring, but not necessarily appropriate for dancing or making out. (For these purposes we recommend the lounge or client offices.)

Studio A’s control room is designed to accommodate larger groups of people, including:

Separate nearfield monitors for rear sofa
Huge furniture sturdy enough for gymnastics

Clear central area for walking around
Dedicated kitchenette, sink, and two bathrooms

Its own entrance door providing privacy and self-sufficiency

The Control Room of Studio A houses a customized 56-channel Neotek Elite console with Neve Flying Faders automation.

All studio areas are connected with mic, instrument and loudspeaker tie-lines so musicians, amplifiers and cabinets can locate independent of each other anywhere in the studio. Headphone mixers provide independent unique mixes for each musician without any attention from the engineer.

Studio A normally has two multitracks and two mixdown machines. But it can accommodate an absurd number of tracks for recording and playback. In addition to the fixed equipment, Studio A can accommodate up to 48 lines of additional outboard through tie panels which connect to the patchbay. The console can accommodate 132 inputs if you want to drive yourself crazy.

The studio has a 24-in, 24-out Pro Tools system running Pro Tools Ultimate 2022.x.x on Apogee Symphony mkII converters. A few choice Universal Audio plugins are available via the system's UAD-2 Solo card. Upon request, we can provide an additional converter inputs and outputs.

Studio A can also use Studio B’s live room while maintaining Studio A’s full facilities thanks to tie-lines and a remote mic panel.

The equipment racks are pressurized with cold air and have a dedicated AC unit for cooling and airflow. This improves reliability of the equipment and forces dust, smoke, and funk away from it. Exhaust and AC returns are located in the center and rear of the control room, which increases the efficiency of smoke and fart removal.

There are two sets of monitors, 3-way Westlake BBSM-12s in the soffits and B&W Matrix 805s for nearfields. Yamaha NS-10Ms, and Westlake BBSM bookshelves are available upon request, and freelance engineers may bring their own monitors.