We met up with Abbey Road Studios engineers Sam Okell and Chris Bolster at the brand new Studio 52. The new room features an SSL Duality console and is designed to be able to cover a range of tasks, from on-line mixing to 5.1 sessions, pretty much everything can go through this new room.
Sam Okell
Sam Okell joined Abbey Road in 2002 after graduating from a Tonmeister Course at the University of Surrey and his credits include many major film scores, such as Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Shrek 3 and many others. As a music engineer he's recorded with Brian May and Robert Plant, recorded or mixed albums for DJ Cristian Varela, Jim Hart’s jazz quarte and Beethoven Piano Sonatas for EMI Classics etc. According to Abbey Road "Chaka Khan said he has nice glasses and Jack White offered him a bagel."
Sam become popular for his engineering skills. In 2009 Sam recorded & mixed a wide range of artists for the 3rd series of' Live from Abbey Road'. Some of the artists he worked with include Fleet Foxes, The Enemy, Seal, PJ Harvey, Counting Crows etc.
Sam Okell was also part of the Abbey Road team involved with remastering all of the Beatles back catalogue from original mono and stereo master tapes, thirteen albums were released in 2009 and to date have sold around 20 copies million world wide. In addition to Sam's Bealtles remastering other projects include remixing the entire soundtrack of the Beatles' film Help! for 5.1 and stereo and also remastering the George Harrison's solo album 'Living in the Material World'. Sam assisted with 5.1 mixes for over 40 songs in Paul Mc Cartney's greatest hits DVD.
Chris Bolster
Chris has been at Abbey Road since 1998 and comes from New Zealand where he had already spent several years working at York Street Studios working with much of the country's top local talent.
Chris has worked on a wide range of projects and types of artists since joining Abbey Road including: The Hollies, Take That, Bellowhead, Portico Quartet, Dido, Star Sailor, Ray LaMontagne, Travis, Jon Brion, Groove Armada, Coldplay, Herbie Hancock, Paul McCartney, Feeder, Stephen Fretwell, The Alarm, Stereophonics, Texas and lot's of other big names!
We hope that you enjoy this short feature and then hop over to Abbey Road's website for further information. Special thanks to everyone at Abbey Road for making this feature possible!
Since filming this video we also shot an interview series with legendary recording engineer and producer Ken Scott at Studio 52, you can click here to watch that feature.