Take an in-depth tour around this incredible Liverpool based studio that centres around a classic SSL 6000G Series console, multiple racks stuffed full of very tasty outboards gear, 24 track analogue recording and a massive well curated classic microphone collection.

In addition to the superb equipment in the control room, the studio spaces offer a wide range of options, from a stone drum room to a comfy vocal booth, there are over 5 main recording spaces plus on offer.

Russ Cottier is best known for here for his studio tours around other people's studios but here we get to look around the place that he's been based at for several years now.

The studio also features Sean Hunt who's the person that has put this all together and when Russ walks us around the studio we have underlaid some of the drums recorded in those spaces - Russ kindly played so we could give an idea of how the studio sounds.

The studio has had recent success with a Number One UK Album and with the range of spaces, equipment and experience available for seriously affordable rates this is clearly going to be churning out some future classic records.

Thanks to ‪Russ Cottier‬ for his time in recording this feature and to Sean Hunt for his hospitality - After watching the tour visit their website! 

Address

27 Sefton Street, Litherland,
Liverpool L21 7PD.

Tel: 0151 928 1400

Following our recent studio feature at Axe and Trap Studios in the South West of England, Ben Turner, the studio's engineer, suggested that the best way to show off the sound of the studio would be making a drums recording feature - naturally we were delighted as this is a superb studio and offers tremendous value, affordable to gigging bands..

Ben walks us through a versatile drum setup and demonstrates how he gets different sounds by muting mics and dampening the snare.  Ben shows how an old Hi-Fi speaker can be repurposed so that it becomes an effective sub kick mic giving some serious weight to the recording.

To make things even more interesting, Ben shows how you can open up creative options by addition a distortion unit to the signal chain.  Worth trying out!

Microphones used: Coles 4038, Aston Spirit, Superlux PRA628, AKG D112, Avantone CK-1 and Behringer C-2

A very big thanks to Ben and the team for making this feature possible - We highly recommend this studio!!!

Axe and Trap studios is located in Wells, Somerset, UK, just down the road from the Glastonbury Festival site. 

Resonance Studios is a completely unique British studio, packed with hundreds (350+) of classic and rare synths, keyboards, samplers, drum machines and more.

We took a tour around with studio owner John Pilkington showing Russ Cottier the vast collection of electronic instruments in Stockport.  This is an amazingly different studio that has at its heart an SSL ORIGIN console at its heart with Focal monitoring.

John says "This collection has taken over 20 years to assemble and we are opening this up to you, to write, create and record over 300 pieces of elite equipment, used by the biggest artists on the most iconic tracks."

Resonance has an in house technical team with vast experience with maintaining equipment and have maintained instruments including Synths, Samplers, drum machines from the 1960s onwards. This includes all the equipment at the studio with brands such as Moog, Oberheim, Roland, Arp, Yamaha etc.

A big thanks to everyone at Resonance Studios for giving up their time to show us around.

After watching this short studio tour why not check the studio out and pay them a visit?

George Shilling introduces the MKII version of IK Multimedia's iLoud Precision 5, compact studio monitors that include the latest version of IK's room correction and calibration software, ARC X. According to IK Multimedia, the MKII's improvements include a new tweeter design and enclosure with ARC X bringing updates to allow for further customisation to profiles and upgrades to auto-calibration. The MKII Precision speakers also offer a new built-in fixing mount and there is an optional metal mounting bracket available to allow for more positioning options.

The MKII iLoud Precision range from IK Multimedia

In this video, experience the creation of a finished master, recorded entirely live without any later effects, tweaks or overdubs — just pure musical talent with the band SANTÙ, and expert engineering, arrangement and production. Join us behind the scenes as we capture the raw, authentic energy of a live band recording session in the studio.

What You’ll Discover:

•   *   Real-time recording techniques with sound from the mix
•   *   Detailed microphone setups for each instrument
•   *   Discussion about instrument choices and positioning for ‘good spill’
•   *   Insights into achieving a balanced, professional master
•   *   Listen to the results
•   *   An album CAN be recorded (and mixed) in a day

Engineer Owain Fleetwood Jenkins and producer / engineer Jack Trubshaw takes you deep in to their session planning, approach to recording live and much more while recording the band SANTÙ at a beautiful Welsh recording studio - StudiOwz. This studio has a fabulous live room that is perfect for live band recording. Whether you're an aspiring producer, or audio engineering student, this close look into live studio recording will inspire and educate but experienced engineers can check out some alternative approaches that might be useful.

“Things can only get better” sang D:Ream in the 90s. A laudable sentiment, and a testament to the power of positive thinking. World politics aside, in the realms of music technology, there have been some remarkable advances since I first walked through a recording studio door in the mid 1980s. However, when it comes to plugin development, there is an enduring appeal of nostalgia which has catapulted many developers into the mainstream. Think of all the emulations of Ureis, Fairchilds, Neves and EMI processors and consoles. We love them! There are also of course some unusual and creative uses of technology that don’t look back to vintage gear. But in terms of overall sonic advancement, it’s not uncommon to hear mutterings that instead of things only getting better, recordings from the 50s and 60s can often sound superior to what can be achieved with any of the latest gear and tech.

So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star

In pursuit of that mythical past, KIT Plugins have partnered with Norman Petty Studios. Norman Petty (1927-1984) is considered as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. After his own successful recording career he built a studio and produced landmark records including artists like Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings and The Champs (featuring Glen Campbell). He even came over from the States to the UK and Belgium and produced artists like Brian Poole and The Tremeloes. But he is most known for his work with Buddy Holly, becoming his manager after “That’ll Be The Day” broke big. Today, his studio is preserved as a working museum, claiming to be the most authentic vintage recording studio in the world, unchanged since 1969. The NP A67 is the first in what is planned to be a series of plugins and virtual instruments inspired by the heritage of this remarkable studio from the renowned KIT Plugins.

The Altec 1567A Tube Mixer Preamp was designed as a radio station preamp, but Petty repurposed three examples in his late 1950s console for L/C/R stereo paths. These were heavily modified with discrete solid state circuitry. This plugin recreation features authentic tube saturation and drive, vintage style treble and bass EQ (plus a modern mid-band), Pultec-style High and Low Pass filters, and optional authentic ‘hum’.

I Need To Know

Opening the plugin for the first time opens an enormous window. Which turns out to be the Middle setting of three possible preset sizes! However, it is easily resized by dragging the bottom right corner. You can even opt to make all instances default to a chosen setting in the Options window. There’s a conventional proprietary presets system at the top with A/B settings, Undo/Redo etc., although my beta version had no presets provided yet.

Any Way You Want It

In an ostensibly neutral and flat configuration, there is some dulling of the high frequencies, a slight midrange emphasis and a little bit of bass roll off. Turning the (fixed frequency) Treble up to about 4 (on a scale of +/-10 but not labelled as dB) subjectively restores some of the top end. The Bass knob seems to influence frequencies from around 300Hz so it’s more what I’d think of as a low-mid boost/cut. The Mid control is labelled with +/-12dB and sweeps from 200Hz to 2.5kHz, with quite a focussed bell-curve. Driving the input adds wonderfully ‘biscuity’ crunch. It’s never nasty, just a bit grainy. It’s wonderful on drums, bringing up room ambience and just smoothing off the transients a bit. The Mix control comes in handy here.

You Wreck Me

A touch of drive on vocals sounds fab, helping cut through a busy mix, or adding a bit of vibe to a soulful performance. The EQ is eminently usable, nicely shaping things. Perhaps because there is no completely neutral ‘flat’ setting, you feel uninhibited when sweeping around with the knobs to find what works. There’s not a huge amount of treble excitement available, but there are plenty of other ways to achieve that. The NP A67 is more about warming things up and adding mid-range interest.

Hum has three level settings – and Off. I’m not usually a fan of plugin-generated noise, but this feels like authentic gentle hiss, and actually there is no hum, so I rather like it!

All Mixed Up

As a mix buss or mastering tool this also has plenty of mileage, bringing about some extra juice and excitement if that’s what the track needs. The gentle tone shaping with the EQ can be a real boon. The Mix knob is your friend here.

I Feel A Whole Lot Better

I absolutely love this plugin. There are plenty of tube emulations and harmonic tools with way more flexibility and myriad processing options, but there’s something loveable about the KIT NP A67; it just tends to sound great and has the magic! Some ‘drive’ plugins are too subtle or too dramatic; this seems to have a range of adjustment that is ‘just right’! I don’t know how sonically authentic this is compared to the Altecs in Norman Petty’s studio, but I don’t really care too much – getting a great sound is easy. The developers have done a remarkable job in designing the interface and making it do nice things. So perhaps more pertinent than the D:Ream lyric is Ian Dury’s song: “There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards”!

Studio owner and recording engineer Chris Jones takes us on an in depth studio video tour around this new(ish) and lovely residential recording studio, just off the coast in North Yorkshire.

We have visited hundreds of studios - it's always nice to find a studio that's been so well thought out offering a huge number of instruments and back line. Guitars are hung all over the walls, several drum kits are neatly racked up together with loads of keyboards, amps and pretty much anything else you might need if the tour bus got stolen!

This is a studio designed for bands and live performances with a range of spaces to spread out and record or capture different ambiences. From the amazing Safe Booth to the main booth and spacious main studio are the options are excellent - the control room is a very comfortable size plus anyone that is bored of sitting at the back can go to their green/orange room to hang out - able to watch and listen to the session.

Outside there's loads of relaxation space with garden and plenty of parking space - plus the seaside is just a few minutes away, surrounding the studio are parks and tennis courts.  At the heart of the studio, you'll spot an American classic mixing desk from MCI.

The desk has, as you'd expect, had a few modifications with several channels being 'beefed up' with Jensen transformers etc and offering a more 'API sound' as Chris describes. Coupled with the desk and Pro Tools rig is a classic MCI JH24 tape machine, offering 24 tracks of analogue recording/playback. The tape machine is popular and see's a lot of use.

On the studio tour round we brought in a few people who work at the studio to give some of their thoughts, so a big thanks to Jim Taylor and Charlie Hunter for their time - also, we would like to thank Delta Charlie Drones for their amazing footage!

We didn't manage to film all of the studio accommodation but follow the link to visit their site to see the pictures - this is a fully residential studio.

We are looking forward to visiting to record some additional features here in the near future and then we will include a rundown of the excellent microphones that are available, they have some interesting and unusual mics as well as all of the standard mics that any engineer would expect - that footage didn't make it to the final edit here.

We highly recommend Beckview Studios, give them a call and pop over to check them out!!

By Anthony Gofton

Most of my post-production work has been quite small-scale but nonetheless important to the folk concerned, in my case, I used DeRoom Pro 2 to clean up dialogue recorded during a dress rehearsal in an empty hall.  I've encountered numerous tools claiming to mitigate poor acoustics or reduce unwanted reverb. DeRoom Pro 2 genuinely delivers on these promises.

DeRoom Pro is a real‑time plug‑in predicated on machine‑learning and it can be authorised to a dongle or to up to two separate machines. Mac and Windows are supported, an AAX, VST3 or AU host is required, and it can process mono or stereo sources at 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 or 192 kHz sample rates.

I used it to clean up dialogue recorded during a dress rehearsal in an empty hall, the mics were a pair of 414s on stands quite close to the lip of the stage, angled upwards.  The audio was recorded on a Zoom recorder at 44.1kHz.  The hall was obviously very reverb-heavy being empty.

DeRoom slotted in well into my workflow using it with DaVinci Resolve to begin with, then taking the track out to Logic Pro for a final shaping before syncing it in with video again for the final pass.

Drawing from another user's advice, I opted not to try and eliminate all the reverb in a single pass. I found that whilst this works there can be some artefacts with extremely reverb-laden dialogue.  Instead, I processed the audio with moderate settings, printed the track, and then applied a second pass. The results were remarkable: the dialogue became significantly clearer and more intelligible without sounding over-processed.  I have to say even just cranking it to the max on the first pass was very impressive.

I found DeRoom’s interface both clean and intuitive, featuring four primary controls for precise adjustments:

Sensitivity:  Adjusts the balance between complete room-sound elimination and potential artifacts. A higher sensitivity aggressively targets reverb but may introduce artifacts, while a lower setting preserves more of the original ambiance, in this case I generally kept it below 20%

Reduction: This determines the depth of processing applied to the detected reverb. It works in conjunction with Sensitivity to fine-tune the amount of reverb removed.  Too much too soon can produce artefacts but balance with this Sensitivity and it really does sound remarkable.

Attack and Release:  Being just dialogue I didn’t have anything with a very fast transient so leaving these both a 0ms seemed to work for this project.  

The ability to listen to Room Only and hear what has been taken away was a useful feature, especially for more ‘shouty’ actors.

I didn’t make much use of Spectral Focus in this case as it was for dialogue.  This control lets you target the frequency bands where reverberation is most problematic.  By narrowing the focus, you prioritize cleaning specific parts of the spectrum—often midrange frequencies where vocals or instruments are most affected.  

Bottom line - I’m starting to seek out old recordings so I can use this more, it is that good!

Take a quick tour around one of the UK's most impressive new studios. Based in a 140+ year old church in Southport The Arch Studio has a fabulous main live room with 2,500 square feet which is the perfect place for bands to record as a group, live..

The studios were designed by John Brandt and offer a very versatile recording space with a great second booth which in itself is large enough for a small band. There's a lovely area at the back of the studio raised up so that you can experiment with interesting ambient microphone positions or chill out watching the recording take place. It's a great spot to relax and observe the recording too.  

Two lovely pianos are complimented with a MASSIVE range of guitar amps plus guitars and much more.  As you'll see by watching the studio tour, the range of backline, guitar amps in particular, are excellent giving visitors a huge range of options - and experimentation possibilities.  

We hope to visit again soon to record a few things to further demonstrate the sound of the studio so please watch out for those.

This is a studio that you can record a classic album. We love it!!! Not only is there a great studio but the facility also boasts a game room, a gym and a dedicated cinema/AV room with accommodation available too! In this video Tom Dring takes us on his tour around showing Russ Cottier what's available and he loses count of the guitar amps on offer!

One missing elemnt from the studio tour is the accommodation.  There's a private self-contained quarters for artists that sleeps up to six people.  The kitchen is perfect for self catering and doubling as a great echo chamber!

We highly recommend the Arch Studio.  It offers a large, flexible recording space with easy access, excellent back-line, good microphone choices, seriously good relaxation options including a gym and cinema, accommodation and easy parking on the street just outisde.  

Studios aren't just gear, they are about atmosphere and the people - this studio is great on both of those fronts.  We hope you pop round to visit - tell them we sent you! :-)

Visit their website!

The Arch Recording Studio,135a Rufford Road, Southport. PR9 8HT

Founded by Calum Malcolm, who in his own right is one of the UK's most impressive engineers and producers, the studio moved from central Edinburgh after a few years to its current location. Many changes were made and he then sold it to Freeland Barbour who ran it for many years before the studio was taken on by resident house engineer Stuart Hamilton who has continued to develop it. Bringing in Garry Boyle to the Slate Room has brought in even wider ranges of clients and we hope will secure Castle's continued success.

We took a deep historical dive in to this amazing studio where many top musicians have had hit records recorded; The Blue Nile, REM, Simple Minds, Bay City Rollers, Runrig, Fiction Factory, Mark Knopfler, Nazareth, Orange Juice, The Proclaimers and hundreds of other artists have recorded everything from folk music to film scores in its 50 years..

Take this unique look in to this studio's history with the 3 owners who have each built and passed it on to the other making changes and keeping the studio fresh is pretty much a first for us. Castle Sound is Scotland's leading studio and this year it celebrates 50 years and still going strong.

Castle is one of our favourite studios anywhere. It's in a peaceful location with natural light flooding in. A great range of recording spaces and instruments make it a natural place for bands and acoustic artists to feel at home - the microphones and other equipment is pretty extensive. A really big thanks to everyone involved for making this feature possible - do go and visit the studio!!

Armchair recording pundits may recoil at the idea of recording drums like this, using no tom mics, but a drummer in the expert recording hands of Owain Fleetwood Jenkins can be assured that the sound that they need for a particular track can be captured with the minimum of fuss (and phase issues)..

For great sounding drums recording in a great live room with some classic mics is the only way - and of course an excellent drummer too! Renowned recording engineer Stuart Bruce visited to check out Owain's amazing Welsh studio to see and hear his drum recording approach to find why people come to make records at StudiOwz from around the World.

These days going to a studio can be considered to be a 'luxury' but when it comes to tracking drums nothing can compare to a great space that's been set up for recording drums - many studios, such as this one, have extensive drum collections to choose from to supplement your own setup - sometimes a track might need something like a brass snare, other times a huge kick drum. Not only do you get all of that at StudiOwz but you have an engineer that LOVES recording drums and his experience and taste ensure you're guaranteed to capture something special.

Talking of special things, the location of this studio is fabulous, most times we've visited it's a rare thing to see a car go past, it's not totally isolated but as far 'off grid' as most would like. The home cooked food and warm welcome is something that makes this a destination studio - please do visit and leave your reaction in the comments below :-)

Many thanks to Owain Fleetwood Jenkins for giving up his studio and time to make this feature possible and also to Jack Beddis for being our amazing drummer for the day and playing a series of random patterns for you to audition the setup! Links for the studio and Jack are below.

Thanks again to the brilliant Stuart Bruce for giving up his day to travel down and walk through the setup. We also recorded Stuart and Owain trying out a bunch of 'crush mics' and that will be available shortly.

Renowned engineer/producer Mike Exeter visited Middle Farm Studios where producer Jack Trubshaw was producing SANTÙ.  We have previously visited Middle Farm to record a tour with owner/engineer Peter Miles but he's a hard man to capture so it was great to have Jack take us on a tour of the studio he was working in and was hugely enjoying the charm and overall vibe of the studios which comes out in the video.

The studio is what some might term 'boutique'.  A studio that is completely geared around making bands feel comfortable, relaxed and able to focus on their record.  The selection of equipment is spot on, a great amount of instruments and drums to choose from means that if you decide you need a dampened piano, there is one, if you want a different guitar - take your pick.  There is so much here it's impossible to list it all.

Further down the page is a partial list of some of the equipment available - it's not exhaustive so after watching the video scroll down to the foot of this page and click the Middle Farm web link to view the unbelievable list.

The studio has loads of nice and affordable accommodation and there's a lovely kitchen.  Outdoor seating offers tranquil views over the Devon countryside - some producers might not want to go anywhere else after visiting this place and that might explain why they are so booked up.  

To help give us a flavour of what the studio is like to work in, Jack briefly stopped the session to give Mike a studio tour and session walk-though while the band, SANTÙ, grabbed some lunch so that we could rove around the studio and check out their recording setup.  The band also very kindly shot some footage of their recording session and gave us a bit of audio to use so that Jack could show the sounds that they were getting at Middle Farm. We thought the band sounded great and look forward to hearing the finished record!!!

Jack Trubshaw is a producer, engineer and mixer based in Birmingham, UK. Having started out as a live sound engineer and then transitioned into studio production, Jack specialises in working collaboratively with bands and artists and prides himself on his ability to capture an artist's live sound on a record. Jack has had the privilege to work with, and be mentored by some incredibly talented producers including Steve Osborne, Mike Exeter, Gary Stevenson, Simon Duggal and Rupert Christie as well as working with a wide range of incredibly talented artists both live and in the studio.

If you're interested in working on a project with Jack, please feel free to email jacktrubshawproducer@gmail.com or reach out on Instagram @jack_trubshaw

Live Room Camera Footage - Ryan Ridley - ‪@VisualsByRyan‬
Vocals - José Santos - @sepolleugimez
Guitar - Sam Atkins - @amsatkins
Drums - Jono Antill - @jonoantilldrums
Engineer - Izzi Warburton
The Band's page is @santuofficialuk