Music Recording & Production at SHStudios

Here at the Coolest Recording Space in London Town - we know All about the FX Effect - the way audio can trick & fool ya into tumbling head over heels into an audio void ..... we created !! Live tracking is all about capturing the immediate elements of a performance or song - but post production - or mixing - is how we embellish, twist, change or enhance that original recording - & time delay effects are some of the most interesting, mind bending tools at our disposal. Here's a few of our fave delay & modulation units: analog echo delay Analog echo - this one has had the time knob replaced by a volume pedal so the echo speed can be controlled by foot - keeps the hands free & adds to the nutso factor - which we like. The feedback control on this unit sends the echo back into itsself & can create insane DR. Who / BBC Radiophonic Workshop like soundscapes - this with the added bonus of the gain preamp overdriving beautifully makes it a fave ...

Here at The Coolest Recording Studio in London Town - we don't half like our sounds Au Naturel - I mean we got some beautiful outboard (& plugin) reverb & delay units - & they're amazing - but sometimes - specially on drums - you just want that hyper real sound of the drums in their recorded space - & for that - the best thing to do is set up a condenser or ribbon mic about 6 - 12 feet away - & compress the living crap out of it. Solid state compressors will be faster & more accurate that tube comps - but tube comps will add warmth & tasty distortion. compressors & a lexicon verb You won't need to mix too much of this track in with the close mics - but get it right at the recording stage - & boy will it take your audio to another dimension! ..... I mean literally! You can also use proper outboard 'verbs or delays to add space & richness to your mix - these are Our main outboard spatializers : tc & dy...

Here at the Coolest Recording Space in South London - we like to get sounds down right! It is easy to over eq audio at the recording stage - so always err on the side of caution - & use it judiciously !!!  ( Word !) There are a plethora of different types of hardware eq out there - & they all react uniquely to the audio you throw at them. Graphic equalisers are useful for cutting & boosting instrumentation - but Parametric equalisers are much more creative & music tools - so we tend to use these in our studio. This is a vintage solid state Orban stereo parametric - it's not as defined as modern units - but has a very sweet tone so great for adding weight to vocals & guitars - or for giving drum ambient / overhead mics a classic texture: orban   TC make some superb equipment from live gigging gear to high end studio verbs, eq's & preamps. This monster is so sharp it can cut the tiniest sliver of offending frequency from a troublesome...

Here at The Coolest Recording Studio in London Town - we got a Whole Gamut - a Plethora - indeed a Bounteous selection of audio toys to bleep, blurp, click & whistle their way into whichever compostiton fancies a bit of extra shting !  Extra Toys - most definitely do not need to be expensive - but they do need to be interesting - here's a few we've used recently to embellish various musics. 1. Drum Synth   These are great - you can trigger them by either cv/gate, hitting the front face with a pencil or finger, or even better - from an audio source like a live snare or kick drum.  They are made by Rakit & are based on the electroharmonix drum synths from the 70's - which were the coolest of the bunch.  It's excellent for adding subs or modulation to a kick drum - noise to a snare - or indeed just playing along live to add odd rhythmic textures to a track.  Next up in a very odd looking thing we got from a £1.00 shop in peckham, Londo...

Here at The Coolest Recording Space in South London we like to get supercharged - which is why we're renown for turning All our knobs up to 11 !! Here's a few videos showing how tube compression affects the sound of the mics: 1 - The Behemoth: - lots of heavy duty transformer / valve compression - great on drums. 2 - The Vortexion - a tad more hi fi sounding - these were used by Joe Meek - The Who - & a whole bunch of cool engineers back in the day. Also great using a condenser mic for piano!   3 - Akai preamps - these came out of an Akai reel to reel tape machine - they sound nice & crunchy on drums - great on guitar (electric & acoustic) & great on percussion. We do have a large collection of vintage tube preamps at www.shrunkenheadsstudios.com - all have distinct supertasty flavours we use to capture a certain je-ne-sais-quoi - that magic element that makes a good recording sound Great. Sometimes - you just need some e...

Here at The Coolest Recording Space in London Town - we got all kinds of studio shazzle - mixers / compressors / eq's - but for audio capture, the most important thing aside for the mics - are mic preamplifiers. They come in all shapes & forms - from lovely vintage tube pre's that warm up the sound of an instrument or space to super fast solid state units that capture transient material (like metal drums or fast picked acoustic guitar) to transformer based pre's that you can distort at the input to add bloom & energy to an audio source. This is a Vortexion tube preamp as used by Joe Meek & the Who back in the 50's & 60's - beautiful for recording drums, guitars, vocals & ambient spaces with ribbon microphones. They were broadcast quality units that add a rich, fullness to the mic chain. You can also use them to pleasantly saturate vocals etc in post production. vortexion   These Ampex 602 units came out of an old tape recorder...

Here at The Coolest Recording Space in London Town - we get a whole bunch of vocalisers - from full on rock gospel belters to sofly spoken folkists - & they all generally need one thing - attention to detail. There's not One go to mic for any session - but you can betcha life that the Shure SM7 is a good place to start for most sessions - to test the waters so to speak. It's got a good full range - and just sounds excellent - especially if you've got someone who doesn't have great recording technique - like your live singers etc. We always double it up with either a condenser or tube microphone to add either variety of tone or airiness - looks a bit like this. The sm7 is sung into from about 5-6 inches away - the tube or condenser mic is set further away to pick up more air. Another great trick is to set up either an omni condenser or ribbon microphone & face the side to the singer - this means the voice will hit the side of the mic body & e...