This week Miloco has added our first studio in Mississippi, USA – “the birthplace of America’s music”. Malaco Studios was founded in 1967 and has become without a doubt the most prestigious recording facility in Jackson, Mississippi, with a rich history of producing excellent blues, soul and gospel records.
Malaco Studios has provided recording facilities and services for a variety of artists, and the TV and film industries for the past 50 years, working with the likes of The Pointer Sisters, Paul Simon, Lucinda Williams and Dorothy Moore. Classic songs such as Anita Ward’s number one single “Ring My Bell”, Jean Knights “Mr. Big Stuff” and King Floyd’s “Groove Me” were all recorded at Malaco Studios. Unfortunately a 2011 tornado caused extensive damage to the original studio structure, leading to a ground up rebuild in 2012, which gave the studios the opportunity to modernise further with new rooms and technologies.
The studio couples is made up of a comfortable control room centred around an API Legacy console, large live room with high ceilings, three isolation rooms. In addition to this there is the mastering room, video editing suite and machine room.
In addition to the high-end outboard racks you’d expect from such a studio, Malaco’s extensive equipment spec includes an array of vintage tune and solid-state gear, Studier analog tape machines, ProTools HD and Nuendo systems, and a large collection of vintage microphones. Their stock of instruments come courtesy of brands such as Fender, Marshall, Hammond and Yamaha.
When it’s time to take a break, you can wander through the studio’s history via the photograph lined hallway to the kitchen area that looks more like a professional diner than studio kitchen. It can seat 24 and comes equipped with every amenity for preparing meals, or to simply enjoy them in a relaxed dining atmosphere should you choose to have Malaco organise catering for your team.
Explore the Malaco Studios full page here.
We announced a few weeks ago that one of our north London studios, Livingston 2, would soon be undergoing a major refurbishment. Well the time has arrived as yesterday the hard work began, removing monitors, windows and fabric to create a blank canvas and be able to start the refurbishment and makeover in earnest!
Check out the photos below in our Day 1 Recap:
– We’ve removed the old Westlake monitors
– The windows have been taken out to clean up the fabric
– All fabric in the live rooms has been removed
– New lighting panels have arrived in preparation for our signature customisable hue lighting
Re-writing the north London music scene is our newest partner studio, Script Studios, located in Kings Cross’ creative hub, Tileyard Studios. A brand new facility it is home to world-class tech, equipment and gear and being in Tileyard is surrounded by a neighbourhood of songwriters, artists, producers and composers.
Designed by Chris Walls from Level Acoustic Design, the space consists of a large live room for tracking that can comfortably accommodate a band or medium sized string section and a booth large enough for vocals, and can even fit an upright piano. The live space comes complete with an envy-inducing array of keyboards, Fender guitars, bass and amps.
The adjacent control room is centred around a 32 in/out Protools rig in addition to a great selection of analogue pre amps by Heritage Audio, API, Chandler and more, as well as compressors, EQs and a Neve mixer to allow maximum flexibility between analogue and digital signal paths.
As a great live space for tracking and an excellent mix room, Scrip Studios can truly take a project from start right through to final mixes at the finish.
In addition to having the rejuvenated Kings Cross on its doorstep, now full of cool cafes, restaurants and bars, Script has a spacious private lounge for breaks which is well serviced by Tileyard’s Vinyl Cafe.
With all this it’s no surprise Script Studios has hosted the likes of Mike Skinner, Gilles Peterson and Kele Okereke of Bloc Party as well as an array of film and TV composers.
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Our favourite music festival and conference, The Great Escape, is almost upon us – in one month to be exact!
Celebrating its tenth year, the annual festival is on in Brighton once again from May 19 – 21 and the whole Miloco team will be there! We have been attending the festival for years, using it as a way to discover the best new talent out there and introduce them to the world of Miloco Studios.
We’re proud to say we have a decade’s worth of support for TGE and its artists behind us, having worked with a huge number of past acts, both before and after they came into their wider recognition. See the full list of TGE alumni on Miloco’s client list in the picture below.
We continue that tradition this year, with a whole host of acts on the 2016 lineup that we’ve had the pleasure of having in our rooms around London, and across the world, including:
Oh Wonder, Kiko Bun, Clean Cut Kid, M.O, Cloves, Nadia Rose, Shura, Cortes, Izzy Bizu, Max Pope, Kiwi, Louis Mattrs, Michael, Kiwanuka, Mabel, The Hunna and more.
Stay tuned for more in the lead up to The Great Escape, including Miloco reviews and staff picks.
Listen to this comprehensive playlist from the festival to get acquainted with The Great Escape Class of 2016:
Posted in Uncategorized |One of our top west London locations, Westpoint Studios is offering a special one-time-only offer on booking rates for a very limited time!
Shane, Westpoint’s owner, is away on paternity leave for the next few weeks, and in a fit of new-parent joy has offered the incredible boutique studio for £2,500 + VAT for a full week’s booking (12 hours/day for 7 days) with an assistant. The offer is only available for two weeks, from the 11th – 25th May, 2016.
A boutique studio in West London, Westpoint continues to be one of the leading choices for music producers and top artists for the past 20 years. Precision built by the crème de la crème of acoustic design, ‘Recording Architecture’, the studio is a unique blend of state-of-the-art recording facilities combined with a daring white interior design. Natural light floods the 22-foot control room through tall frosted glass windows and is made homely by the relaxed feel and chill out zones in every room.
At the centre of Westpoint’s control room is the purebred SSL 48 track 4K G Series and the highly acclaimed ATC SCM 200 monitoring system for a listening experience recommended by all who have had the pleasure of experiencing it. For multi-track recording we have the latest Pro Tools HDX system with a staggering 64 i/o via apogee symphony converters. Add to this over 100 balanced tie lines for you to record in any room (yes even the kitchen!) and it’s easy to see why even clients with the most complex of sessions find it a synch to set up effortlessly into our facilities.
Westpoint Studios is an oasis of creativity in the heart of West London and promises an unforgettable recording experience with results that are hard to beat.
Contact the Miloco Bookings Team to enquire about booking your session.
Posted in Uncategorized |A few weeks ago we had American seven-piece band Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats spend a day in The Pool filming the video for their new single ‘I Need Never Get Old’. They were joined by a great production team, a gospel choir, troupe of make-up artists, and a cat!
They spent a full 14 hour day here at Miloco HQ, and even took over our local pub The George as their make-up room – watch the clip below to see why… The video is pretty hilarious and mirrors what I’m sure a lot of us have felt during take after take in the studio. After the main video was released a few weeks ago, we now have a behind the scenes look at the epic day of filming!
Watch the original and BTS clips below, and if you’d like to take a look at some of our other prime studio filming locations click here.
Posted in Uncategorized |At Miloco our studios are only as good as the people that work in them, and we’re very proud to work with some of the best young minds (and ears!) in the business. Part of our business is managing a roster of engineers & producers, giving them a foot in the door and the tools to develop into the best musicians they can be.
These guys are often the unsung heroes of the music you’ve come to know and love over the past few years, so we thought we’d embarrass a few of our new generation of our engineers by talking about how great they are. We’ll introduce you to them below, but for more information and to view their full CVs just click on the images below.
Billy Halliday
Originally from Australia, Billy Halliday has spent the last four years working his way up through the ranks at Miloco, which has given him the opportunity to work in a wide variety of studios, including a number of recent sessions in Paul Epworth’s The Church Studios in Crouch End. Billy is equally at home on an SSL, a vintage Neve, or in any other recording environment.
He’s worked alongside many great engineers and producers including Mark Rankin, Alan Moulder, Markus Dravs, Dan Grech, Matt Wiggins and Charlie Hugall. His credits include sessions with Adele, U2, Florence + The Machine and Frank Ocean.
Daniel Moyler
Raised on The Beatles and Bowie, Dan studied guitar at BIMM and spent his teenage years playing in some of London’s questionable venues. In his twenties he turned his hand to engineering and started working on night reception at Trevor Horn’s SARM Studio’s. Daniel soon progressed to an assisting position where for over two years he assisted on records for Ed Sheeran, Half Moon Run and Mumford and Sons.
Recently Daniel has recorded Rudimental, Kaiser Chiefs and has been working on the debut LP by Shura ‘Nothing’s Real’. He has also recording strings for James Morrison and Zayn’s UK and US #1 album ‘Mind of Mine’.
Drew Smith
Drew joined Miloco in 2009 after two years of darkness in the basement of a Dalston based studio. Through Miloco, Drew met Flood and Alan Moulder and began working his way up through the ranks in their studio, Assault & Battery 2. He spent the next six years working under their watchful eyes, and in this time worked with artists such as Foals, Warpaint, PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode and Ed Harcourt.
Most recently Drew has been engineering for Mark Ralph on releases for Rejjie Snow, INHEAVEN, Foxes, Clean Bandit and Zibra.
Jake Gordon
Starting his career in music at the age of 16, Jake has over a decade of experience in studios already and has become a highly skilled engineer and producer. Having worked at several London studios before joining Miloco in 2010, Jake has since engineered projects across a wide variety of genres and artists, including Jay Electronica, The Vaccines, Naughty Boy, Plan B, and Wild Beasts alongside Stephen Street & Alex Dromgoole.
Recently his credits include records with Emeli Sande, Skepta & Ady Suleiman
Joseph Rodgers
Hailing from the outskirts of Dublin, Joseph moved to London to satisfy his appetite for new and exciting music. Starting his career in Essex he moved to London initially started work at Miloco as runner and part of the Miloco Builds team, before becoming the in-house assistant at The Pool.
He has moved on to work at most of Miloco’s studios alongside producers such as Ben Hiller, Stephen Street, Paul Epworth, Charlie Hugall, Phill Brown, and Pete Hoffman. His artist credits include Tom Odell, Florence + The Machine, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Kooks and many Decca Records artists.
Kristian Donaldson
Kristian began his career in London based Artillery Studios in 2009 before joining Miloco in 2012.
Kristian has worked in a vast array of studios across London, including Paul Epworth’s The Church, Damon Albarn’s Studio 13 and nearly all Miloco’s London based studios, alongside some of the industry’s finest engineers and producers. His credits include sessions with M.I.A., Lianne La Havas, U2, Bjork and many more.
As a multi-instrumentalist Kristian has also released music as an artist and beat maker, composes music for film and music libraries, giving him a deep understanding of all areas of the creative and recording process as a producer and engineer.
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Continuing with Miloco’s improvements of the Livingston Studios complex in North London, Studio 2 is closing for a few weeks for some cosmetic upgrades and a whole new spec list. The live rooms are being refabric’d, we are installing Hue coloured lighting throughout, so you can control your ambience from every shade of white to any colour in any room, and the main live room is being fitted with a few diffusors.
In the Control Room we are re-adding a brand spanking new console, new monitors, new outboard, new microphones and there will be a whole new selection of backline.
When selecting the console we’ve gone for one which covers all bases for engineers and producers today. We have ordered a brand new Custom Series 75 console powered by Neve. The desk contains 24 inline channels containing a blend of the legendary 1073 and 1081 modules. The Mic Pre and 4 band EQ is straight from the Neve 1081, while the output amp is based on the 1970’s BA243, class A circuitry with a gapped core transformer as used in the 1073. The original circuits have only been changed where it adds a benefit to the console – for example the summing busses are now balanced resulting in lower noise and crosstalk. You can read more about this console here
http://www.customseries75.com/site/
Monitoring will be provided by Augspurger Duo-8 monitors (with 12” subs) for the bigs, Genelec 1031’s for the mids and Yamaha NS10’s for the near fields. Recording will be to the 32 output Pro Tools HDX system running Pro Tools 12 with a UAD-2 card and loads of plug-ins. Or you can record to 2” multi-track tape. Outboard will be selected to complement the 24 channels of Neve EQ and mic-pre’s. With a variety of compressors and a few alternative EQs and mic pre’s.
The studio will have a great selection of backline including a 1970’s Hayman Vibrasonic Kit, a variety of guitar amps, am Ampex B15 Portaflex bass amp and a variety of other keyboard, pedals and backline that is shared with Studio 1.
To check out the new equipment specification head over here:-
https://milocostudios.com/studios/livingston-studio-2/new-equipment-spec-from-may-2016/
bookings@miloco.co.uk if you want to start book in your sessions. More details will follow in May.
Posted in Uncategorized |Back in January we were thrilled to announce the winner of Sentric Music‘s The Next Big Sync, a competition they ran in collaboration with Miloco Studios, was Liverpool’s Luke Cusato.
We met him a few months ago before his prize sessions as The Motor Museum in his home town. We’ve become big fans of Luke’s here at Miloco Studios, so we thought we’d take the chance to get to know him a bit better and pick his brain on music, the recording process, and what’s in store for the future.
Describe your music for us in three words:
Real, emotional and meaningful
What made you apply for The Next Big Sync?
I think that Sentric Music are brilliant at what they do. They are full on hardworking and passionate people who have always been really supportive and helpful. Seeing that it seemed like such a great opportunity, I thought I’d be stupid not to apply haha!
When did you join Sentric?
I joined Sentric at the end of 2012.
What’s the best thing about being a Sentric member?
The best thing about Sentric for me is the fact that they have regular sync briefs that you can apply for, they make it all so easy for artists. Not gonna lie, royalty days are pretty special too!!
How do you prepare for a studio session?
I like to work on a demo of the song before going the studio, this means when I’m there me and James Mellor (who’s the producer from The Motor Museum) can work from the demo and use that as a reference. Making sure I have the song well practiced and getting a good amount of sleep the night before is a good way to prepare myself too. They can be looong days 🙂
What did you like about The Motor Museum?
I’ve spent a lot of time recording at The Motor Museum before and I know James really well. I always record with him and I absolutely love the studio. I really like how the studio feels so open when you first walk inside, its a pretty unique place but what matters most are the people that work there; I can honestly say that Al Groves and James Mellor are both genuine and extremely talented guys to work with, which makes the whole experience of recording at The Motor Museum a great pleasure!
Huge thanks to @sentricmusic and @milocostudios for picking me as their ‘Next Big Sync’ winner. Really excited about this track! #Breathe #Miloco #Sentric #TheMotorMuseum #RecordingStudio A video posted by Luke Cusato (@lukecusatomusic) on
Can you tell us anything about the material you recorded?
The song that I recorded is called ‘Breathe’, it’s very stripped back, emotional and full of moving vocals. I feel its a proper ‘pour your heart out’ kind of track. Sentric, The Motor Museum and me all put our influences to it, I’m well proud of it 🙂
Sounds exciting! When will we get to hear it?
After hearing it, the brilliant HEROIC label, based in The Netherlands, were really excited to release it. You can hear the first exclusive streaming of it on their #HeroicSessions #025 (below – 52:20mins in). You’ll also be able to hear it on this month’s legendary Sentric Podcast. Then it’s due for worldwide release May 19th!!
What’s in store for you in the next 12 months?
More music, more gigs … I may take up geocaching haha!
Stay in touch with Luke on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more music and news!
Learn more about Sentric Music on their website
A beautiful secluded pine forest, a large tract of private land, ten minutes from the beach, a beautiful swimming pool, luxury accommodation, on-site catering, world-class recording studio – Le Manoir de Léon really does have it all.
Located on France’s west coast, Le Manoir can be found in the Landes forest, between the towns of Biarritz and Bordeaux, just ten minutes from the region’s beautiful beaches. The complex is made up of three buildings: two accommodation options and the studio. Purpose designed and built as a recording studio, Le Manoir benefits from outstanding acoustic design, carried out by Christian Malcurt, with perfect isolation that allows recording around the clock.
The studio building is home to the main live recording room, three isolation booths and a comfortable control room. Each booth features its own distinct acoustics to provide the versatility and flexibility when recording. An impressive list of backline is featured on the studio’s gear spec, including a Bosendorfer Grand Piano. The control room is based around a 48 input Neve 8128 and Pro Tools HD with ATC 5 way customs monitors, Genelecs and Yamaha NS-10’s.
The stunning accommodation, which could only be described as rustic French luxury, is spread across two houses: the ‘Manoir’, a lovely 18th century manor house with nine bedrooms, and ‘La Longère’ a separate two bedroom building, should you want extra privacy. In total it sleeps 22 people, and has its own large dining room and living room, and swimming pool! Le Manoir also has an optional catering service which can be organised for an additional cost.
In the vicinity there are countless activities to amuse clients during their downtime, including surfing, cycling, stand up paddle boarding, golf, tennis, or a visit to the famous local chocolatier!
Watch a beautiful bird’s-eye-view tour of the studio below.
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