The Nave

Studio 2 is our smaller studio with a medium sized dry live room, easily big enough to comfortably house a fully mic'ed-up drum kit. It's a very different sounding recording space compared to Studio 1, but a great addition to the sound palettes available throughout the building.

We've often found on sessions that it can be nice to have a smaller and more intimate space for certain parts of the tracking process. For example, some singers love to be in Studio 1's live room where they can really open up and receive feedback from the acoustic. Others prefer to work in a smaller, dead space where there is only them and the producer. Drummers often have a strong opinion about which acoustic they prefer to work with, and between Studios 1 and 2 we have many options.

It's also the case that sessions in Studio 2 work well running alongside Studio 3. For example we have had situations where guitar and vocal overdubs are set up in Studio 2 whilst keyboards are set up in Studio 3 located just upstairs. That way both rooms can work in tandem with each other and take full advantage of the space. This type of set up can also be done with Studio 1, of course.

The control room is based around a rare vintage 26 input Alice Trackplan desk (one of only 5 ever made). These desks were originally built for 70's artists such as Pete Townshend and Yes for their own projects. This particular one was owned by Cat Stevens. The desk has been lovingly restored and upgraded for modern recording requirements by our tech Roy Harrison. As well as improvements to the routing capabilities, each channel, bus and master has now been fitted with Carnhill and Lindell input and output transformers making it the perfect counterpart to a Pro Tools HD system without losing the character of the desk.

Studio 2 is primarily suited to being an overdubbing facility with a few carefully chosen high end outboard signal paths. However the studio is also well suited to full tracking sessions, featuring a great selection of vintage and modern outboard. If you're working in this studio, you still have access to same mics and instruments collection as Studio 1. We specifically set up the studio mic collection to make sure that there are plentiful options for any sessions (with key microphones being duplicated) so that both studios can run sessions without any compromise. Similarly synths/guitars/pedals can all easily be moved between studios. If you want something on our list specifically for your session, please let us know and we'll make sure it's available for you.

The studio has it's own recreation and kitchen facilities independent of those of Studio 1, offering Studio 2 clients their own private space. However people often choose to hang out in the larger Studio 1 recreation room. On a typical day there's a couple of producers, our techs and a good few musicians all hanging out. It makes for a really nice atmosphere.

Dimensions

Live Room: 5m x 4m
Control Room: 6m x 4m