The studio is situated in a converted 17th century stables in the out building of an historic farm in Lathom set in the heart of Lancashire.
Just four minutes drive from Junction 3 on the M58, equidistant from Liverpool and Manchester, the two liveliest musical cities in the country are on the doorstep.
The live room is approx 2100 cubic feet in size, specially built on a disconnected concrete structure which means the whole room is "floating" to isolate it from any exterior noise. The room has natural light, which makes it a comfortable space to record in and has been designed and custom built to give the best acoustic performance with a great lively end for drums and a soft diffused end for deader sounding recordings.
All room modes are evenly distributed, and flutter echoes standing waves and reflections are controlled so as not to colour your recordings in any detrimental way, one of the key factors that will make your work sound like a "proper record" and not just another demo.
The control room has had similar attention paid to the design to evenly distribute reflections and frequencies to make sure what you hear in the room is what you take home with you. The room is in the loft of the barn and shape was loosely based on a BBC listening room that lends its design well to the shape of the barn.
The electricity supply is locked and filtered on all the important equipment and the computers and drives are further protected by UPS that ensures your valuable recordings are safe from power failiure.
Monitoring is provided by Mackie 824 midfield monitoring with sub bass, Genelec near fields and I have specially moulded T2 in ear monitoring to zoom in on specific problem areas safe in the knowledge that all phase differences and room colouration are removed from the equation.
Equipment
Microphones
Charter Oak SA538B tube microphone- Beautiful hand wired valve mike from the states, Serial No. 0017
Blue Baby Bottle
Audio Technica AT 4050/CM5
2x Audio Technica AT 4030
Joe Meek JM47
2x T Bone SC450
2x Rode NT 5 matched pair
2x SM57
2x SM58
3x SM56 Betas
Blue Kick Ball
AKG D112
Pre amps
Avalon VT737 Single channel valve pre, compressor and EQ
Focusrite ISA 430 MK 1 (Producer Pack)
Joe Meek- Classic UK sounding opto-compressor, EQ pre amp
2x Berhringer Stereo Tube Ultragain 1953 Preamps. Four channels of valve warmed sound with headroom noise floor and sheen that belies the cost of these "cheap" units.
Yamaha 02R (V.2) mixing console. The version 2 has better mic pres and DA converters than the original desks With 3x adat interface and TC Unity (M3000) effects board. There are two fx units built into the desk which are reasonable quality but the reverbs and modulation effects on the TC card are pristine and add class and polish to any mix. The Finaliser is also authorised on the TC, but I tend to use the UAD plugs these days for that job, but whenever possible it's
Mackie HR824 midfield monitors and sub bass
Genelec 8020 nearfield monitors
T2 in ear monitors
AKG Headphones
Beyerdynamic DT 150 headphones
Apple G5 dual 2x 300gig internal drives, 600 gig external storage, 5gig ram, 2x 19" monitors, RME Hammerfall 24 channel adat interface, UAD fx board, Focusrite liquid mix, Emagic ATM 8 MIDI interface
Apple Mac Powerbook G4 1gig RAM with Novation X station Synth/interface running Logic 7.2, Max MSP and various studio tools.
Software
All software used in the studio is licensed, paid for and owned by Aliensound, no dodgy copies,
Logic 7.2 featuring a huge range of virtual instruments and sound
UAD Host plug ins featuring... Neve 33073, Teletronix LA2A, Fairchild 670, and Urie 1176 compressors, Pultec and Neve 1073 and 1081 parametric eqs, Realverb reverb modelling, and precision mastering EQ, multiband compressor and limiter with K class metering designed by Bob Katz, Roland Space Echo and a host of other useful plug ins
Focusrite Liquid mix featuring a collection of .. different classic compression and eq's .
You can run 32 of these critters simultaneously without any hit on the host processor, and the quality is excellent.
Drumagog- Drum replacement / re-triggering software with the Farview Rock drum collection.
I don't like to use this if I can help it, because I like to get the sound of the kit from mike placement and tuning, but sometimes it's just the ticket to give you a completely different sound or fix a really shitty kit.
PSP Vintage Warmer. This is still my favourite tape compression emulation, even after all these years.
Cycling 74 Pluggo (80 weird and wonderful sound mangling plugs like no other)
Max MSP. For serious sound creation and manipulation, not for the faint hearted! Need to know Java to program this baby, but essentially you can build virtual machines to do ANYTHING you want to sound. Luckily there are boffins that have built plenty of gizmos already
Waldorf PPG digital synth, Attack analogue drums, D-pole filters
Native Instruments Akoustik Piano four different acoustic piano models featuring... hooked up to the 88 key weighted controller keyboard with sustain pedal is the nearest thing to having an acoustic piano with the hassle and space.
Native Instruments Sequential Circuits Pro 53. Virtual version of one of my favourite synths
Keyboards
Korg Mono/Poly (1982) Four oscillator mono synth
Arp Axxe (1976) A weedy classic, like a
Roland MC202 (1982) with Kenton CV/MIDI Converter. Kind of like a cross between a SH101 and a TB303
Solina String Ensemble (1974)
Novation K Station and X Station- Huge sounding synthesisers,
Fender Rhodes 73
Yamaha DX 5 (1985) Like two DX 7s and huge sound library on cartridges (!)
Ensoniq ASRX sampler/synth/drum machine with customised Phat boy controller
Freebass FB383 (Pretty much a TB303 in a rack unit but with MIDI)
Akai S1000 Sampler (1987) With Syquest drive and loads of dated sounds!
Guitars are available on request at no extra charge.
Original 1963 Fender Jaguar
Yamaha CPX 80 Acoustic Guitar
Fender Jazz Bass
Epiphone Firebird
Dan Electro U2
Classical Guitar
Effects include Line 6 Pod XT Live, Digitech Whammy, Cry Baby wah, Sansamp, Ebow, Behringer Bass V amp, Alesis Air FX, Boss SE 50, Alesis Quadraverb
Feel free to give me a call, come over and check the studio out and have a chat about how you want to move your project forward to the
next level with no obligation.
Contact: mark@aliensound.co.uk
www.myspace.com/aliensound
07960 116574