SH Spotlight Pictures of recording studios, old and new. Do you have any?

Amazing pictures in this thread. Thanks all!

 

Nice to see a photo of Dave Siddle finally. Odd how his profile is so low considering his resume. Eddie Kramer gets all the credit but it was Dave Siddle that recorded the bulk of AYE....curious if he was ever interviewed regarding his sessions with Hendrix and the Beatles in '67.

 

Here are a few rare shots of ELO recording the Secret Messages album at Wisseloord Studios in October 1982:



At this point, the band consisted of Jeff Lynne, (a supposedly very bored) Bev Bevan, Richard Tandy and Dave Morgan, who'd been invited to participate in the sessions after joining as an auxiliary musician on the previous Time Tour, using the opportunity to learn various production skills in return for his past help before going on to complete his own Earthrise project the following year with Tandy at Ridge Farm Studios. Also pictured is an as-yet-unidentified member of ELO's road crew along with Diego Diesveld, chairman of the Dutch ELO fan club and original uploader of these images, which first surfaced on his personal Facebook account.

Despite the resulting album's credits also listing string arranger Louis Clark and Kelly Groucutt, neither had been present at the time of Diego's visit, described by another witness as tense. Several different explanations were given for Kelly's absence, ranging from him not being well to simply having already left for the day, but in reality he'd been frozen out by Jeff once it was revealed he was preparing a lawsuit against Jet Records for 25% of all the group's royalties between the end of 1974 and his eventual depature in mid-1983, which ended with an out of court for a relatively smaller amount when Lynne became the subject of allegations that Groucutt threatened to be made public concerning other members contributing ideas and not being financially rewarded for these. Curiously, there's also no sign of engineer Bill Bottrell, though it's safe to assume Mik Kaminski's violin solo on Rock 'N' Roll Is King probably took a few minutes during the whole recording process that continued through to late February 1983, the album's release date originally scheduled for December '82 then delayed to April '83 before finally reaching shelves in June as a single disc rather than the 2LP test acetate set pressed by Brian Gardner at Allen Zentz Mastering in March '83, this plan rejected in addition to the original, more ambitious sleeve design on cost grounds by ELO's main distributor, CBS.

According to Diego, the band was adding overdubs to preliminary mixes of the album's title track and Train Of Gold, the latter one of just four songs to include Kelly. From what I can tell, Groucutt's vocals can be heard on Train Of Gold, Rock 'N' Roll Is King, outtake No Way Out (also featuring him playing double bass) and the mythical ELO holy grail, Beatles Forever, still being considered as the possible lead single based on an interview he later gave to Hit Parader in 1983. On the other hand, Dave Morgan recalls Jeff may have wiped Kelly's background vocals off Rock 'N' Roll Is King when this was constructed using a recycled instrumental track once meant to have been used for a song about the Longbridge car plant entitled Motor Factory, explaining the metallic noises and engine samples heard throughout. Prior to this, Jeff tried out an interim, possibly semi-autobiographical lyric based on something he'd often dust off as a placeholder about a jaded rocker named Johnny, which he once described as an early concept for what later became Latitude 88 North, confirming that he rarely lets a good idea go to waste.

I can only hope Diego doesn't mind me sharing these, and if anyone is able to help figure out the exact room at Wisseloord or some of the equipment seen apart from the Oberheim OB-Xa then it would be extremely appreciated for my upcoming book on this period in ELO's history!

 

Mix One Studios in Boston, MA (formally Sound Techniques). They've done some updating but supposedly they use to have a Neve console in Studio A and an SSL in Studio B. Some famous artists that have done work there are Guns N' Roses, Duran Duran, Aerosmith, Peter Wolf, Trent Reznor, Extreme, Juliana Hatfield, Letters To Cleo among others.
http://www.mixonestudios.com/studio-a/

http://www.mixonestudios.com/studio-b1/

http://www.mixonestudios.com/scheduling-contact/

http://www.mixonestudios.com/audiopost/

http://www.mixonestudios.com/new-page-1/

http://www.mixonestudios.com

 

I would add this Studio A shot to the earlier Stax pics.



More info here studioA »

 

Ardent Studio A and control room Madison Ave. Memphis

 

It is indeed most likely to be Leiderkranz. Folks who have checked Columbia's company files have found paperwork identifying this hall as the place where all of Benny's 1941 NY sessions took place. And in this pic, the floor certainly looks like Liederkranz's ... By the way, any pre-demolition photos of this studio's exterior façade out there, on the web?