The 300 square metre octagonal live room during a session, ceiling structure overhead

Photograph: Ezzidin Alwan

The Studio

Visconti Studio is built around a large octagonal live space with an attractive and characterful natural acoustic.

300 m²
octagonal live room

Tape
Studer A827 & A80

3 grand pianos
including a Steinway Model D

Solo, band or orchestra
live tracking in the round

The space

The openness and scale of the room accommodate everything from rock bands and jazz ensembles to chamber groups and small orchestral sessions. The geometry produces a natural reverb that gives recordings made here a character of their own, and a dedicated drum and vocal booth allows isolated recording when the openness of the live room isn't what the session calls for.

Adjacent to the live room are a professionally equipped control room and tape machine room, housing a hybrid analogue and digital setup built around an Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition console, Pro Tools HD, and Studer tape machines. The studio suits tracking above all, and handles mixing and mastering across formats, from fully analogue tape sessions to high-resolution digital production.

Drums and percussion set up in the live room for both recording and filming
Grand piano and double bass in natural light in the live room

The plan

Floor plan of Visconti Studio: the octagonal live room with control room, machine room, and foyer alongside

The octagonal live room, control room, and machine room, with a mezzanine lounge above the foyer. Parking is on site, and load-in is straight into the live room.

The control room

The control room is built around an Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition console, with tracking to Pro Tools HD and monitoring appropriate to a room this size. Outboard includes Neve 1073 and API pre-amps, a pair of Universal Audio 1176 compressors, Empirical Labs Distressors, a Manley Massive Passive EQ, an Eventide H3000 and H9000 Harmonizer, Lexicon reverb, a Roland Space Echo, and an EMT plate reverb, Rupert Neve Designs Master Bus Transformer among others. The microphone collection spans classic and modern designs from Neumann, Coles, Shure, Sennheiser and Townsend Labs.

Tony Visconti sat in the control room next to the Audient console, with outboard racks and patch bay behind him
An engineer patching signals in the control room
A session in progress in the control room, seen through the glass from above, with a producer writing at the desk and students gathered behind

Analogue and hybrid recording

Our Studer A827 2-inch 24-track and an A80 quarter-inch 2-track are maintained and in regular use, with Dolby noise reduction, alongside the digital rig. Sessions can run fully analogue, fully digital, or hybrid.

The Studer A827 24-track tape machine loaded with a red reel of 2-inch tape
Hands marking a splice on 2-inch tape with a pencil
Chris Kimsey on editing tape [3 stories]

The instruments

Our live room is home to three grand pianos, a Steinway Model D concert grand, a Blüthner, and a Grotrian-Steinweg, alongside a 1950s Hammond RT3 with Leslie speaker, a Streetly Electronics Mellotron, and an assortment of orchestral percussion. The university's Indonesian gamelan is stored here, so a single instrument can be brought into the room for a session, or the whole set laid out if an ensemble is coming. Gongs, bonang, kendhang, and the saron family. All of these instruments are available to artists recording here.

The Steinway Model D concert grand in the live room
Mary Epworth playing the Mellotron, with a Hammond organ in the background, black and white
A technician servicing the 1950s Hammond organ

Equipment

Console

Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition, 36 channels.

Tape machines

Studer A827 2-inch 24-track with Dolby noise reduction. Studer A80 quarter-inch 2-track.

Recording and software

Apogee Symphony 32-channel I/O Pro Tools HD. Eventide Anthology plugin catalogue.

Monitoring

ATC SCM25A PR; Yamaha NS10M. Digital Audio LiveMix 4-Pod Analogue Bundle headphone monitoring. Beyerdynamic DT150 x 10 Beyerdynamic DT102 x 4

Preamps and processing

Neve 1073DPA; Neve 1073SPX; API 3124 preamp; Universal Audio 2-610 tube preamp; Avalon VT-737 preamp; Universal Audio 1176LN classic FET limiter x 2; Empirical Labs Distressor x 2; Manley Massive Passive EQ; Drawmer DS201 dual gate Drawmer DL241 compressor; Rupert Neve Designs MTB.

Effects

Eventide H9000 Harmonizer; Eventide H3000SE Ultra-Harmonizer; EMT 140/240 plate reverb; Roland RE-201 Space Echo; Lexicon PCM70; Yamaha SPX2000.

Microphones

ACMH string mic set, quartet; AKG C214 stereo pair; AKG C414 x 4; AKG C1000 x 2; AKG D12; AKG D12 VR; AKG D112; Audix drum mic set; B&K 4006 x 2; Beyerdynamic Opus drum mic sets; DPA SMK4061; Electro-Voice RE20 x 2; Neumann U87 x 4; Neumann KM184 stereo pair x 2; Neumann KMC104 x 2; Rode NT1 stereo pair; Rode NT5 stereo pair x 2; Rode NTG2 shotgun; Royer R-122 ribbon x 2; Royer SF-12 stereo ribbon; Sennheiser MD421 x 4; Sennheiser MKH40 x 2; sE Electronics Titan; sE Electronics SE2200A x 2; Shure SM57 x 12; Shure SM58 x 15; Shure SM58 wireless x 2; Shure SM7B; Shure Beta 58A; Shure SM87A x 2; Townsend Labs Sphere L22 x 2.

Instruments

Steinway Model D concert grand piano; Blüthner grand piano; Grotrian-Steinweg grand piano; Hammond RT3 organ with Leslie cabinet; Streetly Electronics Mellotron; Upright piano; Timpani x 4; Marimba; Orchestral bass drum; Paiste gong.

History

The octagonal live room was originally built by Kingston University as a performance and recording hall, and from the late 1980s it served as the home of the Gateway School of Recording, founded by David Ward. Gateway was the first independent music recording and production school in Europe and a pioneer of hands-on audio education. Ward's influence extended well beyond Kingston: he went on to found JAMES, the Joint Audio Media Education Support body, establishing industry-wide standards for music technology courses across the UK and beyond. Gateway operated from the Kingston Hill campus for nearly twenty years, with studios designed by Dave Harries, whose credits include Sir George Martin's AIR Studios.

In 2016 the space was upgraded and relaunched as Visconti Studio, through a partnership between Kingston University and Grammy-winning producer Tony Visconti. The control room's acoustics were redesigned by Acoustics Design Group. The facility was equipped with the hybrid analogue and digital setup that reflects Tony's commitment to both traditional and modern production methods.

Since opening, the studio has built a varied recording catalogue. Albums by Ralph McTell and Tony Visconti's Apollo 80 were produced here, alongside sessions for Mary Epworth, Tom Speight, BISHI, Holly McVie, and SOL Collective. Daniel Blumberg recorded part of his score for The World to Come at the studio, a project that won an Ivor Novello Award and preceded his Academy Award-winning score for The Brutalist. Producers such as Chris Kimsey, Chris Porter and Pete Walsh have come here to work not only with clients but also alongside students and researchers.

A group in discussion in the red-walled control room

Photograph: Ezzidin Alwan

Testimonials

"It was a joy to record in such a beautiful sonic environment, I shall be back!"

- Chris Kimsey

"I'm interested in giving the students a flavour of what the real world is like in a recording studio. I came from an education where you started as the person who made the tea and worked your way up the ranks and that system doesn't exist anymore."

- Tony Visconti (2016)

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