• London Recording Studios established 1979.
• Specially designed for live bands and voice over recording.
• Friendly relaxed atmosphere.
• 3 great recording rooms, with daylight.
• Yamaha grand piano, vintage Marshall, Hiwatt and Vox valve amps and cabinets.
• Mackie 24 track HDR recorder, Cubase and 2" analogue multitrack.
• Expanded D8B desk with total recall automation.
• Large control room plus separate "chill out" lounge with TV, video and kitchen.
• CD & DVD Duplication and inlay printing
• CD Mastering suite, printing and artwork design
• Transfer old tape formats to new (eg : 2" multitrack, DAT and 1/4" tape to CD/DVD, etc)
• Video transfer to DVD & DVD authoring

Why record at Golddust?
We know that when you come to record with us unless you leave with a recording you're happy with, you're not likely to come again. We're fortunate to have been working with bands and solo artists for nearly 30 years now, and we're very proud that some of the people we worked with in the beginning are still our clients. Some have even brought their own "childrens " bands to us who are now adults themselves - a second generation of musicians!

Lets be honest -with todays cheap technology and "studio in a suitcase" why come to a studio at all? It's certainly possible to achieve great results with some software and a home PC, and once you've bought it you have limitless time and no studio costs. That's a very attractive package.

So why haven't all studios gone the way of the dinosaurs? Well, for several reasons. Although you can go to a shop and buy engine parts, it doesn't make you a mechanic. Similarly, owning a fast PC, soundcard and suitable interface won't turn you into a sound engineer - you'll need time to work out how to use it properly and even then you'll probably become aware of its limitations very quickly. Then there's the question of the space needed to record a group of musicians comfortably, without even beginning to consider indefinable things like how to create the right "vibe" so everyone's comfortable, creative and can give of their best. How many hats can you wear at the same time? There aren't many musicians who excel at engineering, producing and playing all at the same time.

How we can help...
In a nutshell, we'll take care of the technical stuff so you can do what you do best - be creative. From the moment we first opened our doors in 1979 our "mission statement" has always been the same - to record your music and make it sound as good as possible.

This sounds simple, and although the recording equipment we use has evolved out of all recognition (from the 4 track tape recorder of 1979 to the virtually limitless digital tracks, total recall mixing desk and numerous plug-ins we use today) the philosophy remains the same - to provide a friendly, helpful environment where you and your music can flourish.

Although the studio equipment we use to achieve this is important (see list below) providing the right setting for you to relax and be creative in, is equally crucial. A large control room, daylight in every room, a comfortable chill out lounge, kitchen area and most important of all, decades of recording experience.

When recording a backing track musicians tend to be at their most comfortable when they all play together at the same time, in the same area, with that all important eye contact - just like at a live gig. That's when the magic happens, so that's how we built our main recording area - the drummer can be in a separate room behind glass doors for sound separation, but only a few feet away from the other players.

It's like being at a rehearsal, a less pressured situation, and it feels more natural and comfortable.

Of course, we can also offer complete acoustic isolation, if required. We have a variety of different rooms benefiting from various acoustic treatments, ranging from an (adjustable) very live "live" room to a much "deader" acoustic which is perfect for voice-overs and vocal recording.

Classical ensembles (like string quartets, etc) love using the live room. The most popular arrangement of players is usually having everyone in a circle, facing each other, where again crucial eye contact can be maintained.

Our Yamaha baby Grand piano, recently restrung and overhauled, records beautifully. It is tuned regularly but if you are recording a particularly "piano sensitive" piece you might want to consider having it tuned specially for your session. We can arrange for this to be done as closely as possible to your start time - please phone for details.

We also have a Yamaha fully weighted 88 note digital piano which can be used by itself or as a master midi keyboard.to control the many soft synths and keyboard sounds we use.

You may just need to add some overdubs to tracks you are already working on, such as live drums, loud guitars, a real piano etc. That's easy to do, and we can import your pre recorded tracks into our system, record the new instruments and then burn everything back down to DVD for you. Some of our customers who came here intending to just record some overdubs were so pleased with the recordings they achieved that they ended up finishing the whole project here with us instead.

As musicians ourselves we can offer (free!) access and use of a variety of vintage valve guitar amps and cabinets - Marshall, Hiwatt, Vox, Orange etc, all working and set up, ready to go. For guitarists who may never have had the opportunity to play through these before (after all, some of them are over 40 years old) it's often a revelation to stand in front of a "cranked up" Marshall for the first time.

If you're searching for that elusive guitar sound, it's simplicity itself to "mix and match" the various combinations available. 1964 Vox AC30 top boost head through a 1969 Marshall 4 x 12? No problem…

We still have our trusty 2" 24 track Soundcraft multitrack. It doesn't get as much use as it used to, but it's very handy for playing back previously recorded 2" tapes and transferring them onto newer digital formats and burning them to DVDs for archiving or re-mixing.

As we are constantly improving and upgrading our equipment and facilities it's possible that you may need something that that is not yet listed on our website - if so, please phone anyway to see if it is something we can help you with.

Studio equipment...

• Mackie D8B digital desk with total recall
• Mackie 1604 VLZ pro
• Mackie HDR 24 hard disc recorder with removable bay and graphic interface for editing. Burn individual audio tracks to DVD (as AIFF or WAV files, for example) for backup or to transfer to other systems.
• Cubase (with numerous plug-ins) Reason, loads of soft synths, keyboard and drum samples, etc
• Soundcraft 24 track 2" with CM50 autolocator.
• 2 x MOTU master sync modules
• Monitoring via Mackie HR824's (actives) plus original aurotones, and with Dynaudio BM15s powered by a Yamaha XS350 as a backup.
• Very quiet control room - All machines with noisy fans are kept in a separate machine room out of the way.

OUTBOARD

During a mix we generally patch all the tape returns through Cubase to take full advantage of the incredibly powerful plugins on every channel. As well as that we also have a rack of traditional outboard equipment which includes the following :

• Lexicon PCM70
• Alesis Quadraverb
• Alesis Midiverb 2 (x 2)
• Drawmer 1960 stereo valve compressor
• Drawmer LX20 stereo compressor
• TLA C2021 stereo compressor
• Ashley SC50 compressor
• TLA EQ 2012 stereo valve EQ
• 2 x DDLs
• Drawmer DS201 noise gates

MICROPHONES & FOLDBACK

• Neuman U87 (x 2)
• Neuman KM84/1
• AKG 451 (x 2)
• Calrec CM652 condenser
• Beyer M201 (x 5)
• Beyer M67
• Shure SM58 (x 4)
• AKG D12 (x 2)
• PZM (x 2)
• Original GEC 1950's ribbon mic
• 2 independent stereo foldback systems, powered by Quad 405. 8 sets of Beyer DT100 headphones.

BACKLINE

• Yamaha Grand Piano (White) 5'8" Model G1. Recently completely re strung and overhauled - sounds wonderful!
• Marshall JMP 50's (with and without master volume)
• Hiwatt 100 watt valve amp
• Vox AC30 combo and separate amp head (top boost)
• Marshall, Hiwatt & Orange 4 x 12 cabs. These date from the 1960's and 70's and sound amazing!
• Yamaha P150 fully weighted 88 note digital piano
• Tama drum kit - Bass, Snare and 3 Toms (please bring your own hi-hats, cymbals and stands)
• Assorted percussion items

• Bauhaus
• Bucks Fizz
• Malcolm Mclaren
• Brand New Heavies
• Boys Wonder / Corduroy
• UK Subs
• Motorhead
• Nigel Gray (Police)
• Terraplane / Thunder
• Samson
• Angelwitch
• Skunk Anansie
• New England
• Snowboy
• James Taylor Quartet
• Billy Jenkins
• Django Bates
• Julie Felix
• Legend
• Hossam Ramzy
• Nigel Eaton (Page/Plant Band)
• Billy Karloff
• The Steppes
• Bevis Frond
• Colin Blunstone
• Duncan Browne
• The Business
• Bad Manners

• Andy Taylor (Duran Duran)
• Danny Fisher
• Freddie McGregor
• Simply Red
• Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)
• George Martin
• Roachford
• Saw Doctors
• Lisa Stansfield
• Coldcuts
• Paul Oakenfold
• Gary Katz (Steely Dan)
• Terry Edwards (Gallon Drunk)
• Talk Talk
• The Yardbirds
• Daddy Lumba
• A.B. Crentsil
• Budgie
• Dr. and the Medics
• Marian Montgomery
• Len Skeet
• Howard Riley
• Art Themen
• Trevor Tomkins
• Frampton / Weller
• Alex Wilson
• All Majors, etc

CD Mastering

Mastering is the final process that helps turns your CD into a professional product comparable with something you would buy in the shops. It is far too big a subject to do justice to in a few sentences, but the difference it can make to your music is enormous.

Monitoring is via Mackie HR 824s, and for mastering and editing we have a complete Tripledat system with Firewalker and Osiris plug ins, as well as Soundforge with many other powerful plug-ins to cover all requirements.

This system is fast, intuitive and produces great results, and we offer two services :

Unattended :
If you are basically happy with your mixes we will normalise, "top and tail" the songs, make the CD as loud as possible without "squashing" the music and write a PQ'd Red Book standard CD master. We won't EQ, enhance or make any other "artistic" decisions on your behalf, as you've probably sweated blood over the mixes and it would not be appropriate for us to make those sort of decisions without your approval.

Attended :
You will be present at the session and we will work together to sort out any issues that require attention. We have a large collection of audio tools to correct and enhance including equalisers, compressors, limiters, enhancers, pitch shift, time stretch, stereo "widening," de-noisers, de-clickers, and many others.

Transfer and archive:
If you have old tapes, vinyl records or even 78s, we can clean them up and transfer them on to CDs for you. Transfer and archiving is possible between the following formats and machines :

• Sony DT55ES DAT player
• Nakamichi MR1 cassette deck Sony JE 520 mini disc player
• Sony PCM501 + Betamax recorder (Sometimes known as F1)
• Various CD players
• Otari 5050B11 ¼" deck
• Revox A77 ¼" deck
• Akai 4000 DS ¼" deck
• Record deck 331/3, 45 and 78rpm

Cost: £35 per hour.

Recording tips...

Even if you already have lots of studio experience we hope that you might find some of the information below helpful :

Be rehearsed. Make sure that every musician knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing on the day, as it can otherwise turn into a very expensive rehearsal.

Check that all your equipment is working properly beforehand. Studio microphones are very sensitive and unforgiving, and amplifier buzzes and hums that don't matter at rehearsals will be heard in all their glory! Squeaky bass drum pedals should also be sorted out beforehand, and spend some time tuning the drumkit before you arrive. (see article on how to tune drums here http://www.kellyindustries.com/articles/how_to_tune_a_drumset.html)

Always use a tuner (preferably the same one for all instruments as their calibration can vary slightly) and check your tuning before each take.

Arrive on time.

If you're on a limited time and budget, discuss with the engineer how to make best use of your time by allocating enough time for the various processes you will be going through ie : setting up, recording the backing tracks, adding solos, vocals, any other bits and finally the mixing.

Allow enough time for the lead vocal to be recorded properly. A very common mistake by inexperienced bands is to spend too long recording the backing track, running out of time and just having about 10 minutes left over at the end of the day for the singer.

However beautifully recorded your backing track is, normal members of the public (ie : potential buyers of your music) will listen first of all to the singer, so the vocal performance has to be as good as possible.

If there is a particular sound you're influenced by from someone else's CD, it's very helpful to bring it in and play it to the engineer before work begins. We can't guarantee to duplicate the sound, but at least we'll know what you want and we'll all be going in the same direction to achieve it.

Be realistic about your abilities. If you want to sound like a particular player you have to be able to play like them in the first place!

Set a sensible time frame for the number of songs you want to record. You're unlikely to come out with a world class product if you try and record 14 songs in a day (even though the Beatles managed to do this with their first album back in 1963!)

Have a plan B in reserve. If the songs you'd planned to record just aren't working for some reason, abandon them for this session and work on others that you'd also previously rehearsed. Don't waste time analysing what the problem is - you can do that later in a rehearsal room.

If you find that you are slightly ahead of schedule when you've recorded the backing tracks (yes, it does happen!) you might want to make use of the fact that everything is already set up and record some more backing tracks for possible future use. Plus the band will already be "warmed up" and ready to go.

Bring spare strings, drum sticks, food and soft drinks, and we'll supply as much free tea and coffee as you can drink! It's your choice, but alcohol is really not a great idea until all the recording is finished and you've approved the final mixes, as it can severely impair your musical judgement.

Be open to new ideas but don't waste time if they're not working. New backing vocals thought up on the day, for example, can often take a disproportionate amount of time to perfect.

This won't always be possible if you're on a tight budget, but try and mix on a different day than when you recorded - take rough mixes home to check that everybody's playing was OK, but do the real mix with fresh ears on a different occasion.

When listening back, each musician should try not to concentrate on just their own part but rather try and listen objectively to the song as a whole. This is very hard and many musicians never learn how to do it. However, if you can it's a very useful extra skill to add to your musical armoury.

Remember that the song is the most important thing, and that every single instrument or overdub should only be there if it adds benefit to it.

All the production skills in the world can't save a bad song. Generally you'll know if a song "works" if it can be stripped down to just a voice and a guitar or piano, and it still sounds good. Try and establish this before you start recording.

It's always much easier to get the sounds right at source when recording than to try and "fix it in the mix"

Try and avoid the tendency to monitor too loudly. Things always sound great played back loudly, but that isn't how most people will ever hear your music and you can easily fool yourself about what you are actually hearing. Use the main monitors as a reference for tones, etc, and don't be afraid to use the aurotones (do a mono compatability check too) as a final balance for the voice in the mix. Remember that when your song is played on the Radio, TV or as MP3s on a computer, most people will hear it through small inexpensive speakers.

Of course, you also don't want to punish the people who've bought decent listening equipment, so check it on the big speakers too, and finally play it through loudly, just for fun!

Too much choice can be a bad thing. These days with umpteen tracks to record on and almost limitless options for creating sounds, it can be tempting to record far too many musical parts and multiple takes. Try and make decisions as you go along, since every instrument you record has to find a musical space to live with every other instrument on the song, and the lead vocal should always be right at the top of the pyramid.

You'll also be very pleased you did this when the time comes for mixing, as you won't be trying to pick the best take from many nearly identical versions of the same performance.

If you're agonising over whether something you've just played was OK or not, it probably wasn't. The quickest solution is to just go back in and do it again now, as (fixable) mistakes you ignore can come back to haunt you forever every time you hear the song in the future.

Try to be open to new arrangement ideas in the mix that you might not have considered before. For example, when playing live, all the instruments might play all the way through the song from the beginning to the end. That's fine for a gig which is probably loud and exciting, but "on tape" may be different. Try experimenting with leaving out certain instruments or parts until later in the song. They won't be missed by the listener (who has never heard them before anyway) and when they do come in, they will add far more impact.

Mastering your finished mixes will be the icing on the cake, so put the songs in the right order and make the overall volume comparable to contemporary CDs of the same musical genre but without compressing the life out of them. Music has light and shade, so respect the dynamics and don't squash it to death - TV and Radio broadcasters will do that anyway!

When you're considering the final running order for your CD, always put the best and catchiest song first, since if people don't like the first song they're unlikely to want to listen to any more.

And to give you an idea of how things have changed since we first opened in 1979….

And finally, some of our favourite studio requests from over the years......

LINKS :

• Abbagirls : The original Abba tribute duo
• Backing tracks : Quality backing tracks for singers
• Barrysmag : Barrys mag - Support live music in Kent!
• Billy Jenkins : Local maverick guitarist, composer, performer and born again bluesman
• Blueslinks : 1,000's of links to Blues sites
• Danny Fisher : The best living Elvis!
• Julie Felix : Singer, songwriter and folk rock icon.
• Musitoot : Youth band and singers
• Note music - The best of Blues, Soul and Jazz
• Orlando Holiday Home - Unique Rock'n Roll rental home, near Disney
• Purple-online.co.uk - The UKs best Deep Purple tribute band
• Robin Bibi : Busy South-London based blues trio
• Sparkspin : Steve Acworth, amazing custom guitar builder