Unit 7 Studio

The Idea

I have been a live and studio engineer for over 25 years now and a professional musician for even longer.

I have been involved in multiple studio design and installation projects for other people.

In 2004 I began to sketch out a design for a studio with a great sounding live room that could feel like a sitting room or a small city club, and yet behave in audio terms like a modern 'zoned' studio.

How to design a studio where musicians would be comfortable playing live in a great sounding environment, whilst still providing enough isolation and 'dampening' for good engineering?

I bought the building in 2005, and after six re-designs, overseen by Paul Wright with help from our friends at Falcon acoustics, work finally started later that year.

The Building

The building was emptied of all interior walls, floors and ceilings. A steel frame at first floor level was constructed to connect the heavy sound proofed ceilings and angled interior walls. This was followed by suspended/under-heated floors for the live and control rooms, new window frames and acoustic doors.

Final wiring and line checks in early 2007 were followed by 2 months of acoustic testing and fine tuning, minor redesign and trial sessions. The first session was in the summer of 2007.

The Present

It's been ten years of music here at Unit 7 and with a few minor tweaks the live room still sounds great and is still a pleasure to work in as an engineer. The control room has undergone monitoring change-overs, mainly with the listening area/control surfaces successfully moving back towards mid-field and installing faster response sub-bass units; but the room shape works well and is still easy to work in for prolonged periods.

The main changes have been the ever growing network, and we now have access to a wide selection of session players, arrangers and producers etc. We now also provide music for film and soundtrack, as well as studio design advice and set-ups for individual 'home' users, who want to interface with us or other studios.

We've had a number of live performance video and multi-track recording sessions with 'invite only' audiences over the years, and it becomes the small city club of that initial inspiration from thirteen years ago.