Advision Studios was a
recording studio
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large en ...
in
Fitzrovia,
central London, England.
Origins
Founded in the 1960s by Guy Whetstone and
Stephen Appleby
Stephen Villiers Appleby (9 February 1912 – 1984) was an English pilot and a leading proponent of the Mignet Pou-du-Ciel "Flying Flea" aircraft.
Early years
Stephen Appleby was born in London on 9 February 1912, the son of Swedish-French pare ...
,
Advision originally provided
voiceovers and
jingles for television advertisements. The studio was initially located at 83
New Bond Street, but moved to 23 Gosfield Street in 1969.
The studio complex was built to be able to house a 60-piece
studio orchestra and had a
35mm film projector screen for synchronising with motion picture images.
Producer
Martin Rushent began his career as a projectionist at Advision.
History
By the mid-1960s, Advision had become one of the top London studios for rock and pop music.
The Yardbirds recorded their 1966 album ''
Roger the Engineer'' at Advision on a four-track machine.
The Move recorded some of their early hits at Advision, engineered by Gerald Chevin, including "
Flowers in the Rain" in July 1967. In early 1968, Advision became one of the first studios in the United Kingdom to obtain an eight-track machine. The Advision unit was built in the United States by
Scully Recording Instruments. Among the first artists to use the eight-track machine were
T. Rex
''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' liv ...
,
the Who and
Caravan. In 1970, the studio used a custom 24-channel desk with an eight-track recorder.
Advision was also among the first studios in the UK to install 16- and 24-track machines in the early 1970s.
In 1971, a 20-channel
Neve console was added to the mixdown suite.
During the 1970s the studios' focus moved towards
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
music, and the company began producing music for bands such as
Yes
Yes or YES may refer to:
* An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no
Education
* YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US
* YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talente ...
,
Gentle Giant,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer and
Premiata Forneria Marconi, as well as ''
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds''.
A 1974 re-fitting gave the studio a console built in California by Quad-Eight Electronics for
quadraphonic mixing, and the UK's first computer-aided mixdown desk.
Producers and engineers who worked at Advision include
Eddy Offord,
Eddie Kramer
Edwin H. Kramer (born 19 April 1942) is a British recording producer and engineer. He has collaborated with several artists now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Led Zepp ...
,
Martin Rushent,
["Paul Northfield (Producer) 2013 Interview on the Signals of Intuition". The Signals of Intuition. 99.1 CJAM-FM. 2013-08-27. Retrieved 2013-08-28.] and
Hugh Padgham.
The Gosfield Street location has been occupied since 1993 by a studio called The Sound Company.
Partial discography
The following is a partial list of work either recorded, mixed or mastered at Advision Studios between 1966 and 1986, taken from
References
External links
Photograph from Advision Studios in New Bond Street (Photo was taken in December 1968. The Scully 8-track recorder can be seen in the background.)The Sound Company Ltd History of 23 Gosfield Street London
at sound.co.uk (with full Advision client list)
{{Authority control
Year of disestablishment missing
Recording studios in London
Former recording studios