History of the Power House
The Power House was built in 1901 by a young architect William Curtis Green to power the trams of West London. [4] It originally had a 260-ft. high steel smoke-stack. [5] On the façade, are two large female figures that represent 'electricity' and 'locomotion'. [6] This substantial building was conceived to be so large as to prevent any of the houses in the neighbourhood (which still tended to be large properties with influential owners) suffering from the vibration and dust caused by the steam powered generators. Due to competition from Lots Road Power Station in Chelsea, power was only generated until 1920 when the building was decommissioned and stripped of its equipment. Being mainly used as a storage facility, the Power House gradually fell into disrepair.
Then in 1962 the trolley bus service was closed, the chimney was then demolished in 1966. [6] London Transport (by then the owners) decided to redevelop the site. This led to an outcry and the Victorian Society campaigned for the protection of the building from the developers, which in turn led to the building being listed in 1975, [7] one of the first Victorian buildings to be so nominated, and the first that was built in the 20th century. In 1985, the upper part of the building was converted into flats, including a penthouse which is split over three levels. [8] In 1989, after a large scale redevelopment, the lower part of the building was converted into a recording studios, [4] and the home of Metropolis Studios.
Mastering
Established in 1993, Metropolis Mastering was founded by Tony Cousins, Ian Cooper, Tim Young and Crispin Murray, with the aim to “to master audio to a standard never previously achieved”. [12] Metropolis houses five mastering rooms that were designed to a high specification utilising equipment from brands such as PMC Ltd., Bryston and Prism. Two of the rooms were designed with stereo and 5.1 surround sound in mind, while the others are set up for cutting vinyl with a Neumann VMS-80 Disc cutting lathe. In more recent years, Metropolis Mastering began offering an online mastering service which enabled clients to receive these services remotely.
Additions to the original founding team of engineers include: Stuart Hawkes, John Davis, Matt Colton, Andy 'Hippy' Baldwin, Felix Davis, Mike Hillier and Natalie Bibby.
3D Audio
In summer 2021, Metropolis Studios launched their 3D Audio studio for mixing in all spatial formats. It is currently the highest resolution Dolby Atmos studio in the UK. The studio is designed to be as versatile as possible in order to accommodate as many different workflows as possible including realtime immersive mixing of livestreams. The room provides a 22.2 Georg Neumann monitoring system, with loudspeakers in an 11.1.8 configuration. All the loudspeakers are arrayed at 30° of separation to each other. The studio can accommodate all possible formats, incoming mixing consoles and caters for several interface formats including MADI, Dante (networking), AES3 and Ravenna (networking).
When the studio launched, Amazon Music agreed a content deal with Metropolis to become their UK-based headquarters for immersive mixing [13] which in turn, has led to many record labels following suit to utilise the facility. The first three months post-launch saw spatial mixes delivered for the likes of Jack Savoretti, The Amazons, [14] Major Lazer, Rag'n'Bone Man, Disclosure (band), St. Vincent (musician), Bonobo (musician), The Vaccines, Cautious Clay and Anne-Marie.
An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. The audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with good acoustics.
A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally, both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties.
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener. Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems commonly had three screen channels of sound that played from three loudspeakers located in front of the audience. Surround sound adds one or more channels from loudspeakers to the side or behind the listener that are able to create the sensation of sound coming from any horizontal direction around the listener.
Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device, the source from which all copies will be produced. In recent years, digital masters have become usual, although analog masters—such as audio tapes—are still being used by the manufacturing industry, particularly by a few engineers who specialize in analog mastering.
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A sound reinforcement system is the combination of microphones, signal processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers in enclosures all controlled by a mixing console that makes live or pre-recorded sounds louder and may also distribute those sounds to a larger or more distant audience. In many situations, a sound reinforcement system is also used to enhance or alter the sound of the sources on the stage, typically by using electronic effects, such as reverb, as opposed to simply amplifying the sources unaltered.
The Hit Factory is a recording studio in New York City owned and operated by Troy Germano. Since 1969, The Hit Factory recording studios have existed in six different locations in New York City, as well as facilities in London and Miami.
Trident Studios was a British recording facility, located at 17 St Anne's Court in London's Soho district between 1968 and 1981. It was constructed in 1967 by Norman Sheffield, drummer of the 1960s group the Hunters, and his brother Barry.
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An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer…"
The Premises Studios is a music studio complex based near Haggerston in Hackney, London. The studio complex contains 10 commercial rehearsal studio spaces, one acoustic recording studio, one mixing studio, and various private long-let rooms and office spaces.
Armstrong Studios, also known as Bill Armstrong's Studio and later renamed AAV, is an Australian commercial recording studio located in Melbourne, Victoria. During the decade from 1965 to 1975, Armstrong Studios in South Melbourne was arguably the top independent recording studio in Australasia.
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations. Following the release of Atmos for the cinema market, a variety of consumer technologies have been released under the Atmos brand. The initial cinema Atmos systems used in-ceiling speakers, then upward-firing speakers were introduced as an alternative for consumer products. Atmos is also used on some devices that do not have a height channel, such as headphones, televisions, mobile phones, and tablets.
A matrix mixer is an audio electronics device that routes multiple input audio signals to multiple outputs. It usually employs level controls such as potentiometers to determine how much of each input is going to each output, and it can incorporate simple on/off assignment buttons. The number of individual controls is at least the number of inputs multiplied by the number of outputs.
25th Street Recording is a music recording studio in Oakland, California, United States.
Wormhole is the debut album by the English drum and bass act Ed Rush & Optical. Recorded between 1997 and 1998, the album was issued on 16 November 1998 through their self-run Virus Recordings label on vinyl and CD formats. The CD edition was a double disc, the second disc containing an hour-long continuous mix while the LP was a five-disc boxset, with a single track per side. On 26 November 2012 the album was reissued on both formats with new artwork, the LP edition being pressed on green vinyl.
Courtney Hadwin is an English singer-songwriter. She rose to fame by competing prominently on the first season of ITV's The Voice Kids UK 2017 and the 13th season of the NBC competition show America's Got Talent (AGT) the next year. Her latter audition went viral. By the time of her second performance in 2018 on the first live TV broadcast of AGT that season, the video of her audition had been viewed "over 200 million" times, according to show host Tyra Banks as she introduced Hadwin.
The Power House, Chiswick is a former electricity generating station on Chiswick High Road and a Grade II listed building, completed in 1901. It provided power for the London United Electrical Tramway Company until 1917. The upper part of the building was converted for residential use in 1985, and the lower part for use as a recording studio in 1989.
Chiswick High Road is the principal shopping and dining street of Chiswick, a district in the west of London. It was part of the main Roman road running west out of London, and remained the main road until the 1950s when the A4 was built across Chiswick. By the 19th century the road through the village of Turnham Green had grand houses beside it. The road developed into a shopping centre when Chiswick became built up with new streets and housing to the north of Old Chiswick, late in the 19th century. There are several listed buildings including public houses, churches, and a former power station, built to supply electricity to the tram network.
