The original recording home of Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull and an early incarnation of Radiohead, Woodworm Studios has new management and has completed a full technical refurbishment.
The 30-year old rural residential facility has upgraded is entire equipment collection and technical installation, makinga Solid State Logic Duality SE mixing console the centrepiece of the studio control room.
Duality was the key investment, bringing together the outboard gear, DAW and multiple recording spaces within a new control room: ‘Duality was the first piece of equipment that I made a decision on, and I renewed and revitalised the studio around it,’ says owner/engineer Stuart Jones. ‘I’ve spent a year and a half basically rewiring and starting from scratch with all of the equipment, outboard gear, DAW and monitoring system centred on Duality. I wanted to create an environment where producers and engineers could walk in and would feel familiar and very happy to use equipment of this calibre. My clients know they will get the right sound from the moment they walk in and see Duality.’
The facility comprises two buildings, each with accommodate for extended production bookings. The main building includes a large double-height live room and associated isolation booths on the ground floor, with a mezzanine level that contains a guitar recording room and the studio’s control room. The Chalet has tielines that run from the control room in the main building to its smaller studio space, which is ideal for drums or brass sections.
The refurbishment has expanded Woodworm’s role from that of a creative recording space to include remixing.
‘I’ve taken projects that I’ve recorded over the years and the sound through Duality is vastly superior,’ Jones reports. ‘Duality imparts new life to these older projects and my clients love this. They tell me it’s like hearing something for the first time. You have a preconception of how you’ve heard it in other rooms and on other equipment, but Duality makes every track sonically blossom. Another reason that I went with the SSL was for the VHD mic pres that come with Duality. I can now offer my clients, both the super clean, signature SSL sound and the very different VHD colours when laying down tracks or mixing. Just running audio through Duality is a pleasure.’
With its DAW control and 5.1 monitoring, Duality has also opened the doors to sound for film and video game clients: ‘With Duality, we can go between the digital and analogue domains seamlessly without breaking the flow of the session because of the on-board DAW control,’ explains Jones. ‘You can be focused on the analogue side of a session even though you’re working in the digital domain at the same time. Duality is truly the centre of the studio because it allows us to focus on the audio and not on a bunch of screens, and that is the commercial success difference between Duality and other consoles.’
