Housed in an old Methodist Church building in the heart of Hastings on the UK south coast is the new recording studio home of songwriter/producer, Paul Godfrey. The riginator of trip-hop trio Morcheeba looked to Penn Elcom for its design and wiring infrastructure.

The installation entailed delivering all the multicores, cables, stageboxes, patchbays, wall racks plus associated metalwork, and was overseen by Penn’s Leon Whipp who heads the company’s specialist wiring division.

‘Paul has a mix of the latest and some classic kit, all of which is used extensively in the studio,’ Whipp says. ‘The key here was to create a neat, low-impact design that makes the studio quick and practical to set up for any scenario. It was great that Paul really understands the need for quality and longevity, so there were no compromises on the materials we used for the wiring elements’.

Every centimetre of space in the characterful building has been used to serve as an inspiring recording environment, with a large control room, main space and mezzanine floor chamber. The close proximity of Penn Elcom’s HQ and factory facilities was a great advantage, and this was where a 16-way and two 12-way multicores were pre-built and prepped, all using Syntax connectors. Neutrik connectors were also used throughout the installation for the other terminations. ‘There was an emphasis on quality throughout,’ Whipp says.

Cat5 connectors have been used throughout. A 48-way line system from the control room connects the recording spaces (Main Room and Mezzanine) via two stages, with a third stagebox for the drum riser. Video monitor screens linking all three areas are also run via Cat5 lines.

Whipp completed the installation over the course of around a month, but the end-to-end time frame for the installation on site was around three days. Penn fabricated the 19-inch patch panel and all the wall boxes to his design. The patch is located in the control room, at the hub of all the routing. There are two wall boxes in the main room and one on the Mezzanine.

This is one of a number of such studio projects in which Leon has sourced materials from Penn’s extensive stock of Penn/Comus cables. ‘The quality, reliability and breadth of the Penn ranges is great and the service excellent,’ comments Leon, who has also undertaken similar work via Culture Club and Blue’s sound engineer Jimmy Sarikis and Tinie Tempah’s engineer Raphael Williams among others.

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