I'm reading a book with many accounts from George Chkiantz, and Vic Smith, engineers from many LIB sessions. They rave about the Studio 1's big room, the 80 ft ceilings. Which room (in the pics) is this exactly?

Studio 1 was only 28 feet high. 60x40x28 to be exact.

Yeah, assumed it wasn´t as high as 80 feet?
Check out the book by Phil Brown also if you are into the Olympic years. Its only one or two chapters of his book, but interesting if you´re into mik´ing and room ambiance and that sort of stuff. Could scan it for you (at some point) also.
Chkiantz is a funny fella. Are you reading the one when he rambles on about "Monkey Man" and how the engineer "ruined it"?

I'd guess these with the London Bach Choir recording YCAGWYW are in the big room at Olympic (unless, of course, one of the real experts knows otherwise)

Quote
Palace Revolution 2000
I'm reading a book with many accounts from George Chkiantz, and Vic Smith, engineers from many LIB sessions. They rave about the Studio 1's big room, the 80 ft ceilings. Which room (in the pics) is this exactly?

Watch One Plus One for lots of footage inside that big room.

Quote
Palace Revolution 2000
I'm reading a book with many accounts from George Chkiantz, and Vic Smith, engineers from many LIB sessions. They rave about the Studio 1's big room, the 80 ft ceilings. Which room (in the pics) is this exactly?

Watch One Plus One for lots of footage inside that big room.

Nice footage inside Olympic...





'Pathe Pic' recording of Olympic Studios first recording session 1966 starts about 04.40.

There is some interesting detail here, The man at the Ampex 4 track is Dick Swettenham, co-director and founder member of Olympic. He and I designed all the desks at Olympic together, then later marketed as Helios when Dick moved to his own company with Chris Blackwell and Glynn Johns being financially involved (Correct me if I am wrong) The Deck of this machine is in my store. Frank Owen is the assistant, later to run Island Studios for Blackwell. The desk has 24 inputs and contains the modules I have here in my studio. The C12a that Christine LeGrand is singing into is in my mic collection. Keith Grant 1 02 2009

1969...





2009...

video: [www.youtube.com]

The staff of Olympic Studios, London, decided to form a band and be the last people to record at the studio before it closed! Recordings took place over the last week of January 2009 with the main performance on Thursday 29th. The studio closed its doors for the last time the next day.

Olympics future...

[www.iorr.org]





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2011-10-08 13:31 by His Majesty.

Thanks, His Majesty - those videos of the Olympic Band are fun. What a great way to say goodbye to the studio. When YCAGWYW finally comes round on the Track Talks (if I'm still alive in 2037) I know which video I'm going to post.

Thank you so much Phil. Yes, I ve seen 1 plus 1 a zillion times. I was just not sure if that was the room. I was kind of dreading asking this question, and then get answers with pics that I have seen many times, LOL.
And thanks Robberbride. I will definitely check out that book. Yes I am reading the section where he goes on about MM. He does state that nowadays he sees that it is as good as the rest of the album.
He also tells a funny tale about the recording session of the choir on YCAGWYW. It sounds little like some Keithian exageration, but still.
I LOVE how they discuss and brag about the rooms, and the sounds; what they did and how they were aware of what they had. I don't like that today we use samples to re-create so much of this. I mean, you can get pre-sets of hall reverbs that are called "Big Room Olympic '68 w/ back door ajar" e.g.
I was reading about the San Francisco duo called "Girls"; two guys who know their rock, and gospel history very well. And they found little trashy rooms, and got adventurous and daring in their miking techniques, going for the Muscle Shoals room, or the Ladyland.
recently I was recording w/ my own fellas, and our engineer had done a self imposed course in Glyn Johns miking. he came in with a tape measure to mike the drums. None of this 18 mikes on drums anymore - we had four select mikes (cant; remember which ones) in proper places. two of them were basically overheads. We did make a lot of fun of him and that tape measure until we heard the results.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-10-08 16:50 by Palace Revolution 2000.

God Phil, where do you get this footage? LOL The soloist in that 60's Swindalls clip looks possessed. The ceiling does look pretty high.

Plain ol' youtube and the groovy folks who uploaded it.

Regarding the Monkey Man session(That Sean Egan book is ace btw!). I don't think i've knowingly seen pics of the smaller room in which it was recorded.

The DVD extras for "Ladies & Gentlemen..." feature Mick & Charlie visiting Olympic Studios (as well as Sunset Sound and Stargroves). Good stuff, that.