Portable Mobile Recording Studio London
Our portable recording studio rig has 20 channels of mastering grade converters (Antelope) – so we can capture high quality audio in any space – a church – a school hall – your front room or garage – or indeed outside in the fields, woods or on the beach! (we hire a silent generator). So if you fancy recording your track or lp somewhere very special and inspirational – we can do that for you.
Live Recording
Here are two location recordings we did recently.
Track 1 was recorded live in a country house room at the same time the video was being shot. We managed to isolate all the instruments enough that the audio bleed was dealable with at mixtime – as you can hear in the final mix. Check the video below!
Sounds like a record!
We used hypercardioide microphones to isolate the guitars and bass from the other sound sources and ran them into some tasty analog mic preamps. In the box below we have the gorgeous Line Audio 8mp pre’s and the high end CLM pre’s for clarity, plus the Yamaha MLA7’s for colour. We leave some rack space empty so we can bring different preamps to each session – we have everything from vintage tube preamps to super clear modern solid state pre’s – and just about everything inbetween such as JJ’s API 512’s to Phoenix Audio Neve clones.
Live Drum Recording
Track 2. We recorded the drums in the drummers garage – which sounds like a sound engineers horror story – but with good mic placement we captured the power and tone needed for the recording …as you can hear in the video below – it kicks like a mule!
So …. fancy capturing your new lp or ep somewhere homey – somewhere churchy – somewhere school hall’y – or indeed in a forest – we can facilitate that there thing.
High End Microphone Preamp
Big Bear Audio MP1 – about as transparent a mic preamp as you can get (it’s up there with the best of them) – so for efforlessly clear vocals – this is our go to preamp. It works flawlessly with any mic – so we can use everything from dynamics to condensers to tube mics or our vintage ribbons and Still capture beautiful vintage toned vocals – it’s a wonder! We run the MP1 into our HRK CP554 compressor – usually with gentle settings just to catch any peaks – though you can drive this lovely comp into near distortion if that’s your goal! What we use for high end voice reel / voice over work.
For something a little more Characterful we have our Neve clone made by the wonderful Phoenix Audio. You can push this mic preamp into harmonic distortion – which may not sound too great by itsself – but in a mix adds a ton of energy to a vocal. The harmonic saturation is so good we use it to mix through. This guy shines on vocals, guitars, classical instruments and drum overheads.
Our HRK CP554 diode bridge compressor is one of our very favourite (and Most portable) compressors. It goes from gentle transient control all the way to near distortion growl – so is good for transparent vocal tracking to room mic destruction – and all points in between! We bring this in our 500 series rack if a bit of extra special is in order (which is mostly always). You want care and attention to detail – that’s what we do! #mobilerecording #portablerecording #locationrecording
Our Amazing JJ Electronics API 512 dual mic pre’s are our go to for drums, guitars and especially vocals – Especially Rock Vocals!! Everything we record through these sounds beautiful, punchy and crystal clear, and the lovely transformers add some beautiful analog saturation to warm up the signal. These guys sound sublime on any sound source – and a Lotta folks say they’re better than the originals!
Analog Eq Equaliser
Our amazing HRK EQ522 modules are 500 series & racked in a portable case so we can bring them along to any recording session. They bring clarity, depth and warmth to any audio source we run through them. They put the sparkle on bass, drums, guitars and of course vocals – plus they are also amazing at adding life to any pre existing dull digital files. You can perk up a mix or master just with a few tweaks on these chaps! For voice over work we use these on just about every session – it’s not the natural clarity they add to voices but the beautiful deepness that gives authority to any actors voice. If you know – you know!
Our amazing Harrison eq’s. We mainly use these for mixing as they Only bring good magic to any production. You can get quite surgical with these guys – but we mainly employ them for gentle broad stroke work to sweeten mixes etc – but! At recording time they can sweeten up any sound source from vocals to orchestras to drums, and are superb at notching out problem frequencies – especially in venues (like churches or halls) that are a bit resonant.
We bring them along in our 500 series rack to make sure your mobile recording is tip top and mix ready!
Analog Glensound BBC Compressor Limiter
These are some of our favourite limiters / compressors – they’re modded from vintage BBC Glensound headphone amplifiers that had limiters built in to protect users from volume spikes – but we rewired them and now they can be used for gentle compression all the way up to distorto mania using the Increase Level key. They superb for adding energy to audio signals and for creative sound shaping. They are such high gain that they can also be used as microphone preamps!
Prices do vary according to venue – but for inside London we charge £320 for a 7 hour day for full band setup.
We do of course charge less for voiceover sessions.
Portable means portable – we can go as far afield as Europe!
For bookings contact: shrunkenheadsstudio@gmail.com