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Eden Studios is inconspicuously tucked away in a quiet corner of Chiswick, its peaceful courtyard access belying the fact that daily, famous names such as Shakin' Stevens, Nick Lowe, The Jets, Dave Edmunds, and Phil Everly, to name but a few, may be doing a session there. It is one of the top independent studios in the country, and is fully equipped with the most up-to-date equipment. The studio, measuring some 32 x 23 ft, is at ground level and situated at the back of a spacious courtyard with ample parking room. Reception and the lounge area are adjacent to the studio /control room in this part of the building; offices, tape copying suite and workshop are to be found tucked away in other parts of the extensive premises.
In the studio attention is drawn immediately to the unusual and very modern-looking acoustic ceiling, made up of geometric panels cleverly concealing the air conditioning outlets. Each section of the angled walls carries a large flat box from floor to ceiling, each containing three frequencies of bass absorption. The discreet brown and cream colour scheme gives the studio a warm and comfortable feeling; although it is now into its seventh year it still feels fresh and modern. Polished parquet flooring at one end provides a live area on an otherwise carpeted floor.
Eye contact is maintained between sound engineer and artists via windows from the control room on to both studio and a floating isolation booth, with the SSL angled at 90° to the studio to reduce the 'goldfish' effect. Instruments include a Yamaha grand and a Fender Rhodes. Mics are by Neumann, AKG, STC, Electro-Voice, Beyer, Calrec, Shure and Crown (PZM). Equipment in the control room besides the SSL desk with Total Recall includes Studer A800 MkII and Ampex MM-1200 24-track (with 24-24 copying, 46-track, and 16-track heads available); 2-track Studer A-80, Dolby M24 and 361s for noise reduction and JBL 4350 monitors with Crown and Quad amps. A large selection of outboard equipment is provided, including Lexicon and EMT digital reverb and stereo plate; AMS digital reverb with delay line and flangers; Eventide Harmonizers and flangers; ADR Panscan; etc. ..the list goes on. The tape copying suite, upstairs at the other end of the courtyard, includes A80 and B67 2-track machines, Dolby 361s, cassette machines, Klark Teknik graphics and Tannoy Super Red monitors. Shag pile carpeting covers one wall for sound treatment.
The lounge area which has been doubled in size this year contains television and video (120 cassettes), and a video games machine. Kitchen facilities and a shower are also available. The surrounding area is well supplied with restaurants, pubs and fast-food shops (and even a genuine 'greasy spoon'!). The huge games room has darts and snooker. There is a sun-trapping patio to relax on when any sun appears.
Eden's three directors, Piers Ford-Crush, Mike Gardner and Philip Love have achieved success by sticking together through thick and thin for the last 15 years. They faced many problems over the years including compulsory council purchase of their first studio when they had just about got it together, and subsequent difficulties in finding and financing new premises. Piers takes up the history of the studio.
"We actually started off in Mike's bedroom in Wimbledon, before we got our premises in Kingston," he recalls, "and then just together to write and record songs in our spare time. At the time Mike and I were working at the BBC, Mike then introduced me to Philip who had also written some songs, one of which had been recorded by Gerry and the Pacemakers on an album. That was pretty exciting in 1965. As Mike had some recording equipment we decided to get together and write and record some demos. We converted Mike's bedroom into a studio, people heard about it, and started coming there to record their demos. At the time there were only a few studios like RG Jones, Tony Pike, Studio Republic, and a few other independent studios. Demos in those days had to be transferred from tape to direct cut acetate disc — it was long before cassettes. We got quite a good reaction to our demos — people were impressed with the quality, and thought they were done in 'real' studios. We were using Reslo ribbon mics and a mixer which Mike had made. Groups kept coming along there to record and we began to think we had something to offer.
"The crunch came when Mike's parents very inconsiderately decided to move to Reigate! We thought if we could get premises and convert them into a studio we could hopefully pay the rent by doing demos and in the meantime would carry on writing songs and doing our own thing. We spent the best part of a year looking for premises which ended when we found a place in Kingston which had actually been a Congregational Church meeting hall. It was just a room in the middle of a very odd-shaped building which had a supermarket downstairs, a flat around one side and backed on to the Congregational Church. It was about 20 x 16 ft with skylights and really lent itself well to conversion. It had another couple of rooms as well, and the rent was nominal.
"Whilst sorting out the base for the studios here, we made our first capital purchase — a Presto disc cutter with the original 78 RPM turntable! We had to borrow the money from our parents to buy it — it cost about £275. This was a good price, which we only achieved because Phil and Mike, while having a private discussion in the studio in Bracknell about the cost of it, realised that the owner had switched on an intercom and was evesdropping — an early example of bugging! They pretended to bemoan the high price saying how much we wanted it but it was just too dear and we'd have to give it a miss. Suddenly the owner came back in and knocked a huge chunk off! It looked like a heap of old junk but had all the right bits."
Piers, Mike and Phil did the conversion from church hall to studio themselves, with the aid of a lot of friends. Rockwool, chicken wire and fibre board made up the acoustics; because of the wool dust they had to work with polythene bags over their heads. Equipment at the time consisted of two Revoxes (one with selsync), some mics and stands, Grampian spring echo, and the pièce de résistance, Mike's home-made fully transistorised mixer, 30-channel (16 out /24 monitoring) with rotary knobs. "The disc cutter was soon going and we got a contract with a publisher to produce acetates for his overseas companies, a good bread and butter line," recalls Piers.
It soon became clear that they were actually in business, and their clients expected a service. "Things escalated very quickly," says Piers, "and the continual effort to improve the studio took up more time than songwriting. To finance it we borrowed a few hundred pounds from parents, who also acted as guarantors, and spent most of the money on the second Revox. Philip had done some accountancy training so had a good idea about figures and book-keeping and went to see his own bank manager in Wimbledon, with reasonable cashflow figures. I think he was impressed that we were being realistic and that we weren't thinking in terms of making a fortune overnight but talking about a small business dealing in small sums of money that would pay its way — he gave us an overdraft of £400."
The studio gradually built up steady business. Mike, Phil and Piers were there on their days and nights off from their main jobs. Many clients from those days subsequently had big hits including Peter Skellern and John Kongos. From demos it was only a short step to making masters, and one of their first was with a band called Conclusion Is. It was arranged by Harry Stoneham and got quite a few plays in its first week of release and then disappeared! "This small success kept us going, We never drew any money out and had amassed a bit of capital by the time we left Kingston.
"We finally ended up with a 4-track Ampex and were charging £7.50 an hour in 1972, which in those days was good value."
On the move
Kingston Council had been wanting to develop the corner of Eden and Union Street, where the studio was situated, and were threatening compulsory purchase. Ultimately, not being able to find suitable alternative premises in the time allocated, the compulsory purchase came to a compensation claim. It was fortunate that Philip had produced some tracks which they decided to take a chance on by going to Midem; the chance proved a lucky break for them, because a small American record company was really impressed, and paid a substantial advance for an album to be produced. The contract signed with him was duly presented to Kingston Council; it was pointed out that they couldn't fulfil the contract without a studio. Kingston Council accepted this, and after long negotiations Eden got substantial compensation agreed. After that they had to decide whether to pack up altogether and get on with their own careers or do the thing properly.
"By this time a 16-track studio was the norm," recalls Piers. "I actually went to Companies House and went through studios' accounts to see if any of them were making any money. The figures seemed impressive. Studios like Air, Apple, Advision and Olympic were around by then, but there still weren't a lot — probably less than half the number there are now. There were very few independents, run as we were, by a small team. In the end we decided to carry on. We looked over the whole of West London; we wanted to be closer to the West End than Kingston. Some of the places we rejected have since become studios, and one hears of problems they are having that we foresaw, trouble with neighbours, structure-borne noise, and so on."
Mike found their present premises. They consisted of a yard and a big building at the back of the yard which had once been a laundry, but was then being used for making big fuel tanks. "It was in a terrible mess; the roof was in a state, drains were blocked up and the yard was occupied by an enormous oil tank. It really had zero going for it, but the area for the studio was big without pillars or RSJ's holding the roof up. Mike convinced us that if we used our imagination we could begin to see possibilities. We did. The premium for the lease exactly used up all our savings from the previous six years. We put this down at a stage when we had no idea how much conversion was all going to cost. All we knew was that we had the premises and a bit of experience of running the business.
"It was now time to plan the new studio. We visited all the acoustic experts then practising and of all those
Ken Shearer was the one we felt we could work with. One or two of them were rather offhand, perhaps sensing a cost-conscious approach rather than the blank cheque method of acoustic treatment where sound is absorbed by empty bank accounts.
"Ken visited the site with architects Graham Anthony and Peter Wadley and drew up a scheme. At first we treated this as a sketch plan to form a basis for discussion, then after asking various silly questions we realised just how Ken had carefully balanced all our requirements and selected the exact dimensions to create manageable acoustics. The final building plan was sent to a quantity surveyor. His estimates came back at exactly twice what we thought we could afford. We talked to the architect again and some builders decided that with a few changes we could get pretty near our figure. Now, whenever anybody tells me they're planning a studio — and I know three people who have built major studios — I warn them its going to cost twice what they think and take twice as long. It was an ongoing nightmare and occasionally a farce.
"The date for leaving Kingston arrived. Mike was quite well on with building a new desk, which was exactly sized to fit into the old control room at Kingston. The problem facing us now was how would we get it out of the roof space where it was being built at Kingston? The legs had to be removable, which meant lots of extra wiring and plugs. We managed it in the end with the aid of specialist removers and it was moved to a portable hut in the yard at the new premises for Mike to carry on working on it. He and a friend of ours, Chris Glass, put a fantastic amount of work into it — what started off as a 4-track desk, gradually expanded to a 16-track. They worked away during the 3-day week with cardboard over the windows on our 'off' days so no-one would know we were using electricity — two soldering irons!
"Finance was a problem again — but it was to be nine months after moving to these premises before compensation with Kingston Council was finally settled. This was in 1973, the time of the first oil crisis and the 3-day week — a bad time for anybody setting up a new business. We had found a backer who was interested in putting money into the business; and just as we were about to set off again for Midem, with artist's impressions in hand, and builders on site, we heard that his money had been frozen in a 'fringe' bank! We were out on a limb again, but decided to go to Midem anyway and phone the architects from there to explain the situation! We asked them to complete the work they had started with the few thousand we had, without going any further."
It was quite a few months before they did have the money to pay anybody. "I think that the fact that we were honest from the start went in our favour," Piers reflects. "People were very fair and gave us credit. After Midem I spent any time, when not working at the BBC, going through Yellow Pages phoning financial institutions. We discovered that our mistake was in wanting to borrow only about £20,000. If we'd wanted £20,000,000 they would have been interested!
"One day I called a merchant bank, asked for their Investment Department and went into my standard spiel for about the 50th time, but the reaction was different. 'How old are the directors ?' was the first question. 'Around 28,' I replied.
'Well, that's the right age — we'll come and see you.' Two energetic young guys turned up, asked all the right questions, looked at the books, the premises, were very friendly and things never looked back. Why can't more bankers take this approach ?"
The merchant bank bought a quarter share in the company and made available a sizable loan, which Eden's own bank matched.
"A major factor in getting the money was the fact that we could show five years of business experience, albeit handling small sums, but the books balanced, the business had developed and we'd made a profit. As well as this we had sensible cashflow projections for the future. By the time we finished our written presentation even we were impressed!
"Ken Shearer's work provided the basis for everything — with duff acoustics you're beaten from the start," says Piers. "We are eternally grateful to him. It was before the days of Eastlake and off-the-peg finishes; the architects designed the acoustic wall units — 'Stonehenge' blocks which contain several resonant absorbers in each one, to satisfy Ken's acoustic specification. The ceiling is unique — like an inverted geometric landscape. It is so unusual that a photo of the studio was printed in Music Week upside-down!
"Anybody planning to have a studio built for them should beware. It is specialised work and very few builders have any experience of acoustics. Only by being on site at 8 o'clock one morning did I manage to stop the builders putting wooden bracing struts between the two frames of the window between the control room and studio! Obviously these have to be isolated to stop sound transmission. Minutes later they would have been covered up with Rockwool and for years we would have been wondering why we had such poor separation between the studio and control room! We also discovered that it is traditional practice in the building trade to measure the diagonals of a room and if they are equal they assume that the room is built square. When we explained the geometrical flaw in this thinking the builders were amazed; they had never heard of a rhombus. Unfortunately we couldn't afford a site foreman to co-ordinate all the trades and supervise the fine detail.
"The main advantages of the premises at Beaumont Road was that we had sufficient clear space to build studio, control room and separation booth inside the existing structure without having to incorporate any of the old building. This has been a problem with a lot of conversions where existing floors or roofs have had to be used. We are also lucky in that we have no adjoining walls with any private premises and that it was a single storey building so we have never had any problems with neighbours and structure-borne noise.
"As time went on sure enough costs kept rising. Finally, when the estimates came in for fitting the acoustic treatment and finishes for the control room and studio it brought the final cost very neatly up to the figure originally quoted by the quantity surveyor. Of all the trades and professions that we used in the building the only one I was left with any respect for was quantity surveying."
The studio was finally completed in 1975, and by that time Mike and Philip were working there full-time. Piers joined them after the first year. They went again to Midem now with photos instead of artist's impressions. In those days a new studio was a novelty and they got a lot of interest. "Studios were lacking in atmosphere then, they were rather stuffy and utilitarian. Nobody thought of the artists having to work in there. We built ours with artists in mind — if they liked coming here they would come back again. We remembered how people had liked the atmosphere at the demo studio and we realised how important it had been. Equipment consisted of Mike's 28/16 desk, 16-track Ampex, 2-track Leevers-Rich, Dolbys and an EMT reverb plate — not much else. In those days there wasn't much outboard gear around. We did get a steady flow of bookings from the start, but no big names. Most of our clients were independent producers and fairly small production companies although we did some work for major record companies. Out of the blue one day we got a booking from the Bay City Rollers — the street was full of screaming girls and we felt the millenium had arrived. It helped a lot, our name was on a good-selling album. We went along for quite a few years after that doing very good business, fully booked, paying off debts without producing any monster hits.
"Our first successful record was by Brotherhood of Man which was a big hit in Europe. We also did an album with Graham Parker and The Rumour called Howling Wind which was well received in the States. Another good early contact was Dave Robinson of Stiff Records which led eventually to us doing lots of work for Stiff and also people like Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds. They were very loyal over many years and made lots of successful records here. This put us on the map and from then on we had more work than we could always fit in. We were offered a lot of big name acts that we would like to have done but couldn't because we were fully booked."
Re-equipping
In 1980, everything still going well, Eden decided to revamp their studio, starting with the multitrack. Choosing the Studer A800 Mk II was fairly easy but deciding on a console proved more difficult.
"It was almost as agonising as finding new premises," says Piers, "we had to think of the impact it would have on our clients, many of whom loved the old desk and didn't want to change. Our opinion was that we could have got many more years use out of it, but we are in a competitive business; other studios were replacing equipment and it was obvious that it was going to become harder to get good business. We looked at a great number of desks. We were very spoilt because Mike's desk had features on it in terms of echo routing and cuts that you couldn't get on current boards. We didn't want to spend a lot of money and have fewer facilities. We had built up an excellent reputation and couldn't let that go downhill.
"In the end we went for Solid State Logic, nearly the most expensive. We had rejected it originally as too expensive and gimmicky but after looking round the market and having a play with it we changed our minds. We did our sums and decided that if we were going to keep an edge in a declining business we would have to get the desk that in our estimation gave us the best facilities and was the best desk on the market. We had to be prepared for customer resistance; maybe they wouldn't pay extra money because they didn't want the extra facilities; maybe they would feel some magic would be lost because of the old board. In the end we needn't have worried — they fell in love with it. People always ask if we have had any problems with the desk, but they have been tiny (the faults I mean!). Obviously anything of such complexity has to have its shakedown period which fortunately in our case was limited to a number of ICs going down over the first month. Since then it has been wonderfully reliable. Any faults that may occur are usually such that they don't affect the session and can be covered by redundancy within the desk.
"Because of studio commitments we only had a week for installation. The desk was delivered on a Monday and the first session was on the following Saturday, which wasn't a desirable state of affairs, but people were desperate for time and it did cause a bit of nail-biting and some irritating minor faults; but SSL really backed us up with cars racing to and from Stonesfield — they're very nice people to deal with it. It has definitely been worth it for us. "The Total Recall facility has been an absolute boon to us because we only have one studio. You can do a lot of back-to-back recording of ongoing projects and it gives people total confidence that they can come back to the board as they left it. This would not happen if the tape op just produced pieces of paper or a polaroid photograph. We've had sessions running for a week with one in the daytime and another one at night; every evening the desk was reset. Another great attraction is that when people want to remix they can go back and reset the desk in 40 min to exactly as they left it in every way. You can make small adjustments and remix in a few hours rather than a whole day. SSL desks are going into lots of studios now and we're proud to have been the first independent commercial studio to install one.
"Studios can never feel complacent about equipment. In the end only the best will do and it's usually the most expensive. We're always looking at new outboard gear, mics and speakers. We've auditioned different monitors four times in the last year — it takes a full day and a lot of lifting — and in the end we still prefer our JBL 4350s. Last year we built some massive concrete plinths for the control room monitors which has given us tighter bass reproduction. Also we put parquet floors down in a third of the studio, something we wouldn't have needed in the 'high-separation' days.
"New equipment has to be judged closely for cost effectiveness. Some outboard gear really doesn't earn its keep and its appeal may be short-lived but clients expect to see current items in the racks. This is another reason for charging sensible studio rates. Studios that try to keep a low rate find they're caught in a 'poverty trap' of not attracting good business and not making enough profit to move up the market. It's a delicate balance. The fact that we buy the best equipment is all part and parcel of how we see ourselves in relation to the music business. Record sales are down and record companies want value for money; if they are going into new projects they want to find the best they can. I hope everybody will recognise that you can only get consistently good results from producers and artists in a studio with the best and most professional acoustics and equipment. Otherwise you are taking a chance. There's nothing like re-recording or endless remixing to kill the magic of a record. We do good business putting a sparkle back into economically-recorded multitracks.
We do all our mixes at 30 in /s on ½ in tape. I don't think, sound quality is the main ingredient of a successful record but a well run, well equipped studio can make a 'major contribution' as they say.
"It is quite interesting to note how recording has changed in the years since we started. When we started we were doing 30-piece orchestras with strings and brass quite regularly for some companies; most records had a big string section, or brass, and we did lots of those line-ups. It was great experience for everybody. Also everybody wanted a great degree of separation in those days. There was a great cult for building drum booths and screening everybody off, solo artist playing the piano and singing which created separation problems; gradually that has all changed — we've only done one string session in the last 15 months. There is still some brass work being done. Sessions have got smaller and have even gone away from loud guitars — the staple sound of pop for 25 years — although we have done a lot of rock'n'roll-type records. The unfortunate thing for engineers is that we started off with big sessions and lots of natural instruments; gradually this has gone down to drums and bass and most overdubs come from synthesisers and keyboards. People get very little experience of miking up natural instruments and using their ears about mic placing in the way that we had to do only seven years ago. We had to think and plan out how to lay out the studio. Miking up a drum kit is about the last practice of the art. When rockabilly came in engineers were phoning each other asking how to mic a double bass.
"I was disappointed to hear a quote made by a girl singer in the popular press recently — possibly it was misquoted — that the music business was 'full of people trying to rip artists off,' and listing among these management, record companies and studios. This is unfortunate because studios must be the least 'ripping-off' element in the whole of the music business. All we can do is charge a sensible rate to get a reasonable return on what is an enormous investment in capital and hope that people like us enough to keep coming back. You can't rip people off by providing the best service. You can't put pressure on them. If they don't want to pay for what you are offering they won't come. Our own rate reasonably reflects the cost of gear we have here and the fact that people will get something good for their money. After all it is not just providing the studio and the equipment, people need to be looked after while they are in the studio, everything from hiring musical instruments to taking phone messages or even occasionally doing some shopping for them when they're stuck in the studio for days on end.
"It is unfortunate at the moment that there is so little upward movement for young people coming into the business. I know from the enormous numbers of letters we get that it is an area which holds a fascination for people but there is so little movement now it doesn't present great career prospects. There is a danger that somebody with only average ability may find his career has become static, although he's only in his early 20s. Unfortunately until you do the job you can't know if you really have a gift for making records. You have to take advantage of any chance to work your way up from assistant to engineer, and from engineer to producer or into studio management. It is a crowded profession but hopefully talent will out. So very few people have that perfect combination of electronic understanding, musical ability and personality.
"The luckiest thing of all is that the three of us have been able to get on with each other and stick together for 15 years. Being a small team has made it easy to take decisions although we each have a different approach to any problem, but knowing each other so well we find it possible to sit down and hammer out a decision. Usually if we agree about it, it will be the right decision. It is rather like a marriage. We have also been very fortunate with the people we have had working with us over the years. Roger Bechirian started here as an assistant and is now a successful freelance producer. Neill King and Philip Vinall are our engineers and Irene Kelly assists. Freelance producer and engineer Rod Houison also does a lot of work for us. Sue Brookes looks after the office and bookings.".
The road to lasting success is not a straight one but Eden seem to have travelled it without succumbing to the setbacks.
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