Old live studios

I've read some articles about studiodesign written by the late Malcolm Chisholm. Who worked in a lot of studios such as Chess records, recording many artist among other's John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Betty Everett, Gene Krupa and many many more. Having worked as a mixer, master engineer, in maintainance i find his writings very interesting. http://pages.ripco.net/~chisholm/rsdp/INDEX.HTM In his liveroom plans there's a reflective frontwall with a reflector above the studiowindow, reflecting down towards the musicians.He also favours lowflats to keep visual contacts. Having realised that bleed is not so bad after all and growing tired of trying to get highly isolated recordings of different instruments to blend i'm very interested in learning more about those old great room and what made them work. Anyone got any articles about liverooms, flats, drumrisers or other interesting stuff to share? Best regards / Toby 8)

The first studio I worked in (1967) was a rectangle around 30 x 15. In that we would place: 6 strings - (4 violins, one viola and one cello) 3 trumpets 2 trombones 5 saxes two guitars 1 piano 1 bass 1 drums 1 percussion The mix was a balance of spill/bleed. :):) In those days there were no additional booths - everyone was in the same room. It was the power guitar music of the late 60s early 70s that created the need for the isolation booth where multi cab marshalls were overpowering drums and acoustic pianos/guitars etc. and the studios changed dramatically with the advent of the Hidely designed studios and the west coast tight dry sound emerged. Fortunately we've moved on from there and the modern studio is more live but still retains the isolation part. Last night I saw Mick Jagger singing in a studio and he was singing in a relatively live room (metropolis in London) but he was surrounded by 8ft dead gobbos to tame it down. cheers john

I've made some pretty formidable gobos and love the sh#t outta them. One side is a slat resonator and the other is dead (cloth covered 703 with air gap). Designed with help from this forum. Great spot folks. I use them to close my room down for mixing and use the slats for drums, acoustics, horns, you name it. the single most versatile and effective tool in the studio. Big sukkas too, 6'x3'x12". I'd love to have 6 more but then I couldn't walk around my studio anymore :( Time to build that new studio..... -bassman