SIXTIES

On the top left, you can see the air conditioning vents above the drum cage. The huge air conditioning unit, which we took from Harry Balk's Impact office is just by this doorway. It cooled the lobby...the control room and the studio.

I think the drum booth was one of those additions to the studio, like the catwalk, that would evolve after the onset of construction. In fact the drum booth might have been the very last thing built, well after the opening of the studio.

Drums are difficult to separate during a recording session. Various sound baffles would be placed around the drums but it was inevitable that a certain amount of drum sounds would bleed into some other instrument's mike.

The idea of the drum booth was to minimize this bleed. The inside of the booth was padded and the ceiling was at an angle, so much of the sound stayed within the room.

The rectangular front window was open allowing the drummer to feel he was part of the group by not isolating him behind glass.

I'm sure a certain amount of bleed was inevitable, but the booth worked quite well.

Bobby Eli reminded me how the rhythm guys would play right in front of the drum booth. That was his experience when he recorded at Tera Shirma.

The string rooms (top right) were great rooms. Quite large...maybe 20' x 20'.

The string room's interior was an acoustical tile of some sort to give the room brilliance.

The horn room's interior was burlap covered insulation which gave the horns a nice sound.

Generally, from what I remember, it was rare when both rooms would be used simultaneously.

The rule in most R&B sessions was horns and strings were done separately.

In fact if it was only a string session, that would be done on the studio floor. The extremely high ceiling made for good string sounds.

The floor space that shows in this photograph accounts for approximately 25% of the available studio floor space, so you can get some idea how large the main room was.

For you technical types....note the microphone in the bottom left pic.

A Neumann U67 with external power supply.

Good mics.

The image looks across the floor to the control room.

The bottom right image shows the upstairs vocal booth.

Continued