Advision Studios

Advision Studios
Advision Studios
General information
Address	23 Gosfield Street, W1W 6HG
Town or city	Central London
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°31′11″N 0°8′31″W / 51.51972°N 0.14194°W

Advision Studios was a recording studio in Fitzrovia, central London, England.^[2]

Origins

Founded in the 1960s by Guy Whetstone and Stephen Appleby,^[1] Advision originally provided voiceovers and jingles for television advertisements. The studio was initially located at 83 New Bond Street, but moved to 23 Gosfield Street in 1969.^[1]^[3] The studio complex was built to be able to house a 60-piece studio orchestra and had a 35mm film projector screen for synchronising with motion picture images.^[2] Producer Martin Rushent began his career as a projectionist at Advision.^[4]

History

By the mid-1960s, Advision had become one of the top London studios for rock and pop music. The Yardbirds recorded their 1966 album Roger the Engineer at Advision on a four-track machine. The Move recorded some of their early hits at Advision, engineered by Gerald Chevin, including "Flowers in the Rain" in July 1967.^[5] In early 1968, Advision became one of the first studios in the United Kingdom to obtain an eight-track machine. The Advision unit was built in the United States by Scully Recording Instruments. Among the first artists to use the eight-track machine were T. Rex, the Who and Caravan. In 1970, the studio used a custom 24-channel desk with an eight-track recorder.^[1]^[2] Advision was also among the first studios in the UK to install 16- and 24-track machines in the early 1970s.^[6]

In 1971, a 20-channel Neve console was added to the mixdown suite.^[1] During the 1970s the studios' focus moved towards progressive rock music, and the company began producing music for bands such as Yes, Gentle Giant, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Premiata Forneria Marconi, as well as Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.^[2]

A 1974 re-fitting gave the studio a console built in California by Quad-Eight Electronics for quadraphonic mixing, and the UK's first computer-aided mixdown desk.^[2]^[7] Producers and engineers who worked at Advision include Eddy Offord,^[8] Eddie Kramer,^[9] Martin Rushent,^[4] Paul Northfield^[10] and Hugh Padgham.^[11]

The Gosfield Street location has been occupied since 1993 by a studio called The Sound Company.

Partial discography

The following is a partial list of work either recorded, mixed or mastered at Advision Studios between 1966 and 1986, taken from [1].

Artist	Title
Alexis Korner	Just Easy (1978)
David Bowie	The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Buzzcocks	Love Bites (1978)
Cat Stevens	Back to Earth (1978)
David Essex	Rock On (1973)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer	Tarkus (1971), Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
Elton John	Caribou (1974)
Gentle Giant	The Power and the Glory (1974)
Jeff Wayne	The War of the Worlds (1978)
John Mayall	Empty Rooms (1969)
John's Children	Orgasm (1970)
Kate Bush	The Dreaming (1982)
Mott the Hoople	The Hoople (1974)
The Move	Shazam (1970)
Osibisa	Osibisa (1971)
Pet Shop Boys	Please (1986)
Public Image Ltd	Public Image: First Issue (1978)
Queen	Flash Gordon (1980)
Rush	A Farewell to Kings (1977)
Slade	Whatever Happened to Slade (1977)
Soft Machine	Fifth (1972)
T.Rex	My People Were Fair (1968)
Wham!	Last Christmas (1984)
Yardbirds	Roger the Engineer (1966)
Yes	Yes (1969), Time and a Word (1970), The Yes Album (1971), Close to the Edge (1972)
Rory Gallagher	Rory Gallagher (1971)
Gerry Rafferty	City to City (1978)
Jimmy Somerville	Read My Lips (1989)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Burns, Phil (2011). "Advision Studios". Classic UK Recording Studios in the 60s & 70s. Archived from the original on 16 October 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Brain Salad Surgery (2006). "Advision Studios". Retrieved 9 October 2011.
^ Discogs – Advision Studios – (profile and discography)
^ ^a ^b The Telegraph (7 June 2011). "Martin Rushent". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
^ "Move Remaster Series – Move – Tracklisting". Ftmusic.com. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
^ "Veale Associates – Professional Sound Studio Design". Vealea.com. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
^ Robertshaw, Nick (1979). "Stiff Competition Marks U.K. Scene". Billboard. 91 (22): ES-3. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
^ Welch, Chris (1999). Close to the Edge – The Story of Yes. London: Music Sales Group. p. 123. ISBN 0-85712-042-5.
^ Owsinski, Bobby (2004). The Recording Engineer's Handbook. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard. p. 321. ISBN 1-932929-00-2.
^ "Paul Northfield (Producer) 2013 Interview on the Signals of Intuition". The Signals of Intuition. 99.1 CJAM-FM. 2013-08-27. Retrieved 2013-08-28.
^ Verna, Paul (1997). "HP Off the Record". Billboard: HP-13. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 9 October 2011.