Stag Studios are the first and largest established professional recording and rehearsal complex in Witham, Essex. Situated conveniently just off the A12 makes us easily accessible from the North and South. We are close to the town centre making us ideally situated.
Our facility is in excess of 4000sq/ft housing FIVE high spec sound studios, a dedicated low cost drum practice room and contains at the heart a high spec Mackie Hardware & Steinburg Software Recording Suite incorparating a vast range of professional plugins & VST instruments for full control of as many tracks as required ensuring plenty of room for the full production. Our software is completely compatable with home recording sofware so we can take your tracks & sweeten them up right through to the mastering stage. The control room is coupled to a 260sq/ft live area & a comfortable relaxing lounge to chill out on between takes!
Our control room and live area for recording has been specifically designed by professional acoustic consultants to give the best possible shape for recording live instruments, mixing and mastering. Our Auralex acoustic treatment has been carefully installed to fine tune the rooms as an extra layer onto the already treated walls; this treatment is specific to our room shape and structure.
Site last updated: 14/05/2011
Exciting names coming through the doors at Stag!
All five of our rehearsal studios are of a premium standard. They are acoustically tuned using our custom design, special dense acoustic panels to give a great mix of your live sound wherever you stand, allowing you to hear what you are playing and improve on your music. Each studio is isolated from the next one and soundproofed to a very high standard with floating rooms. This means you wont have to listen to the band next door while you are trying to concentrate on your session!
For the musician(s) this is the most enjoyable part and yet the simplest, you only have to know your music. We offer guidance and advice to ensure you get the best from your session(s). This will be explained in detail prior to your session, but quite simply you come in and enjoy the experience.
For us, capturing the sound and performance correctly is the most essential part of the process. Too often we hear, "You can fix it in the mix". This isnt strictly true; the absolute best way to get the right sound is to capture it right in the first place. We at Stag prefer to "enhance it in the mix!"
We do have the technology and skills to replace drum sounds or re-tune those vocals. In fact we could stitch together a whole tune given the bare essential notes if we wanted to, but we use these tools for what they are meant for and not an excuse for recording it badly in the first place.
Stag Studios take a different, more refreshing approach to Mixing and Mastering. We have always had the opinion that mixing & mastering should be done on a different day with 'fresh ears', it means more accurate judgements can be made from the band as they will not have had their ears being subjected to their loud instruments & can make valued suggestions to how they would like thier music to sound. However we do understand that it is not always possible due to budget restrictions, but do not panic! Our engineer will have been protecting his ears throughout the session using ear plugs when working in the live area when the band are playing & keeping the monitors at a safe level during tracking & monitoring. This means his ears will be in good shape to work on your music if things all have to be done in the same day. In this case for efficiency the engineer will mix the music with the client(s) out of the control room, giving them chance to settle their ears. When the engineers mix is complete the client returns, listens thoroughly & will be in an adequate position to make any necessary changes to the mix.
Very often we work with clients on tight budgets & we can achieve fanatstic professional results in minimal time.
We know how important your music is, that you will want to play it to everyone and may sell hundreds of copies, so we take just as much pride in it as you do. After all it is likely to be printed on the CD where it was recorded, so it is just as much in our interest for it to sound awesome as it is yours! These methods work well for us; we have many clients who return again and again, and each of them are happy to recommend us to everyone.
We keep your files & mixes for 8 weeks, so any edits or mix changes required must be made during this period. We'd like to promise to keep them longer, but archiving every project we have done would mean keeping a huge stack of hard drives! So we recommend you bring in a USB hard drive to take your own projects away, this would mean you could return at any time to make changes to your mixes. How can we make minor changes to your mix weeks later after we have worked on several more projects since? Well, our high-end professional equipment allows us to store all the edits, volume envelopes, pan, mute and fader automation, effects settings etc. Our mixing desk has total recall and 'flying faders'. Its fun just to watch it working! This flexibility allows us to perform the most complex of audio moves that wouldn't be possible on a standard mixer even with a hundred fingers!
The mastering process has several stages of audio manipulation; it adds body, clarity and shine to the mix making the project a commercial standard of sound. The art of mastering requires a lot of experience, it is not as simple as attaching Waves L3 Maximiser to your output bus while mixing on a laptop! It requires the optimal listening environment, high quality specialist equipment & software & various stages of spectral manipulation. So leave it to us, your music is in good hands! Of course if you have anything in particular in mind or a commercial CD you want your sound to be like simply tell us & we'll match it as closely as possible.
Should you have a project you recorded elsewhere that is missing that sparkle & punch then have us master it for you. We are so confident that you'll love what we can do for your music that we offer to do a FREE sample of one of your songs for your evaluation. Simply drop in a CD, letting us know which track you want us to do for you. We'll then master a section of it for your evaluation, this will also enable us to let you know how much we will charge should you decide to to go ahead. When you hear how much better it sounds you'll want to book us to do all your tracks, however should you decide we are not for you then you have lost absolutely nothing at all!
When we quote for your project, we do not have any hidden costs. The time you book is for recording your songs & it includes the engineer & recording equipment.
Browse the website, explore the photos of the studios, listen to the recordings we have done on the sessions page and make an appointment to come and have a look around. You'll be back time after time!
Copyright ©2003-2009 Stag Studios.
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