Ye Olde Pye
By Fran Ashcroft
By the time I worked at the classic Pye studios in the mid 70s and 80s, the 60s gear had gone – except for the great mics (U47s, 67s, 87s mainly) – and huge Tannoy monitors…though the Marble Arch facility still had a uniformed doorman! But it lagged behind the state of the art of the day, and wasn’t doing well – even at a knockdown £15 per hour.
Studio 1 was the big live room, not unlike Abbey Road #2, but more reflective. No iso booths, just screens. All the outboard fitted onto one small trolley, wheeled between #1 and #2 studios. And not much notewotrhy in it – an Eventide harmonizer, whooppee! Reverb was stereo plate and tape delay. The only upgrade that really took place over the years was the installation of the Studer 24 tracks, Neve desks, some NICAM automation and a complete and misguided overhaul of #2 by Westlake, who ruined it. The only session I ever did in that particular room was abandoned; it was so dead and hermetically sealed, everyone ran out with raging headaches after 45 minutes.
Studio 2 had been the Pop room, where the majority of the Kinks classics were recorded; in fact many 60s greats, from the Stones to Small Faces used studio 2. It housed a simple Ampex 4 track, along with echo chambers, and of course their own hand built gear – Pye compressors etc.
But for me it was the huge Studio 1. Much of the recording done there in its later days were budget “The Sound Of…” and “Tops of the Pops” albums, done in a few hours with staunchly unionised session musos. They couldn’t tempt rock bands in very much as the gear was dated, and there was no marketing at all to my knowledge!
However, there was still a popular cutting room run by the great Malcolm Davies – mastering engineer for most of the Beatles releases and mentor to Geoff Emerick and Glyn Johns, no less. That was a man who really knew his stuff.
A relaunched Pye (latterly known as PRT) would have made a great vintage style studio – and I proposed that to the owners in the mid 80s. But lucrative profits from the late 80s property boom sealed the fate of the central London studio, and the building was sold. Now it’s a casino.
Now there’s an idea for struggling studio owners!
