Studio Tour

Far Heath Studios

Northamptonshire recording studio

Engineer and producer Angus Wallace talks about the studio

We recently discovered a fantastic music studio in rural Nothamptonshire that has been running for over 20 years. The studio has been massively refurbished in the last few months and features some of the best equipment and has superb acoustics having been designed by White Mark.

Far Heath has played host to numerous well known bands such as The Prodigy, Spiritualized and The Fall. The studio is set in beautiful surroundings in the Northamptonshire countryside, overlooking Ravensthorpe Lake. It's newly rebuilt and equipped to the highest standard, Far Heath offers all the benefits of a first-class recording studio in an affordable package.

More Far Heath videos

- Big Drum Sound Recording Experiment recorded at Far Heath

- Short video featuring Angus talking about drum recording

- Producer Mike Bennett talks on camera at Far Heath Studios

The recent refurb including centre piece SSL AWS 900+ mixing console, Lexicon reverb, Exigy monitors and superb acoustics should make Far Heath a very attractive destination for artists looking for a well priced recording environment where they can focus on the project. Being just over an hour from London the studio is in a great spot and we were very surprised that we'd never been there before. We hope that the upcoming video tour will tempt you to pay them a visit!

Far Heath Studios picture gallery

angus, the owner of far heath studios using the ssl aws 900

The studio has accommodation with a lounge and kitchen with a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Daylight floods in from almost every angle, it's got such a nice feel.

Chief Engineer Angus Wallace founded Far Heath in 1987, having studied Audio Production in London. Since then he and the other engineers at Far Heath have been recording and producing bands such as The Prodigy, Spiritualized, The Fall, Love And Rockets and Natacha Atlas/Transglobal Underground.

far heath recording studio uk featuring ssl aws 900+ console

In 1993 Angus was awarded the Ampex Golden Reel Award and in 2000, a gold disc for his engineering skills on three Fall albums. In 2001 Angus pushed his knowledge of all things audio further by obtaining a masters degree in Sound Design. An excellent programmer, arranger and mixer, he has also been involved in co-writing with various artists, the most successful being Wishbone Ash.

Special thanks to Angus at Far Heath Studios for letting us in to take some snaps. Hopefully the video feature will be here before the year end. Visit the Far Heath website and arrange to visit, we think it's great and you'll love it!

recording area at far heath studios uk

Equipment at Far Heath Studios

Solid State Logic AWS 900+ console with AWSomation and Total Recall
Exigy 515s, Yamaha NS10s, Avantone MixCubes and Chevin Research amps

Outboard Equipment

2× Neve 1081 Mic/Line Preamps – these are fantastic on everything
1× SSL K Series Channel Strip – truly classic EQ and compression
1× Lexicon 960 L – the king of reverbs
1× Lexicon PCM 70
1× Eventide H300 Ultra Harmonizer
1× Urie 1176 compressor
1× Avalon AD2044 Pure Class A Opto-Compressor (Stereo)
1× Audio Design Vocal Stressor – vintage EQ and compression
1× Valley People Stereo D’essor
1× Yamaha SPX 1000 – multi effects
1× Yamaha SPX 90
1× Alesis Quadraverb
1× DBX 160A compressor
4× Drawmer gates

Microphones

1× Neumann U47 Vintage Valve
1× Neumann M149 Tube
1× Neumann U87 Ai
1× Neumann KM184
2× Royer R-121 Ribbon
2× Akg 414
1× Akg Solid Tube Valve
1× Akg D12e The egg
1× Akg D112
1× Akg C1000
1× Akg 451
1× Beyer 740
4× Sennheiser MD421
1× Bruël & Kjær 4006
2× Shure SM57
2× Shure SM58
1× Audio Technica 4033

Recording

Pro Tools HD2 Accel
Digidesign 192 I/O Interfaces (Expanded I/O 24 Channels)
Apple Mac Pro, two 2.66GHz Dual-Core processors, 1GB RAM, 500GB SATA disk
2× Apple 20" Cinema Displays
Digidesign Sync Box
Emagic EMT8 Midi Interface
G-Tech G-Drive 250GB
4× Lacie 300GB drives
Tascam DA-40 DAT Machine

Headphone Mixes

Dacs Headlight – 4 separate mixes
Aviom Pro 16 Headphone System – 6 individual mixes

Protools TDM Plugins

Waves Gold Bundle
Pultec
Bombfactory
Cranesong Phoenix
Universal Audio
SSL 400 Collection (EQs and compression)
Eventide
URS Bundle
TC Master X mastering software
Antares Autotune 4
Line 6 Amp Farm
Sony Oxford EQs, Transient Modulater, Inflator
Digidesign Massive Pack
Digidesign Revibe

Samplers / Keyboards & Instruments

Clavia Nord Lead
Juno 60 Vintage Synth
Roland JV1080
Roland SPD-20 Octopad
Akai S3000 Stereo Sampler
Korg Kaos Pad
ARP Quadra Vintage Synth
Reason
Digidesign Xpand soft synths
Zendor upright piano
Premier APK 5 piece kit (well maintained) with a 15" Sonor Maple Snare
2× Zildjian / Paiste crashes, rides and hats

Visit the Far Heath website