GearBox Announces Cream Music Recording Facility

GearBox has announced the ‘Cream’ music recording facility, a new business venture in partnership with Chris Dibble, former studio manager, and chief engineer of the world renowned CTS Lansdowne Studios.
Cream will be a large-scale; music recording/mixing studio housed within the ‘White Rooms’ media production complex in GearBox’s West London headquarters. The studio has been designed by Roger D’Arcy, of Recording Architecture, and is purpose built and equipped to offer a professional, high-quality environment for music recording, with an emphasis on film scoring and sound to picture productions.
GearBox Managing Director Richard Eastwood commented: “We are very proud to be partnering with Chris Dibble in our new Cream studio business venture, we have been dealing with Chris for many years, and have great deal of respect for what he achieved in his time at CTS Lansdowne, his reputation as a studio manager and recording engineer in the film scoring community is second to none - thirty years of running a very successful studio really speaks for itself.”
The Cream studio is due to become operational Summer 2007, and has already generated a great deal of interest from clients who formerly made CTS Lansdowne their favoured film score recording studio of choice.
The studio and will feature a new 72 channel Solid State Logic Duality large-format analogue mixing console, a custom built ATC SCM 330AL/SCM 150A 5.1 surround monitoring installation, and an Apple Mac Pro based Digidesign Pro Tools|HD3 Accel/48ch I/O system as standard.
A comprehensive choice of vintage and classic outboard processors, reverbs, delays and microphones will be available, and an innovative High-Definition, non-linear video projection system will feature in both the control room and live area. Apple Xserve Gigabit Ethernet based networking, leased line Sohonet and Digidesign DigiDelivery|GT will be available to allow non-linear media files to be shared securely, both within the facility and externally. Additionally the studio will benefit greatly from sharing premises with Europe’s best-equipped professional audio/video rental stock inventory and GearBox’s 24/7 technical support infrastructure.
Chris Dibble, Cream studio manager and chief engineer said: “Whilst specifying the design, build and equipping of the new facility we have been very conscious of how much the music recording market has changed over the last few years. The concept of Cream is to offer – design and equipment wise, a state of the art, 21st century music recording studio, whilst at the same time offering the invaluable engineering skills that have made the UK recording industry legendary throughout the world. Most importantly perhaps, we have focussed on being able to offer studio rates realistic to current budgetary considerations.”
Studio Designer, Roger D’Arcy of Recording Architecture added: “We are very pleased to have been chosen by GearBox to design the new Cream music recording facility, our plans include what we feel to be some unique, innovative features for this style of studio. The 75 sq metre, double-height, galleried live area will be accessible by both the main Cream studio, and the other White Rooms production suites, and the control room will feature ambient light and is conceived to offer the perfect environment for surround sound recording and mixing.”
(DS)