What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 11pm Tuesday 9am - 11pm Wednesday 9am - 11pm Thursday 9am - 11pm Friday 9am - 11pm Saturday 9am - 11pm Sunday 9am - 11pm

Tom Donovan Studio

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Tom Donovan Studio

Tom Donovan Studios is an Essex recording studio built by musicians for musicians. Run by award win Tom Donovan is a uk-based music producer and audio engineer.
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As a lifelong music lover and owner of the company Tom Donovan Studio, Tom has paired with many of the UK's most promising artists to create award-winning and exciting new music. Before embarking on his journey as a producer, Tom entered the world of music when he joined a band at age 12. One year later, he began recording in his parent's shed, where he often incorporated guitar feedback and power

tools into his music. At 19, Tom attended Westminster College and studied Sound and Audio Engineering. After moving to London in 2001, Tom set up his first studio while playing with his band, where he recorded two SOS CD of the month tracks. In 2008, Tom setup his next studio in an abandoned chicken shed; from his second studio came several albums that recieved glowing reviews in NME, Kerrang, Rock Sound and Metal Hammer. With his third and newest studio, Tom contnues to offer top-quality service with an improved space. Thanks to his fascination with vintage audio equipment and love of modern techologies, Tom's well-stocked studio boasts an impressive assortment of tools old and new. Whether they're the newest models or throwbacks, Tom's large collection of microphones, pre-amps, compressors, guitar pedals, and amplifiers provides each of his clients with the ability to personalise their experience and their final product. His large studio and its high ceilings allow Tom to service and live-record artists and bands small and large. Tom's passion is for experimental effects and unusal audio, and his array of tools at his disposal allows him to to create unique and bizarre sounds that meld perfectly with each artist's sound and vibe. Tom's own eclectic music taste - he grew up listening to Hip-Hop from NWA, Wu Tang Clan, Onyx and Ice T along with Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Pantera, Sepultura and softer music from Jeff Buckley-inspire him and fuel his work with clients. His diverse taste in and appreciation for music leaves Tom unrestricted by genre, Artists from nearly every category-Alternative to Folk, Hip Hop to Heavy Metal-have visited Tom and his studio to sharpen their sound and produce quality recording's. Because Tom works hard to successfuly craft the sound of each artist is seeking, every song is researched thoroughly and every artist is closely involved in the music's recording, mixing, and manipulation. Over his more than thirteen years of music production and engineering, Tom's work has helped propel multiple bands-including the UK's up-and-coming groups Animal Noise and Dingus Khan-from obscurity into popularity. With the aid of Tom's recording many talented bands have secured slots in major music festivals and aired on television and international and national radio. Though he tends to work solely with artists, Tom has been privelaged to work with some of the world's top producers, including his idol, Joe Barresi (QOTSA,Tool, Soundgarden). Throughout his career, Tom's productions have been recognised and celebrated. Sound on Sound awarded the "CD Production of the Month" award in both May 2007 and June 2008, and in October 2013 was privilaged to be part of the week-long Mix With The Masters seminar featuring Joe Barresi. Tom looks forward to continued success of the many bands he's recorded with in the past and to forming new partnerships with talented artists.

14/08/2024

“Oh your mate takes photos, that’s cute, my mate is he is better than any of your mates”

with my family on Saturday… decimating the nexus stage. FYI do not attempt a stage dive at boomtown.

(Fu***ng Hell my job is well good)

09/02/2024

Spent the day laughing my ass off with these 2 guys

25/01/2024

Happy birthday to one of my favourite people (for a man who doesn’t own a computer or a phone, that’s a whole lot of screens).
📸

12/01/2024

Hot tip: Use egg boxes as acoustic treatment instead of stacks of amps, way more cost effective and a good source of Vitamin B

27/11/2023

These shows have been absolutely wild! Thanks to everyone that’s come to see these gigs. 1 more show left at on the 5th December. Tickets are almost gone.
📸 by the effortlessly talented

28/10/2022

Out now with Dumb. Production by . Had the pleasure of mixing this banger a few months back (or 3 days prime ministers and 1 monarch ago 😂). This bad boy is gonna get stuck in your head!

15/09/2022

Late night jam on the Prophet, Maschine, Roland Boutiques and Mini Moog

11/09/2022

So following on from my earlier post of the Pickletech Effects Pedals BERKATRON, it made sense to post a video of what is truly the most fu**ed up pedal ever made… the “MEGA BERKATRON”… unlike its smaller sibling, this pedal has more switches and buttons to dial in chaos. It’s completely unpredictable, but can actually turn anything into a full blown downward spiral esq wall of destruction. This is the greatest (or for some, the worst)🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

09/09/2022

I thought about making one of those pedal demos where you make beautiful almost meditative music, to show off what they can do. Then I thought about how vile some of the pedals I have are… ladies and gentlemen: meet the BERKATRON, from the now defunct Pickletech Effects Pedals. I first heard of this when a video popped up on my news feed from James Howard, of what was the prototype of this insane piece of kit… I’m not sure he was planning to sell them or if what he set out to make was meant to sound this crazy. But I instantly messaged him and got him to build me one. When I’m in the studio producing and people say “this next bit needs to sound mental” my usual response before I reach for the BERKATRON is “be careful what you’re asking for, how mental do you wanna go” because this pedal makes a fuzz factory sound like a sweet lullaby. I once used a VHS camera as microphone and delay then shoved this into the chain. I’m pretty sure we were moments away from the universe collapsing but in on itself.

02/09/2022

A visual dose of P*P (piano, cabs, pedals)…. More of my favourite things

01/09/2022

Probably the most precious thing I own… an original 1969 Marshall JMP Superbass. Picked this beauty up when I was 13 for £150 with a huge home made speaker cabinet, I was only interested in it so I could stand in front of the massive speaker cab in my bedroom and pretend I was Kurt Cobain. After my dad took it into to get it looked at, we found out that this bad boy is rarer than unicorn s**t and worth a little more than the paltry sum I paid for it. I retired this dinosaur from touring duties after it nearly burnt a venue down, but it’s been restored back to health and is used daily for guitar, bass, synths, reamping… it’s pretty much the holy grail of Marshall amps in my opinion.

14/08/2022

Great session, also decided to dress as a French teacher on one of the days 😂😂

21/07/2022

It’s finally out… go check out our new single Relax featuring John Cooper Clarke

28/06/2022

Seekah Lytess just dropped the studio version of his viral Tik Tok freestyle “Dog House”. Probably one of the most relatable tracks I’ve ever heard.

mixed and mastered by myself.

Seekah Lytess · Song · 2022

03/05/2022

These are a few of my favourite things…

📸 Kaye Holden

08/03/2022

Check out the new live video from Dust In The Sunlight...

https://youtu.be/DIepdcB7SEs

FORMER LIVEShttps://bfan.link/former-lives-1Guitar/vocals: Billy WrightKeys/vocals: Annie Rew ShawSynth/backing vocals: Freya Volk (Kahlla)Guitar: Kit Deniso...

28/01/2022

Writing with Ash Stymest., Tyler Graves and Jonny Poole

27/12/2021

Give this a blast, it’s hilarious… recorded here at the studio

Check out iPlayer to hear JCC and ’s Liz Kershaw discuss John's career, his latest book, tour and BBC TV comedy, choose some seasonal music and come up with a list of six fantasy guests they'd like to hang out with on Boxing Day 🎄

The perfect listen to relax to with a big plate of Christmas leftovers and a pint of Baileys 🕶

12/08/2021

Had a whole bunch of fun working with John
on this advert for adidas and Manchester United
https://fb.watch/7kA7Uz38AI/

16/07/2021

You’re stranded on a desert island with an ITB studio rig, a pile of mixes and only 5 plugins… what do you take with you?!
I’m taking Soothe 2, Pro Q, Trackspacer, Soundradix Pi and Waves SSL E Channel

15/07/2021

ep done… now onto mixing

09/07/2021

Something new and horrible from my pals Fashoda Crisis. As always, it was a whole heap of fun working with these guys

Taken from Sunday Night Quiet Club ep released on 12th July 2021.https://fashodacrisis.bandcamp.comNoise and words by Fashoda Crisis. Engineered mixed & mast...

23/06/2021

back in the booth today

13/05/2021

Here’s one of the live tracks I did for the effortlessly brilliant Marie Naffah
🎥 Chris Driver Photography
https://youtu.be/EfcCmfceRW4

Listen to the debut EP 'Golden State' here: https://frictionless-music.ffm.to/goldenstateListen to Marie Naffah on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/...

01/05/2021

Debut drop yesterday from the brilliant Callimico .. had some fun working on this banger

Today is the day! You can now listen to and stream our debut EP everywhere.

We'd like to say a massive thanks to John Kean for his magic touch in the studio, Tom Donovan for the massive mix, Katie Tavini for her masterful mastering and Benzie Design for the beautiful artwork.

https://linktr.ee/callimicoband

26/04/2021

Check out the BBC 3’s Sunday feature “Should feminists read Baudelaire”, it was great to be involved with this and I had the pleasure of recording John Cooper Clarke’s interview.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tmhp

Michèle Roberts assesses the reputation of the French poet 200 years after his birth.

05/03/2021

Back in the lab today, this time with and , cooking up some lovely bits for your ear holes

21/02/2021

Some shots from a pre production sesh with
📸

10/02/2021

We’ve got a new video dropping tomorrow at 9am...
link in bio

29/01/2021

A brilliant new release from my close pals Pilot Run... I’ve been working with the guys in this band for going on 15 years now (Street Light Youth, Fervours) and it was so good to hook up after the first lockdown and smash out this banging ep at the studio. For fans of riffs, massive drums, bottom end and gang vocals. I managed to play the smashed plates and kick bin cans on this record too.

https://pilotrun.hearnow.com/

Address

Unit 2, 39a High Street, Rowhedge
Colchester
CO57ET

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 11pm
Tuesday	9am - 11pm
Wednesday	9am - 11pm
Thursday	9am - 11pm
Friday	9am - 11pm
Saturday	9am - 11pm
Sunday	9am - 11pm

Website

http://tomdonovanstudio.com/

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Videos

Final date of the “last thing you need tour” yesterday. Absolute scenes from another sold out crowd in Brixton. . Thanks @ripsime.xyz for this great video

Life’s hard 😂😂😂

Dusted off a pile of somewhat decomposed cassettes for sampling, including the Breeders “Last Splash”. #hiphop #producer #producerlife #beats #drummachine #synth #analogue #cassettes #samplers

Slack beats recorded to 1/8 inch cassettes#production #producer #producerlife #hiphop #triphop #moog #analogue #drummachines

Sunday glitches… #glitch #glitchhop #producer #producerlife #beats #cubasepro #electronicmusic #drummachine

Late night jam on the porta 02 mkii. Mixed on 4 tracks and then bounced to digital .. #lofi #lofihiphop #beats #producer #producerlife #hiphop #analogue #chill #vibes

Late night jam on the Prophet, Maschine, Roland Boutiques and Mini Moog . #beats #beatmaking #beatmaker #electo #analogue #producer #producerlife #dancemusic #moog #nativeinstruments

Recorded this filth to analogue cassette tape, using a Tascam 244, Porta 02 and an Amstrad 4 track. The bass is from a feedback loop I created through the desks with the amen break, which is then fed into a Korg analogue delay; I used the time dial to adjust the pitch. Sonic weirdness provided by the Prophet rev 2 and the Kaoss Pad #hiphop #beats #producer #production #Amen #breakbeat #producerlife #producer

Dug around my dirty old Tesco bag of rotten cassettes and did some sampling with NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Maschine, then ran them back through the Amstrad 4 track.

So following on from my earlier post of the Pickletech Effects Pedals BERKATRON, it made sense to post a video of what is truly the most f**ked up pedal ever made… the “MEGA BERKATRON”… unlike its smaller sibling, this pedal has more switches and buttons to dial in chaos. It’s completely unpredictable, but can actually turn anything into a full blown downward spiral esq wall of destruction. This is the greatest (or for some, the worst)🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

Some chilled 80s sauce for ya, had a lot of fun making this… Roland Juno, JX3 and Jupiter boutiques on pads and leads, with Moog Music Inc. voyager on the west coast bass sound (standard). Rogers Drums on the snare (with my Bermuda shorts for dampening) and Dwdrums on kick. #80s #chilledhiphop #beats

Put together an airy little beat from some guitar parts I had knocking about… shoved them through the Line 6 DL4 pro sampler, a DigiTech whammy and a filthy Powertran Digital Delay Line… then sprinkled some Moog Music Inc. and 808 on it.