Snug Recording Co.

24/12/2024

We’ve been using the run up to Festivmas to rewire the entire studio, upgrade our converters, repair some bits and install a new cue monitoring system. As you can see it’s been a JOY. We clock off for Xmas now. Will return to all the enquiries, mixing and planning cool stuff with you all in the new year. Big love and thanks to all who have sailed with us this year and a massive thanks to and for being the best co-workers ever.

12/11/2024

A wonderful few days working with down in Somerset on some forthcoming material which sounded both immense and beautiful, aggressive and thoughtful. Some great songs, performed impeccably. It hardly feels like work. I took so few pictures though - too busy having fun (drinking).

24/10/2024

Whilst in with our buds , Phil () suggested we try running this “stereo” amp configuration using our RE501 chorus echo. It always sounds kind of weird if you take the 501’s split outputs directly into Pro Tools (cos it’s just panning the verb and echo separately), but if you feed them into amps in the same room then they kind of gel back together in the room mics. Just enough that it doesn’t sound crazy wide and unnatural. Re-amping the DI from the live guitar part we tracked with the band playing together let us create this cool, big stereo guitar that’s still all from one performance and not relying on overdubs.

11/07/2024

This little guy is great - probably one of my current simple slapback faves but can also get some wild feedback and tone/texture.

02/07/2024

More drum fun in the (acoustically) new room! I take the worst pics cos I’m only really taking them for mic setup logging 😂

21/05/2024

Little in-progress peek at the live room. Fabric on the ceiling "teeth" is underway. Then it's on to adding trims, diffusion and lighting before tackling yet more wood panelling and other misc. Feeling great in there already.

09/05/2024

Just found this old studio diagram from 2012. It's absolutely true, even today, that if you pay to layoff your masters via tape you will guaranteed get 50% more streaming royalties/sales. Even your income from Merch will go up. ⠀
⠀

06/05/2024

Protect ya delicate ribbons, kids. Prolong the life and reduce stretching with a pop shield. Might just turn this into a recording tips and tricks account. Cos we need more of them ...

05/05/2024

Us and curing the floor tom basketball 'thing' with knowledge from (go see their YouTube vids on drum stuff if you like drum stuff). Great Toms = Great Songs, we all know that.⠀
⠀

31/03/2024

Greeeeeat fun day with and I actually remembered to take a couple of snaps. The band are f**king great and sound amazing together so it was all tracked live with vocals and a couple of extra guitar bits overdubbed after.⠀

GEEK STUFF:⠀
⠀
We ran Ollie's guitar signal to one of the rehearsal rooms and split the feed out to a Fender Dual Showman Reverb and the Orange AD30 through the Zilla custom cab. Positioned them so they're facing away from each other, mic'd both with Sennheiser e906's and stuck a figure of 8 ribbon in between. This means the 2 amps can be split out quite wide in the mix and still retain a nice mono low end from the ribbon behind the speakers. It takes a bit of wrangling with distances and phase but nothing that a tape measure and 5mins of experimenting doesn't sort.⠀
⠀
Drums were pretty standard. Bit of a Franken-kit (actually that should be a Frankentein's Monster-kit, technically). Went for the big Ayotte to go a bit deeper and excite the room a bit more. Then Ludwig for yer classic indie ROCK toms and Job's own brass snare which sounded REAL GOOD and had a nice fresh head 👍. I've been loving sticking a stereo pair outside the live room in the stairwell lately, mainly because it does this explosive impact thing on certain snare drums, which it did here. Really reminded me of some Pixies drum sounds in places. Not gonna list all the mics and processing but if you're interested in that kind of thing, comment with any questions below. ⠀
⠀
Luke's Bass was recorded through a Radial J48 DI for that lovely low end and then re-amped through our Ampeg SVT4-Pro into the Torpedo Captor with a Helix cab IR. Loads of flexibility for the mix. ⠀
⠀
We used a bit more outboard on the way in for this session as I've been trying to get into the habit of making sounds cool at the start and committing to stuff more. It takes a little more prep and time but I think it saves way more time later if things already have a sound dialed in and all your overdubs respect and work to compliment that starting point. ⠀
⠀
Anyway, enough of my yappin' - happy Easter folks!

17/03/2024

One of the most inspiring corners of the studio for various reasons⠀
⠀

13/02/2024

After Royal Mail lost my first moulds, I've finally got my lovely ACS custom hearing protection. I've been using for years and they're so good and comfortable and discreet, but I also wanted a real tight fitting set of really hardcore filters for louder gigs, long band recording sessions, etc. MASSIVE plug (no pun intended) for the Musicians Hearing Health Scheme which subsidised these substantially. An absolute no brainer.

02/01/2024

HNY folks! We've had a much needed break and now just easing back into remembering what all the buttons do. If you're waiting on replies, etc - we're just working through them as quickly as we can. Here's hoping everyone had a happy and healthy festive break and that you were able to get a little of what you needed - be that family, rest, social time or just time to yourselves. Booking projects for the coming months (when are we not?), so give us a shout if your new year's resolution is to make a cracking record. X

05/12/2023

Organ Guts! - a quick cable fix for 's new Yamaha YC-45D and it's singing (and squawking) once more. Tonnes o fun keyboard with a crazy variety of tones. I can safely say that nothing quite sounds like this thing.

28/10/2023

No, we don't know what all of these do. Great day with , working on some tunes for and forever forgetting to take interesting photos, just logging settings. Pretty settings nonetheless.

01/04/2023

Sound The New Toy Klaxon! 🚨

The final piece of the puzzle is heading for our 500 series rack! Bloody love this .audio stuff and been looking to get their whole set of 500 series tools. Not had a hardware Transient Shaper before, either. This lets us adjust the level of transient (the punchy bit of a sound) and sustain (the tail-end of the sound) AND at specific frequencies! Lots of possibilities, especially for drum shaping, etc.

It's off to join its family; the , and in our 500ADAT rack ❤️

26/09/2022

A few shots from our guitar setup today with . The mission was to use two amps simultaneously, one with more of an all-rounder distortion and another doing a real mid-rangey fuzz so we can balance all the weight and high frequency energy with note definition and spread stuff out in the stereo field. We used the Evertune for two layers of this rig and then switched up to the Tele for a cleaner layer using the middle single coil pickup.⠀
⠀
For the main tone, we ended up going with the Boss Blues Driver into the clean channel on the Single Rectifier, coupled with a AC30 for the fuzz receptacle. We went through a bunch of fuzzy options but settled on the Analog Drive on the Mid Drive model (which is basically a Tube Screamer circuit). The Bigshot ABY took care of splitting the signal and the Mesa ran downstairs into the 2x12. The AC30 went in one of the rehearsal rooms via another Radial problem solver, the SGI which lets you run an instrument signal over long runs of balanced cable without ruining the tone. This means both of the amps are totally isolated from each other and don't cause phase issues. Looking forward to mixing this one!

21/09/2022