Secret Basement Studio

28/07/2024

End of an era. For personal reasons, Secret Basement Studio is shutting down. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who came through here for recording, mixing, rehearsing, strange album release parties and the occasional pre-gig dram. It's been an amazing experience running the studio and I'm extremely proud of the work I've done and the releases that have came out of this place. Some great ones still to come out! (I'll keep you posted here).

This, btw, is not the end of my saga as an engineer. The long term plan is start a new studio, but in the meantime I'll be doing some on location recording and continuing mixing. I'll also be starting an MSc in sound design and producing some more music and sound art myself. So feel free to continue following this account and I will soon turn it into a more personal engineering/musician account rather than the studio account.

Big shout outs to the folk who've helped with the studio or been absolute banging friends/customers


And of course for putting up with it all.

23/02/2024

'Eyes' the new single from Amateur Cult recorded and mixed here at the studio got a play on BBC radio 6 last night! Awesome stuff!

listen in full below, from 1hr06m40s

The London-based DJ and producer starts your weekend early with an exclusive guest mix.

10/01/2024

Just the one saxophone it'll be an easy setup... excited to have the amazing in the studio for noisey droney saxey goodness

29/10/2023

This wonderful song was recorded a short while back. It was all done in a day and it was great fun to do. Felt like a really positive creative process between the 3 of us in the studio (myself, Sarah and Jon who played drums and possibly other instruments I think we've all forgotten who played what on the recording now) adding layers and building the track up from the initial guitar and vocals. I'm really happy Sarah chose to release this song, especially with such a great video to accompany it.

Written and directed by: Sarah MacGillivrayVideo Performance Artist: Lynette GrayCinematography: Yustil Hoyo Diaz MartinezEditor: Imara Lenders Music:Vocals ...

27/10/2023

Check out Earl Of Hell's latest single - recorded here at the basement! Was a real pleasure having them in the studio - always good to have some heavy fuzzed out rock to record. The song's available on all your streaming platforms now.

05/04/2023

Melted Messiah released 'Some Good Riffs' last Friday! This was their second album that's been entirely recorded, mixed and mastered here at Secret Basement Studio, so we had to up the game from the previous one, which I feel we did. It is always a fun challenge to record a band like Melted Messiah, a 2 piece (guitar and drums) metal band that thrives on being raw and unhinged - how to strike that balance between capturing the live, noisy essence of the band and still making a 'produced' record.

I'm quite proud of this one because I do feel we've captured the live energy and intensity of the band which can be a hard to get right. The album is unique, raw and strange, much like Melted Messiah themselves. It's on all streaming platforms and bandcamp now! Go throw money at them!

7 track album

23/03/2023

So I've been quite quiet on social media for a while - that changes now! I'd like to talk about some of the exciting projects and recordings we've been doing at the studio over the past year or two.

First up is the amazing Amateur Cult. We recorded the vocals at the studio and I also did further production, all the mixing as well as mastering the album. The unique synthy post-punk stylings of the project made the mixing especially engaging and it was fun to experiment with adding lots of different details in effects/delays, making all sorts of strange noises. My main focus overall was to make all the synths and drum machines as punchy and big as possible.

I think the album turned out really well. It lead to a sold out debut show at Sneaky Pete's and the single You Be You was chosen as no.74 in the 100 Top Songs from Scotland in 2020. An amazing achievement for Alastair Chivers, the man behind it all. I am exceedingly happy to have been a part of this production.

It's available on all streaming services and on bandcamp here:

11 track album

18/07/2021

Hot day so let's stay in the cool basement and record a surf rock album!

21/06/2021

Had a great weekend tracking and mixing the debut album of blackened stoner 2-piece Melted Messiah! Relentlessly noisy and loud - good times! So happy with the sound, I felt we really managed to capture the energy of them just thrashing out their songs. Other than vocals there were no overdubs all just played and captured live!

03/06/2021

03/06/2021

It's all taking form!