The Studios
In the early days of Atlantic Records, producer Tom Dowd would do recording at the offices. At night the desks would be pushed against the walls and singing groups would gather around one or two microphones in the inner office and he would be in the outer office recording singing groups with a small mixer and a tape recorder. [1]
In 1958, Dowd convinced Ampex (and Jerry Wexler) to sell the second Ampex 8-track tape recorder ever manufactured to Atlantic Studios, putting Atlantic ahead of other studios for many years.
In 1959, Atlantic Records and Atlantic Studios moved to 1841 Broadway. The studios were in the co-joined building at 11 West 60th Street. When Atlantic Records moved to 75 Rockefeller Center in the mid-1970s, Atlantic Studios expanded to occupy the entire second floor of both buildings. In the early 1980s, the studios expanded to the third floor.
The studio complex eventually consisted of two studios, a mix room, two disk mastering rooms, two editing and tape copy rooms, two digital transfer rooms, a quality control room for Atlantic Records-manufactured products (45s, LPs, Cassettes, 8-Tracks and CDs), tape library (tape vault offsite) and several offices and lounges.
Studio A – approximately 50' × 30' × 15', control room 20' × 15', and a later a Hidley redesign 24' × 24'. The control room had two generations of MCI consoles (the "black" console and then a 528), later the Hidley control room had a custom Neve. Monitors were by Altec, UREI and Hidley. Tommy Dowd early on installed variable acoustic sound traps that affected both the low frequency absorption and the reverberation time in the studio.
Studio B – approximately 30' × 15' × 15', control room 15' × 15'. Consoles were MCI 528 and then Neve, and monitoring was by Altec and then UREI.
Mix Room – approximately 15' × 12', later a new repositioned mix room and vocal booth 20' × 18'. Consoles were a built-in-house 16-channel passive summing mixer, then original Studio A MCI "black" console, then a third MCI 528 purchased from Criteria Studios, with a Solid State Logic console in the new mix room. Monitoring was facilitated with Altec monitors.
Mastering Rooms – Neumann and Scully Disk Cutting systems, and Altec monitoring.
Tape Recorders – Ampex, Scully, MCI, Studer, and Sony.
Microphones – Neumann, AKG, Sennheiser, Electro-Voice, Sony, Shure, and RCA.
Outboard Equipment – Dolby, Teletronix, Pultec, Lang, Spectra-Sonic, Eventide, Allison Research, Audio & Design, Ltd and Fairchild.
Reverberation – An echo chamber was built in the basement of 1841 Broadway, but it was rarely used in later years; reverberation was primarily provided by EMT analog and digital reverberation units.
The studios closed in 1990 and Atlantic Records' in-house digital and analog production rooms and the tape library were re-located to West 54th Street.
Atlantic Records relocated to 1633 Broadway New York, NY in 2015, and opened a new in-house studio, Atlantic Studios NYC, which has hosted numerous artists and sessions, including the Grammy Award-winning Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen Original Broadway Cast Recordings, Sturgill Simpson, Kaleo, Ed Sheeran, Wiz Khalifa, Cardi B, Brent Cobb, Janelle Monáe, Jason Mraz, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lauryn Hill, Christina Perri, Charlie Puth, Sara Bareilles, Anne Marie, Shooter Jennings, Rob Thomas, Kelly Clarkson, SWMRS, Christine & The Queens, Melanie Martinez, MisterWives, Wallows, Royal Blood, Santigold, Halestorm, Anderson East, Jon Batiste, ARIZONA, The Roots, Roberta Flack, and many more.
Atlantic Records studio network also includes Atlantic Studios West in Hollywood, CA; Atlantic Studios NOHO in North Hollywood, CA; Atlantic Studios ATL in Atlanta, Georgia; and a studio in Burbank, CA.
