Hiltongrove Mastering has moved. Previously based in East London, the newly built studio is located in a brand new state-of-the-art facility in north Essex. At just over 22sq metres, the new room boasts B&W 801 Nautilus monitoring, Cranesong and Audio Design conversion, and SADiE DAWs. Analogue processing is provided by Prism Sound, Chiswick Reach, DAV Electronics and a custom fully parametric equaliser designed and built by Barry Porter. Digital processing is handled mainly by a fully loaded TC Electronic System 6000, backed up by a few choice plug-ins. For restoration and clean-up work the studio also has a range of tools from Cedar, including de-clicker and de-crackler hardware units, as well as the ReTouch plug-in. The studio also features natural daylight and is completely de-coupled from the surrounding structure.
Studio owner and Mastering engineer Dave Blackman commented, “The new room sounds stunning. We’ve had nothing but positive feedback from everyone who’s worked here since we moved in over Christmas. My monitors sound so precise that everything in the audio is revealed, enabling me to get straight to the sound I’m after. Paul Rayner-Brown of Pro Music International handled the build for us and has done a fantastic job, giving me not only a great sounding studio, but also a very pleasant working environment.”
Dave continued, “It was definitely the right time to make the move out of London. More and more of my work is coming via FTP meaning that location has become less and less important. I’ve been lucky enough to build up a strong client base which I’ve been able to bring with me and I am certainly not going to miss the three hour round trip to work every day! There aren’t many mastering studios in East Anglia, even fewer built to this kind of specification, but there is a very lively local music scene here and I’m really excited about tapping into that and helping to make some great records.”
Dave, who has been a mastering engineer for more than 15 years, took over Hiltongrove Mastering in 2005 and has mastered thousands of releases over the course of his career for artists such as The Bluetones, Art Brut, Coldplay, Echo & The Bunnymen, David Ford, Keane, The Maccabees and Killing Joke. He also has long-standing relationships with labels such as Cooking Vinyl, Pressure Sounds and Fierce Panda.
As well as offering mastering services, Hiltongrove also offers high quality short run CD and DVD duplication. For further information or to make a booking contact Hiltongrove Mastering.
