Advision Studios

Advision Studios
General information
Address	23 Gosfield Street, W1W 6HG[1]
Town or city	Central London
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°31′11″N 0°8′31″W / 51.51972°N 0.14194°W / 51.51972; -0.14194

Advision Studios was a recording studio in Fitzrovia, central London, England.^[2]

Founded in the 1960s by Guy Whetstone and Stephen Appleby,^[1] Advision originally provided voiceovers and jingles for television advertisements. The studio was initially located at 83 New Bond Street, but moved to 23 Gosfield Street in 1969.^[1][3] The studio complex was built to be able to house a 60-piece studio orchestra and had a 35mm film projector screen for synchronising with motion picture images.^[2] Producer Martin Rushent began his career as a projectionist at Advision.^[4]

By the mid-1960s, Advision had become one of the top London studios for rock and pop music. The Yardbirds recorded their 1966 album Roger the Engineer at Advision on a four-track machine. The Move recorded some of their early hits at Advision, engineered by Gerald Chevin, including "Flowers in the Rain" in July 1967.^[5] In early 1968, Advision became one of the first studios in the United Kingdom to obtain an eight-track machine. The Advision unit was built in the United States by Scully Recording Instruments. Among the first artists to use the eight-track machine were T. Rex, the Who and Caravan. In 1970, the studio used a custom 24-channel desk with an eight-track recorder.^[1][2] Advision was also among the first studios in the UK to install 16- and 24-track machines in the early 1970s.^[6]

In 1971, a 20-channel Neve console was added to the mixdown suite.^[1] During the 1970s the studios' focus moved towards progressive rock music, and the company began producing music for bands such as Yes, Gentle Giant, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Premiata Forneria Marconi, as well as Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.^[2]

A 1974 re-fitting gave the studio a console built in California by Quad-Eight Electronics for quadraphonic mixing, and the UK's first computer-aided mixdown desk.^[2][7] Producers and engineers who worked at Advision include Eddy Offord,^[8] Eddie Kramer,^[9] Martin Rushent,^[4] Paul Northfield^[10] and Hugh Padgham.^[11]

The Gosfield Street location has been occupied since 1993 by a studio called The Sound Company.

The following is a partial list of work either recorded, mixed or mastered at Advision Studios between 1966 and 1986, taken from [1].

• Photograph from Advision Studios in New Bond Street (Photo was taken in December 1968. The Scully 8-track recorder can be seen in the background.)
• The Sound Company Ltd History of 23 Gosfield Street London at sound.co.uk (with full Advision client list)