The Oven Studios
When old school hooks up with new school, watch out. That's exactly
what has happened at The Oven Studios, a world-class facility created
for Alicia Keys and Kerry “Krucial” Brothers, founders of KrucialKeys
Enterprises. Designed by Keys, Krucial and a dedicated team, the
facility successfully builds on a pre-existing high-level recording
studio in the New York area and puts it into a 2005 context, perfect
for a nine-time Grammy®-winning songwriter growing increasingly skilled
in her role as a producer.
“I've always written, I've always played the piano, and when I heard
these songs in my head, I would know what I wanted the feel and the
sound to be,” says Keys, who produced or co-produced 11 of the 15
tracks on the 2003 multi-Platinum The Diary of Alicia Keys. “Krucial
was one of the first people to encourage me to take things into my own
hands. That's why producing is so important to me. I'm able to hear my
thoughts and voices, and I can present it as only I know it should
exist.”
After the smashing success of Songs in A Minor and Diary, KrucialKeys
decided that a purpose-built recording studio was in order, with a
choice between renovating an existing facility or building one from
scratch. Realizing that vibe settles in like a vintage wine, the
partners opted for the former and purchased an established facility
built into an old house, with a quiet town setting and calming shade
trees just outside.
“The basic idea is that we've always been very hands-on and always been
working in ‘The House,’” states Krucial, referring to Keys' early demos
that were recorded in a small Harlem apartment. “We're both into the
old sound and we don't mind the big studios, but there's something
about the home environment that's more comfortable, so we figured the
best way was shaping the studio so it's an extension of the home.”
KrucialKeys got the process going by huddling with longtime engineer
Ann Mincieli, who started working with the pair at New York City's Quad
Studios in 2000 — a relationship that officially went full-time during
the recording of Diary. Mincieli did her research and built a tight,
top-tier team capable of guiding the studio's extensive renovations and
rebirth: Krucial; Keys; Dave Malekpour of Professional Audio Design;
and John Storyk, Beth Walters, Dirk Noy and Chris Bowman of
architectural and acoustical design firm Walters-Storyk Design Group.
“Everyone's input went into it,” Mincieli stresses. “Everything in the
pre-existing structure would lead us to ask, ‘Why do we need that? How
do we revolutionize this? How do we change the face of the industry?
How can we be a leader ourselves?’ We had the team, and if you look at
the rooms, they're from everybody's input and decisions. It was nice
because someone else would frequently have a way of looking at things
that you might not have thought of.
“Creating The Oven was a big experiment, really,” Mincieli continues.
“Our mic panels aren't everyday mic panels, for example: They have our
logo, and the Mytek headphone system built into it has been modified so
the noise from the power supply is in the basement, not the live room.
All these details we came up with wouldn't have gotten to that level if
we didn't have the whole team helping each other. I've been to a lot of
studios, but I haven't seen one with a thought process like this —
constantly asking, ‘What can we do that's unique?’”
The Oven answers that question first with its relaxed atmosphere, accenting the house environment with green hues and earth tones in the rooms and corridors that surround the fully outfitted upstairs production rooms — Studio B and Studio C — and the heart of the facility, Studio A on the first floor. “My first decision was to get an SSL AWS900,” says Mincieli. “It's a dual-function desk: 24 channels of SSL mic pre's and EQ with a DAW running as a HUI. The design of the modules on the desk is the same as on a K or an XL, but the signal path is shorter, so it sounds even better than an XL. I'd love a K, but I don't have the real estate. This little AWS900 came out and it was perfect, so I made that my foundation.”
Adding to the 230-square-foot control room is a wide selection of mic pre's, including the 24 ultralow-noise preamps in the AWS900, plus four more external SSL mic pre's, 16 additional channels of API and two original Neve 1073s. The highly flexible SSL patchbay was custom-made by PAD for The Oven, laid out to maximize integration between the console and the 24-in/48-out Pro Tools|HD system, while keeping all cables concealed via an under-the-floor routing scheme. The Augspurger and Yamaha NS10 monitors, multiple mics and myriad other gear build on a perfectionist attention to detail within the recording space, sporting a matched look with Aston Martin Metallic Silver 2001 paint selected from a local car dealership.
Slide Show
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Everything is set up to
capture the magic that awaits in the adjoining live room, a
535-square-foot space with a stone wall and a staged floor plan created
especially for Keys' vocal and piano mastery. “The pianos in that big
live room have such a clear, crystal, gorgeous clarity,” Keys says. “At
the same time, we can set up anything else we want. It has the stones
on the wall that gives a more intimate, personal feel. The point of the
room is to capture a multitude of sounds.” Also on The Oven floor are a
160-square-foot drum room and 80-square-foot iso booth.
When
hard drives are rolling, Mincieli frequently employs a Telefunken Ela M
270 stereo mic for recording Keys' Yamaha piano and a Telefunken U47 or
Sony C800 for her vocals. “Knowing that there's going to be a piano in
the room and that the other primary instrument will be a world-class
vocalist, you do things differently,” says Storyk, lead acoustician for
the project, of the live room. “You make this room as reverberant as
possible, while still ensuring mid- and high-frequency reflection
control. Most pianists like a wood floor, and so does Alicia. Some
people think that the resonators we used for low-frequency absorption
are meant to look like the black keys on a piano, but the rhythm of
their placement stems from the fact that they're affixed to columns in
the walls. The end result is an appealing mixture of architecture,
acoustics, aesthetics and ergonomics.”
Is the melding of living
spaces and workspaces an emerging trend? “I would hope so,” Walters
adds regarding Studio A's aesthetic. “They spend a lot of time here [in
Studio A], and their work branched out into the rest of the facility,
as well. This is definitely as much of a living space as it is a
workspace.”
The team that built The Oven. Front row: Keys
and Brothers. Back row, from left, Beth Walters of Walters-Storyk,
engineer Ann Mincieli and Dave Malekpour of Professional Audio Design
photo: Courtney Spencer
Studios
A, B and C combine to make The Oven a full-service facility — not just
for KrucialKeys, which recently mixed Keys' Unplugged here for J
Records, but for their collaborators and select outside clients such as
Donna Summer and Keyshia Cole. Especially enticing is the Pro Tools|HD3 — equipped Studio B, where dark wood and natural light combine to
create a naturally meditative state and an extremely attractive
destination for writing, recording and pre-production. Studio C offers
a complement of Korg and Roland synths and Akai MPC workstations to add
to the available sonic palette.
According to Malekpour, The Oven
is a perfect example of the direction that accomplished artists are now
taking with their personal facilities. “At PAD, what we've seen happen
is a shift from larger-scale commercial facilities to artists wanting
their own larger-scale personal-use facilities. They're built around a
person's way of working, and they want to be in there without the clock
ticking so that even if they go away for two weeks on tour, they can
get right back to working the way that they want to work.
“This
studio has ramped that up: It's a pro facility that's privately owned,
and they've considered how to use it for session work when they're not
using it themselves,” he continues. “I won't be surprised if we
replicate this kind of studio in the future: a mid-sized room with
great acoustics and everything in the control room within easy reach
designed around production and creation as opposed to having this giant
object there. The SSL AWS900 has such a small footprint that it allows
you to do a lot more.
“It's also exciting to work with someone
who really cares about the end result. Alicia's a unique artist because
she's involved with all aspects of her production, and when you see her
perform, you see that this person is deeply devoted to her craft. She's
also surrounded herself with some good people, and that's a key
component to every studio environment.”
With the creation of The
Oven, it seems that one of the world's most successful performers is
happy to find herself fully immersed in the science of recording. “When
it comes to songwriting, the essence is the voice, the song and one
special instrument,” Keys reflects. “So it starts in this simplistic
way, but when you get into the audio aspect of making a record — not a
song, but a whole record — it really makes a difference; not just the
people you're working with, but the types of things you're working on.
A good song is a good song whether you have good audio engineering or
not, but it does enhance the experience. We're blessed with having so
much to create the best audio experience for the listener.”
