Record Plant – Studio B

Overview

The Record Plant was a series of influential recording studios opened by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone and noted for their artist-forward accommodations and attitudes – a clear influence from Electric Lady Studios and a break with the more ‘engineer-focused’ atmospheres of the past.

Record Plant West opened in Los Angeles in 1969, and Studio of B of Record Plant West was designed soon after as an all-in-one creative space specifically for Stevie Wonder. Studio B was a direct collaboration between WSDG Founding Partner and Director of Design John Storyk and Tom Hidley. The studio was built around a customized booth for Wonder’s TONTO (The Original Neo Timbral Orchestra – designed and built by Malcolm Cecil and producer/engineer Robert Margouleff) synthesizer, as well as a large live room and a customized control room.

Storyk had designed and built the custom cabinetry for Wonder’s TONTO synthesizer for stage use, and continued this collaboration in design of the synthesizer’s home in Studio B. The ergonomic booth made operating the massive synth much easier and enabled Cecil and Margouleff to serve as associate producers and synth programmers on Wonder’s albums – specifically Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness’ First Finale. TONTO is currently housed in the Calgary Audio Museum.

The live room featured a signature twisting ceiling – a continued exploration of hyperbolic curves that Storyk had begun in Electric Lady – and gave the room a diffusive quality. Shag carpeting and bass traps contributed to a ‘tight’ and ‘dry’ sound, signature of the era.

The control room of Studio B was modified for Quadrophonic sound, another recording trend in the early 1970s. Supports in the neighboring hallway were required to hold up the rear speakers in the control room for this setup. Although Quadrophonic sound was ultimately unsuccessful in the long run due to technical limitations of the format, it was an important precursor of the modern immersive audio production and mixing capabilities built into many present and upcoming WSDG projects.

For more information about the history of The Record Plant and the many amazing artists who recorded there, please refer to ‘Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios’ by Martin Porter & David Gogging