Odyssey Studios was a recording studio based at 23-25 Castlereagh Street, near Marble Arch in London and opened in 1979. It was set up by Wayne Bickerton as an extension of State Records, the label he had set up with Tony Waddington and John Fruin in 1975.
Through the 1980s, many artists recorded at Odyssey Studios, including Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney, George Michael, Spandau Ballet and Roger Daltrey. Kate Bush recorded and mixed portions of the album The Dreaming at this studio.
Studio One in Odyssey was 1,400 square feet and had room for 50 musicians, which meant it could facilitate orchestral recordings and could be used for other activities such as video shoots. Studios 1 and 2 were equipped with MCI consoles and tape machines. Peter Jones (chief engineer) went to Fort Lauderdale, home of MCI, to commission all the equipment. At the time, they were the largest consoles that MCI had produced, and a hole in the factory wall was required to accommodate the extra length of the chassis. The studio was designed by Keith Slaughter and constructed on the “floating” principle to ensure total sound insulation.
Studio Two, which was a mixing suite with capacity for 8 musicians, had an MCI 6000 48 Channel Desk which offered up to 48 tracks of recording, or the capacity to mixdown. Upstairs there was a radio facility, which offered a studio and separate control room plus a lounge area.
Odyssey was one of the first studios to install a satellite linkup, which effectively turned the studio into a miniature radio station and allowing it to broadcast any session live around the world. The studio closed in 1989 and the building was subsequently sold to Jazz FM.
References
- Odyssey Studios. Wikipedia, retrieved 3 September 2017.
