Levy's Sound Studios

Morris and Jaques Levy were pioneers of the British recording industry. They ran a successful record store in Whitechapel  and in the mid 1930s set up a recording studio at Rosslyn House, 94-98 Regent Street, where they stayed until 1937. They then moved to 73 New Bond Street and formed the Oriole Label at this time. To complete their autonomy  a record pressing plant was established in Aston Clinton.

  

		In 1962 a new studio was built at 104 New Bond Street and fitted with an EMI 17 channel valve console. The picture  shows three Pultec eqs and above them in the rack is a large EMI limiter. The young man with his hands on the controls is Geoff Frost who went on to set up Sound Techniques Studios. This was the desk that was used for most of the early Fleetwood Mac recordings including Albatross.

 

CBS Studios.        

In 1964 American company CBS got its first foothold in the UK by buying out the  Levy empire and Jaques Levy ran the company for CBS in its first year.

In 1967 CBS moved offices to Theobalds Road and the studio was leased out  becoming independent of, but still owned by CBS.

In 1970 a small mixing and disk cutting studio was set up at the head office in Theobalds road and a Neve desk installed.

 

In 1972 a new four story music complex was built in Whitfield Street on the site of a bomb damaged car park. The ground floor was set up with two 16 track studios both built around Neve desks and Studer tape machines. The site also contained a cutting room, dubbing suite, offices and studio leisure areas. The EMI desk had been sold on and was set up in a studio called Pop Sounds.

 

1976 - The studio introduced MCI desks.

 

In 1984 Studio 1 and 2 had an MCI 556 and 542 and Studio 3 a Neve  and the name was changed to Whitfield Studios.

 

Recorded at CBS Studios :

Fleetwood Mac   -   Black Magic Woman , Albatross   -  1968

Wombling songs  - The Wombles    -  Aug 1973

Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power      -  1973

Sailor    -    Trouble  -   Oct 1975

The Vibrators     -  Pure Mania -  April 1976

The Clash   -   White Riot  -  Feb 1977

U2  -  Another day