Analogue & digital recording facility onboard Lightship 95, moored in East London.

Studio A is a purpose-built, analogue and digital recording facility located onboard Lightship 95, moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London.

• Spacious and acoustically designed live room and control room
• Isolation booth with sight-lines into live room and control room
• Ability to partition smaller spaces for close recording
• Equipped with its own echo chamber and analogue reverberation devices
• Calrec mixing console with 48 channels
• Tape machines are available for 2 inch magnetic recording or dubbing
• Home to our calrec S2 mixing desk and otari MTR 90 MKII 24 track 2 inch tape mchine, the control room has ample space for the entire band to participate in the mixing process.
• Analogue reveration options include our stereo plate revern, locatio in the hull of the ship, as well as a tiled echo chamber and an AKG BX20E spring. Our selection of analogue outboard includes drawmer, DBX, NEVE, API and Focurite.
• Our unique collection of vintage instruments is freely available for you to play. A couple of select items are kept offsite so please enquire when booking about availability.

Guitars

• Gibson 1954 J50 acoustic
• Epiphone 1920s acoustic
• Dobro single cone resonator
• Fender USA Telecaster
• Fender Japan Jazz bass
• Silvertone (pre-Danelectro)

Drums

• Vintage 1970s Rogers drum kit
• Slingerland radio king snare
• Ludwig Acrolite 405 snare

Pedals

• Fender Blender, Route 66, Hot Cake, RAT distortion & various FX pedals
• Custom board of hand-made pedals by Fredric Effects

Piano

• Broadwood upright piano

Keys

• Hammond M102 organ

• Valve Leslie 145

• 1968 red Wurlitzer

• Roland RS-09 organ/strings

• Vintage rhythm boxes & small synthesizers

• AKG D112

• AKG D12 (1960s)

• AKG D19C (pair)

• AKG D190 (pair)

• Beyerdynamic TG-x50

• Beyerdynamic M201

• Sennheiser MD421 (pair)

• Sennheiser 441

• Rode NT5 (pair)

• Shure KSM32

• Shure beta 57

• Shure SM58s and SM57s

• Custom-built sub-kick speaker mic

Available on request

• Mellotron M4000D
• 1967/70 Martin D45
• 1958 R8 Gibson Les Paul
• Gretsch 1959 white falcon
• Fender custom shop 1962 telecaster
• Vintage Martin Jumbo acoustic
• Fender 50s Original spec P Bass (flat wound strings)

Backline

• Ampeg SVT Classic
• Fender Bassman tweed
• Fender Bassman 100 head
• Fender Champ
• Fender Vibro-Lux
• Fender MusicMaster Bass
• Fender Twin Reverb head
• Fender Spring Reverb
• Rosewell Spring Reverb
• WEM Dominator

Microphones

• RCA 44BX Velocity ribbon
• Manley Reference Tube Mic
• Neumann U87 (1969)
• Neumann U87 (AI)
• Neumann TLM 170 (pair)
• Coles 4038 ribbon (x4)
• Grampian GR2 ribbon
• Earthworks TC25 (pair) + SR25
• Electro-Voice RE20
• Electro-Voice 666
• AKG 414
• AKG C451E x 5
• AKG C451EB/CK1 & A51 angle joints (pair)

Console

• Calrec S2 48 channel console
• 6 stereo bus compressors
• 8 aux sends

Recording

• Otari MTR 90 mk II 2? 24 track
• Focusrite ISA828 8-channel pre
• API 3124 4 channel pre
• Ekadek Neve 4-channel pre
• Fatlady 6-core Mac Pro
• Antelope Orion 32
• Pro Tools 12

Outboard

• Ekadek Fat Lady 2-stage transistor pre-amp / varimu limiting amp
• Drawmer 1960 stereo valve pre-amp/compressor
• Warm Audio WA76 compressor
• Orban 424 compressor/limiter/gate
• Drawmer DL241 stereo compressor/gate
• DBX 165A overeasy compressor/limiter
• Chandler tube driver
• WEM Copicat x 2
• Roland Space Echo RE-101
• Roland Space Echo RE-5
• KMD DD900 analogue delay
• Bell analogue ADT

Plugins

• Slate Everything Bundle
• Soundtoys 5
• Fabfilter Pro-Q2, Pro-C,
• Pro-MB and Pro-G

Reverberation

• AKG BX20 spring reverb
• NSF stereo plate reverb
• Tiled reverb chamber
• Intersound PRV-1 spring reverb
• Great British Spring reverb

Monitoring

• Adam A77x powered monitors

• Sennheiser HD600 monitor heaphones

• Studio B is designed primarily for smaller scale recording and works well as an intimate editing and mixing room.

• Studio B is currently unavailable for sessions as it is let long-term.

• Studio C was our home for many years before moving our main operation to Lightship 95. Lovingly handbuilt by the team, from the parquet flooring to the custom echo chamber, and home to our August F?rster grand piano, we return here on a regular basis when the session demands it, but it is often unavailable as it is let long-term.

• Hear our previous work in the recordings section, or get in touch to arrange a time to look around the studio and discuss your project.

• The live roam boasts two pianos, a fine selection of vintage amplifiers, a 1969 Premier kit, a Hammond Organ and a Farfisa. The board is a Trident Series 65 and the mic collections include Neumanns, Sonntronics, Sony, Calrec, Sennheiser & Electrovoice, as well as many rare and funky items.

To get an accurate quote for your project, contact the studio and let them know your project details.

Soup Studios will once again be running recording sessions as of 1 June 2020, providing the government advice indicates it is still safe to do so. We remain up to date with the latest advice from the government and are implementing the following to ensure the safety of our clients and staff. We ask that anyone attending a session read this guidance carefully and adhere to it during your session.

Travel to the studio - we are asking all clients and staff to avoid public transport. If this is not possible, we can reschedule your session to a later date.

Please keep your group size to an absolute minimum. Anyone not actively involved in the session will not be admitted to the studio, we ask clients to stagger their attendance where possible to minimise the number of people in the studio at any one time. We will happily take time to discuss a session plan with you in advance in order to follow this principle.

All staff will wear a face mask whenever we need to be in a room with a client, and we ask our clients to bring their own face mask and do the same.

Due to the layout of the studio it is possible to work without a solo artist and engineer ever being in the same room, and we will do this wherever possible. Please feel free to discuss with our engineers how your session can be organised in order to best keep everyone safe.

Hand sanitiser and alcohol wipes will be available in all rooms of the studio to sterilise hands and equipment, and all necessary touchpoints in the studio will be sterilised before and after every session.

All clients and staff are required to bring their own food and drink for their time at the studio. Please avoid food that needs reheating, and be aware that hot food and drinks are available from the onsite cafe and diner. The onsite cafe and diner are currently open from 10am - 2pm, with the diner scheduled to expand their hours soon it?s worth checking by calling on 020 7987 4334.

It is possible to get food delivered through online delivery services if appropriate precautions are taken.

There will be a minimum of 2 hours between sessions to allow for sterilising procedures, and to accommodate for any delay that these precautions incur during session times.

Anyone who displays symptoms of COVID-19 is asked not to attend the session and self-isolate. We have updated our cancellation policy to allow anyone with symptoms to postpone a session at any time without penalty, please be aware that we reserve the right to postpone sessions at any time.

Please note that we continue to offer discounted rates for remote sessions for mixing and mastering - and we would encourage anyone considering a mixing or mastering session to take this approach.