There is no automation on the board in studio B and I wonder if that creates a great limitation in the mixing stage. I don't know exactly how Steve's mixing process works, but I use automation extensively when I mix. Deciding between studio A and B, the lack of automation makes me a bit nervous about studio B as a mixing environment.Also lets take a 3 piece loud rock band (bass, drums, guitar). I imagine that in B, the bass and guitar would share the dead room. Would it be beneficial to take advantage of Studio A to have full isolation for every instrument in this scenario?

I took a band to track and mix in studio B with Steve in March 2008. It was an awesome experience and I assure you no one felt any form of limitation during the process.The dead room in B is eerily dead, and the band I was with tracked bass and electric guitar in that room simultaneously with no bleed issue. Since the sources are similarly loud and the microphones are extremely close to their source and far away from each other, it's really not an issue. The only thing that might pose an issue is if you tried to track vocals simultaneously with the amps and needed to do a punch-in on the vocals later, because there would be a significant amount of bleed in the vocal mic. It would also be the same case for acoustic instruments. That being said, if you wanted to track acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, and drums at the same time, studio A may be more appropriate. As for your concern about automation and the console, remember that you can change levels during the playback manually. I'm sure there are other ways to circumvent this issue as well that someone experienced running the equipment is familiar with.Studio B is an awesome place to track and mix rock bands. I wish I lived in Chicago because I would just close my studio and make Electrical my home.

mikoo69 wrote:There is no automation on the board in studio B and I wonder if that creates a great limitation in the mixing stage. I don't know exactly how Steve's mixing process works, but I use automation extensively when I mix. Deciding between studio A and B, the lack of automation makes me a bit nervous about studio B as a mixing environment.Also lets take a 3 piece loud rock band (bass, drums, guitar). I imagine that in B, the bass and guitar would share the dead room. Would it be beneficial to take advantage of Studio A to have full isolation for every instrument in this scenario?If that's is the way you like to mix, then mix in studio A. You can always track in studio B then move to A for mixing. Studio B is fine for less complicated mixing, which makes up 80% of the work here, but it's a lot easier to do/change a super complex mix in studio A with the Flying Faders. For most of the projects, live mixing, or editing does the trick in B. I do mixing projects in A just because of the console and automation. That is obviously one of the perks of that studio, and why it costs more (Flying Faders is expensive). It's all what you want to do and how you are comfortable doing it. As far as isolation goes, you can have several things going on in studio B's dead room without much bleed. We have recorded about 700 3-6 piece bands with guitar and bass amp(s) together in the dead room, full volume, with no bleed problems. You just have to be mindful of how you space them apart, where they are faced, and the comparative volume of the amps. There is a small vocal booth on the other end of the live room which we'll put an acoustic instrument, or singer if the dead room is full of loud instruments. Hope that helps,GREG