Our Control Room
The Blue Grotto control room, designed by renowned studio designer Carl Tatz, boasts a state-of-the-art PhantomFocus monitoring system, coupled with custom designed floating floors & ceiling, room layout and wall treatments. Married with Dynaudio M1 & M3 monitors, the listening environment in the control room is one of the best in Nashville. In fact, most engineers who visit the Grotto agree. Whether tracking an ensemble, mixing a song or film, or cleaning up on-set audio for film or television, every nuance of the audio material you’re working on is exposed, changing the way you think about production, arrangement, editing and mixing.
This not only makes the Grotto a great place to record and mix, but also creates the perfect listening environment for sniffing out those troublesome frequencies and elements in your works-in-progress. All the engineers who have mixed here agree that they achieve better mixes in a shorter space of time because of the accuracy of the monitoring. Don’t believe us? Feel free to contact us for a demo session in the control room.
Our Tracking Room
Our beautifully designed 419 sq. foot tracking room has just the right amount of life in it, making it incredibly versatile – perfectly suited for recording bands, ensembles of any kind, overdubs, voice overs, ADR and foley. Light spills into the room to create a cozy, comfortable atmosphere to be creative in, with plenty of room for musicians and gear alike.
The Aviom Cue System and CCTV monitoring of the room allows for easy communication between the tracking room and the control room.
Our Gear (for the technical minded)
Controller: Solid State Logic Nucleus
Pro Tools HD|2
Apogee Symphony I/O with 16X16 analogue I/O
Digidesign 192 I/O
MICROPHONE PREAMPS:
Great River MP-2NV Dual Pre
SSL SuperAnalogue Preamps (included in the Nucleus)
API 3124+ 4 Channel Pre
Universal Audio 4-710d
Joemeek VC2 Tube
Focusrite Platinum Trak Master Channel Strip
Mackie Onyx 800R 8 Channel Pre
COMPRESSORS:
Universal Audio 2-1176
dbx 266xs
4 X 1176 style compressors built into each channel of the 4-710d pre
A LA-2A style (opto) compressor built into the Joemeek
MICROPHONES:
Neumann M 149 Tube
Neumann TLM103
sE Electronics / Neve RNR1 Ribbon Mic
sE Electronics / Neve RN17 (Matched Pair)
AKG C414 XLS (2)
Audio Technica AT4033
Rode NT1-A (2)
Shure SM7b
Shure Beta 52
SM57 (4)
AKG C1000
sE Electronics SE4
M-Audio Nova
Samson C03
OTHER:
Aviom Cue System
Behringer V-Amp Pro
SSL Duende Firewire DSP Unit
TC Electronic Powercore Firewire DSP Unit
UAD-2 Duo
UAD-2 Quad
Our tracking room also features:
An Eterna (Yamaha) Upright Piano
A vintage Technics PCM E220 Digital Organ
SOFTWARE:
Pro Tools HD 10
Pro Tools 12
Cubase 8
Wavelab 8.5
Nuendo 5.5
Universal Audio Plugins
Waves Diamond Bundle
McDSP Plugins
SSL Duende Plugins
TC Electronic Plugins
Native Instruments Plugins
Auto-Tune
MicMod FX
VST Instruments:
Native Instruments Komplete 10 Ultimate
Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Trilian & Stylus RMX (with expansion kits)
Steven Slate Drums (SSD4) with expansions
BFD2
Access Virus Indigo TDM
We have several stock music libraries on hand as well as a huge sound effects library for any sound design requirements.