Whitehouse Studios

Summary
Whitehouse Studios is a professional music complex complete with the latest recording facilities and three spacious, fully-equipped rehearsal rooms. The studio has been built literally from the ground up by owner Matt Bew, who has utilised the wealth of experience that he gained from a lifetime studying music and the many years designing, building and working at other sound studios to create a custom built environment perfectly suited to the modern band/artist’s requirements. The facilities are well suited to not just music recording, but also spoken word, voice-overs and poetry and have hosted events such as auditions for the 2011 Reading Rock Academy’s Battle of the School Bands.

Owner’s Account
Before we got our hands on it our building had quite a history. It was being used as a carpet warehouse when we took it over, but before that it was a bakery and going back even further we are told that it was originally a stable.

The studio opened for business in July of 2006 after a year of renovation, comprising of a live room, control room, lounge area, office and two rehearsal rooms. In 2009 we opened the third and biggest of our rehearsal rooms giving bands the choice of three custom-built, acoustically treated practice spaces.

The studio itself is fully equipped with a large array of equipment both new and old, allowing us to combine the best of the digital and analogue worlds to help bands to create a sound that is both flawless and timeless.

In 2011 we launched our website through which bands can check availability and book practice rooms as well as finding out anything that they need to know about our facilities.

Artists that have recorded/rehearsed there

We have been lucky enough to work with a great selection of artists, too many to name, but as an overview we have recently worked with: Touring alt-folk hero Ben Marwood, Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac, Engine-Earz, metal-core newcomers S.E.A.S.O.N.S, Will Tun and the Wasters and local punk rock band Launch Control.

As for rehearsals, we see a lot of bands in the course of year, but some of the highlights for us have to be: Haircut 100, Pete & The Pirates, DDP, Kremlins, Smokey Bastard, The Jettes, The Uppercut band, Sevasa, The Wonders, The Box Factory, Hidden in Plain Sight and High Wasters

Notable stories

Our producers have been kept busy over the years, judging local battle of the bands competitions and appearing on BBC introducing’s Demo Panel. As for unusual stories, we’ve had more than our fair share of those.

Once we turned up for the first day of tracking a big metal album to discover the bassist and guitarist had left the band that very morning.

We had a drummer arrive at the studio and proceed to drink 8 cans of strongbow before his session started with obvious results and serious rhythmic consequences.

In what can only be described as a frosty session, we had a band arrive and act very oddly for 30 minutes or so before it became apparent that the singer was not only drunk, but had been found to be sleeping with the guitarist’s mother. The drummer, it has to be said, got on with his session and did remarkably well.

Last but by no means least, while producer Matt was working on their recordings in the control room, a band broke into a full on fist fight in the lounge. Matt, professional as ever, kept his head down and continued his edits.