London Location
Our flagship school, Abbey Road Institute London, based at Abbey Road Studios in North West London, launched in September 2015. The school is integrated into the Abbey Road Studios building and offers our students a dedicated teaching space and bespoke studio space to work in 7 days a week. We’re proud to host our school in a dynamic teaching space which supports all areas of the course. You’ll work with top of the range, industry standard equipment in our professional studios.
Overview of the space
Throughout the course you’ll have access to both our teaching and commercial studios at different stages, depending on the modules you’re working on. Our purpose-built facilities includes a live recording space and professional-standard control room, two production rooms, a mixing room and a lecture room with individual workstations.
Students have access to the Institute’s studio both as part of the timetabled teaching as well as outside class time for independently managed recording, production and mixing. Every student has access to a powerful computer workstation available before, during and after class.
You can start your project in the studio and continue recording, editing and mixing on the classroom workstations or the production suites or mixing rooms. Abbey Road Institute students can be sure they are learning on the very best industry standard equipment in the classroom and studio. Our studios feature a wide array of software and hardware allowing for various hybrid set ups which are both practical and suitable for the modern day audio production environment.
Practical time is allocated on an individual basis and fully supervised by our qualified staff. Practical sessions can be booked by students on a weekly or monthly basis during the operating hours of the Institute. There is no limit to the amount of practical time a student can book during his/her course, subject only to availability.
Here is a list of facilities and equipment available to our students during the course.
Classroom/Lab
All theory and classroom based practical lectures take place in our Classroom/Lab. This room offers one powerful computer workstations for each student to use before, during and after lecture time. Aside from following lecture activities, our students can use these workstations to produce, edit, mix and even record. Each workstation offers a very wide selection of software together with a dedicated audio interface, MIDI controller and headphones. The Classroom/Lab also features a pair of Bower and Wilkins 802’s speakers for playback during lectures. Each workstation in this room includes:
- Apple 27” iMac
- UAD Apollo Twin – Audio Interface
- Nektar LX25 – MIDI controller
- Bower and Wilkins P7 Headphones
Software
To allow complete freedom to move from one room to another seamlessly, we have ensured that every single computer workstation available to our students in the Classroom/Lab, Production Suites, Mixing Studio and Recording Studio is equipped with the same wide selection of industry standard audio software. Every single DAW on our campus provides:
- Avid Pro Tools
- Apple Logic Pro X
- Ableton Live (including Max for Live)
- Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate bundle
- Arturia V Collection (100 years of landmark keyboard instruments in one software package)
- Celemony Melodyne
- All UAD plug-ins (authentic analog hardware emulations)
- All Softube plug-ins
- All McDSP plug-ins
- Waves Abbey Road Collection plug-in bundle
- Garritan Abbey Road Studios CFX Concert Grand Virtual Piano
- iZotope RX bundle
- Big Fish Audio Sample Libraries
Production Suites 1 and 2
From the first day of their course, our students have access to two Production Suites. These rooms are designed to enable our students to produce music and start recording from the very beginning providing an “in the box” setup with a vast selection of software and several controllers. The Production Suites allow recording within the same room to develop coaching and soft skills that are essential for a successful producer. Each suite is equipped with:
- Apple 27” iMac
- UAD Apollo Twin – Audio Interface
- UAD Satellite OCTO – DSP Accelerator
- PMC twotwo 6’s – Active Speakers
- Studio Logic SL88 – 88 keys fully weighted Master keyboard controller
- ROLI Seaboard Rise – MIDI controller
- Alesis Electronic Drum Kit
Mixing Studio
This studio reflects the typical modern hybrid setup providing full integration between “in the box” resources and analogue outboard equipment. In this room, our students can produce, edit, record, mix and master their projects:
- Avid S6 M40 Console – 16 Fader Modular Control Surface
- Avid XMON – Monitor Controller
- Avid 16×16 HD – AD/DA Converter
- Apple Mac Pro with UAD-2 OCTO PCIe Card and Avid HD Native PCIe Card
- Bower and Wilkins 805’s – Passive Speakers (Powered by 2x Quad 520f Professional Power Amplifiers)
- Avantone Mix Cubes – Active Speakers
- 500 Series – Heritage 73JR Pre-amp, API 512 Pre-amp, Chandler TG500 Pre-amp, SSL Bus Compressor
- Lexicon PCM 70 – FX Processor
- TL Audio Valve Master – 8 Channel Tube Console
- Focusrite Blue 330 – Stereo Compressor/Limiter
- Focusrite ISA 115HD – Dual Channel Preamplifier and Equaliser
- TC Electronics Fireworx – FX Processor
- Yamaha SPX1000 – FX Processor
- ART 6 Channel Headphone Amplifier
The four rooms above come with a small selection of microphones for “Control room recording”:
- Avantone C12
- 2x Neumann TLM102
- Neat Worker Bee
- Neat King Bee
- 2x Sontronics STC 10
- Sontronics STC 3X
- Sontronics Aria
- 2x Shure SM58
Recording Studio
Our students have exclusive access to a purpose-built recording studio within the Abbey Road Studios building. This studio provides a dedicated Control Room with a Neve Custom 75 console and outboard equipment as well as a separate Live Room that offers variable acoustics together with a wide selection of microphones and backline equipment:
- Neve Custom 75 Console – 32 Channel
- Antelope Orion 32 I/O – AD/DA Converter
- Apple 27” iMac
- UAD Satellite OCTO – DSP Accelerator
- Bower and Wilkins 802’s – Passive Speakers (Powered by 2x Bryston 7B SST2 Mono Blocks)
- PMC twotwo 6’s – Active Speakers
- Focal CMS 40’s – Active Speakers
- KRK VXT 6’s – Active Speakers (Live Room)
- 500 Series Compressors – 2x API 527, 2x SSL Dynamics, SSL Bus Compressor, OCL-500
- Chiswick Reach Valve – Stereo Compressor
- Focusrite Blue 330 – Stereo Compressor/Limiter
- Lexicon 300L with LARC – FX Processor
- Lexicon PCM 70 – FX Processor
- TC Electronics 2290 – FX Processor
- 2x Drawmer 1960 – Dual Channel Tube Compressor and Mic Pre
- Summit TPA200A – Dual Channel Tube Mic Pre
- Urei 545 – Vintage Equaliser
- 2x Chandler TG Channel – Abbey Road Special Edition Pre Amplifier and Equaliser
- Focusrite Red 3 – Dual Channel Compressor/Limiter
- Orban 622B – Dual Channel Equaliser
- BSS DPR-402 – Dual Channel Compressor/Limiter
- 2x DBX FS900 – De-esser
- 2x Urei LA4 – Compressor
- ART 6 Channel – Headphone Amplifier
- Feurich Model 122 – Upright Piano
- Marshall 1974X – 18 Watt Hand Wired 2 Channel Guitar Combo Amplifier
- Marshall DSL5C – 5 Watt Guitar 2 Channel Guitar Combo Amplifier
- Eden World Tour Pro – Bass Guitar Amplifier
- Eden TN2251- Bass Guitar Combo Amplifier
- Eden WTDI – Bass Guitar DI pedal
- Fender Standard Telecaster (blackguard butterscotch blonde)
- Randall ISO 12 with Celestion Vintage 30 – Isolation Cabinet for “Silent Recording”
- Natal Original Series F22 Birch Drum Kit with Maple, Birch and Brass Snares and additional 18″ Birch Bass Drum
- Zildjian A Series Cymbals
- 2x Natal Congas
- Radial Re-amp Box
- 5x KRK 8400 Headphones
Our Custom 75 Studio Microphones:
- Neumann U47
- 4x Neumann KM184’s
- 2x Neumann U87’s
- 2x Neumann U67’s
- Neumann TLM102
- 2x Sennheiser MD421’s
- Sennheiser MD441
- 2x Electro Voice RE20’s
- 2x Shure SM58’s
- 3x Shure SM57’s
- Shure Beta 91
- AKG D12VR
- 2x Coles 4038
- Sontronics Aria
- 2x Sontronics Orpheus
- 2x Sontronics STC-1S
- Sub-Kick Speaker Driver Microphone
Additional Floating Equipment
Students can also access a great selection of equipment bookable from our technicians. This equipment can be used in any of our studios or classroom/lab:
- UAD Satellite OCTO – DSP Accelerator
- 2x ROLI Seaboard Rise – MIDI Controller
- Nektar LX49 – MIDI Controller
- Nektar Panorama P4 – MIDI Controller
- Gibson J35 – Electro Acoustic Guitar
- Gibson Les Paul Bass – Semi Acoustic Bass Guitar
- Gibson Mini E-Tune – Electric Guitar with Self Tuning Mechanism
- Gibson Black Beauty Les Paul – Semi Acoustic Guitar
- Epiphone Viola – Hollow Bodied Bass Guitar
- Epiphone Masterbilt – Electro Acoustic Guitar
- Epiphone Casino – Semi Acoustic Guitar
- 8x Mogees – Instrumental Contact Microphone
- 4x SE Reflection Filter
- 4x SE Pop Shield
