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STAX STUDIO A

 

Old studio A in the 70's

 

Old building maps

 

Stax Museum map

The studio is 46.5' long, 27' large and 22' to 25' high (so the floor's slope is 3' high)

A rough drawing by Dave Purple (one of Stax recording engineers in the 70's) of the whole Stax building in the 70's (thanks to René Wu)

Another drawing by Steve Cropper showing the studio in 1967 (from René Wu)
 

The Stax Studio at the beginning (1961)

 

The Stax recording equipments
(With great help from René Wu)

Regarding the mixing console ; from the beginning till about 1966 Stax had 2x 4 channel Ampex mixers model 3761 (see attached scan). They were first hooked up to a mono Ampex recorder, model 350.

The first stereo recordings took place early 1965 and Tom Dowd hooked up 1 mixer to the left channel and the other one to the right one. A Scully model 280 were used for those recordings.

Around 1966/67 the Scully 2 track recorder was replaced by a Scully 4 track one. At the same time, Welton Jetton designed especially for Stax a new board  (Audiotronics, Memphis). The first hit on the 4 track machine was Soul Man by Sam & Dave.

 
The board on the picture with Otis Redding underneath was a later one probably around mid 1967.


From around 1970, we don't have details regarding board (a 16 or perhaps 24 tracks, eventually from Audiotronics too), tape recorders etc.
You can find in the PHOTOS and STAX TODAY sections the 2nd, the 3rd and the next console.



One important thing is that, until around 1968, the artists and musicians did not use earphones, except for some rare overdubbings and the natural echo of the big and high studio, which actually played a part in the way the musicians played as they heard the others with a delay was not heard on the recordings themselves as Stax always used an echo chamber (natural until early 65) then an electronic echo device. 

The guitars were linked directly to the console and the amps were low. They always played at a rather low volume and there were two mufflers in the studio and also small partitions aroud the drums (see them on the Sam & Dave session color photo)

 

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