Show Off Your Studio: Everland is Ben Worsey’s racked out retreat

#SHOWOFFYOURSTUDIO Studio owner & head engineer Ben Worsey Contact ben@everlandstudios.com.au Website everlandstudios.com.au Key kit Pro Tools 10HD running on a custom-built Hackintosh with 2 x UAD Quad Cards Lynx Aurora 16 + 8, for a total of 24 channels Adam A77x Monitors Various outboard pre-amps such as API / Millennia / CAPI / RCA / […]

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Everland Hero

#SHOWOFFYOURSTUDIO

Studio owner & head engineer Ben Worsey
Contact ben@everlandstudios.com.au
Website everlandstudios.com.au

Key kit

How do you use your studio, Ben?

Everland is a professional music recording studio. I work predominantly with local bands in the Indie / Rock / Funk / Blues and Folk genres. I also provide online mixing services for bands that have self-recorded or recorded elsewhere.

Tell us more about Everland!

Everland is located in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Five Dock. The studio has existed for around 12 years and I have been the owner for about eight. The idea behind the studio is to provide a relaxed space for bands to create music whilst having all the tools necessary for a great-sounding final product.

What kind of atmosphere are you trying to cultivate in the studio? You have a great amount of decor and mood lighting.

I have tried to keep the vibe fairly relaxed in terms of lighting and decor. I find that a lot of studios feel too sterile and personally I would have a hard time feeling inspired in a space like that. To that end, I have tried to make the studio feel a bit like a lounge room with a recording rig in it.

What steps did you take to ensure great sounding acoustics?

The space was acoustically treated when I took over the business so I haven’t had to do much in that regard. The control room has a fairly flat frequency response and the live room seems to sound great with most instruments. Many drummers comment on how great their kit sounds in that room!

Which DAW do you use and why? We also spot a tape machine, is this in use?

I use Pro Tools 10 as it’s pretty stable and does what I need it to do. I have some experience with Logic Pro but I feel Pro Tools is far superior in terms of audio editing. The tape machine that you see in the photos is actually not in use, it’s there more for sentimental reasons as it belonged to my Dad and it was how I first experimented with recording when I was about 12 or 13 years old.

What is your favourite piece of gear and why?

It’s really hard to pick a favourite piece of gear for me and it is always changing. Right now, my favourites are two CAPI VP25 preamps that I built myself from kits from CAPI. There is something about putting them together myself that makes them really satisfying to use. They sound great too!

How much time do you spend in your studio per week?

40+ hours. If I’m not tracking or mixing a band project I like to get into the studio and experiment with different mic placements and combinations for recording drums or guitars or whatever. Sometimes there’s not enough time during a session to do these experiments so I’ll do them in my downtime.

What is next on your shopping list studio-wise and why?

I would love an SPL Transient Designer 4 as I love the plugin version but I also like committing drum sounds to Pro Tools so it’d be great to have the hardware version for tracking drums. I also recently acquired a Little Labs IBP and I wouldn’t mind a whole rack of those!

Do you have any frustrations with your current set-up and why?

At some point, I would like to upgrade to a later version of Pro Tools, mainly for the offline bounce function but due to hardware issues, it would mean building another Hackintosh so that may not happen soon.

What is your dream piece of gear and why?

My dream piece of gear changes week to week depending on what I’m working on or listening to but I would love a Neve 33609 bus compressor.

What is your top piece of production advice?

Don’t be afraid to break the supposed ‘rules of audio engineering’. The best sounds often seem to be had by doing something that you’re not ‘supposed to’ with a piece of gear.

What is the one piece of advice you would give someone starting out building a studio?

Listen to The Six-figure home studio podcast. This is such a great podcast about starting a studio. I WISH it had been around when I was starting out.

Do you use a studio that we all need to see? Send photos to editors@musictech.net or get in touch via the MusicTech Facebook page and your gear could be featured next.

For more studio posts, check out our Studio page.

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