Analogue Catalogue is a residential analogue recording studio in the north of Ireland. Recording to 24 track 2” Tape through a vintage Trident Series 80B desk, we made beautiful sounding records in Manchester from 2003 to 2013, when our control room was dismantled and reassembled within a 3 storey stone mill overlooking the Mourne Mountains in County Down. The much loved control room now connects to over 1000 sq ft of live areas - a large 600 sq ft apexed ceiling live room and a 'Westlake-style' 2nd live room with further tie lines and mic inputs throughout the building. The lovingly crafted accomodation is also part of the mill and many recordings have been captured in that bathroom or infront of the wood burning stove.
Recent clients of Analogue Catalogue include Yorkston/Thorne/Khan (Domino), The Vaselines (Sub Pop), Jeffrey Lewis (Rough Trade), King Creosote & Jon Hopkins (Domino), Barbarossa (Memphis Industries), Alasdair Roberts (Drag City), The Music Tapes (Merge), Allo Darlin' (Slumberland/Fortuna Pop), James Yorkston (Domino), The Aliens (EMI), Fionn Regan (Universal), The Offset:Spectacles (Rose Mansion Analog, Beijng), The Shivers (Silence Breaks/Fence) and more. We offer first class analogue recording in beautiful surroundings whilst remaining within the recording budgets of independent record labels.
Recording to tape is an exhilarating experience. Our main live room is spacious but treated in such a way that the refection is controlled and meaty. Great drum sounds, full warm string sounds and a beautiful piano sound are just some of what this wonderful room has to offer. The room itself was designed so that musicians can see one another yet there is great separation on the mics. It can be recorded and mixed to sound incredibly intimate despite being a 600 sqft space. Musicians can all record together capturing the magic and energy of live performance, but the separation allows repairs to fix any not so magical notes.
The smaller overdub room has 4 different reflections - a dead corner, a warm woody corner, a slappy tiled corner and a small room corner. Producer/Engineer/Mixer Julie McLarnon works all the spaces and mics to achieve the ‘right sound at source’ - this leaves nothing to fix in the mix. Getting sounds right at source remains the true art of recording and Julie manages to make this look and feel effortless, allowing artists to focus on their music.
Nothing captures bass and drums like tape and nothing captures the energy of a performance like tape. Julie remains a dedicated analogue engineer, but we also provide the ability to track directly to 2" tape and then transfer to digital for additional recording or mixing elsewhere. The 24 tracks of 2" can be converted through high quality SADiE/JoeCo converters to individual WAV files at 16/24bit and 96/88.2/48/44.1kHz. Producers, engineers and artists can leave your session here with a USB flash drive to take away and continue working on in the box.
2016 has seen the opening of the ‘Analogue Catalogue Digital Portal’ - a second control room tie-lined into the live rooms and the analogue control room so producers and engineers can bring their DAW to Analogue Catalogue and access its live rooms, instruments and all of its analogue delights.
Analogue Catalogue 2016
