The first recordings date back to 1981. The original studio was equipped with a Cavendish Portable II organ with a 760 Leslie, Roland SH09, Logan String Melody and a Roland TR66 drum machine.
Recording was to an Akai 4000 sound on sound 1/4” tape recorder, and the only processing was a
Roland AP7 Jet Phaser and a Simms Watt Echo.
Although the first release (The First Technic, played on the Technics U90 organ), was recorded directly to cassette tape in one take, although this is the preferred way to make organ recordings anyway
(in one take -
The Synclub label was formed in 1981, originally exclusively for the recordings of Andy Horrell, but now includes recordings produced by Andy Horrell at the Synclub studio.
Over the years the studio has gone through stereo sound on sound tape, 4-
Mixing desks have gone from an MM 12:2, Studiomaster 20:4:2, Tascam MM1, Mackie 56:8
to all digital inside the DAW using 96 input audio interfaces.
The Synclub label began in 1996, and was originally set up for the output of the Bristol Synthesiser Club (SYNth CLUB), of which 3 albums were released.
After the demise of the BSC, the recording label name was retained and has been used ever since..
Audio recordings are done at the EMIS Museum Studio,
and all direct recording, mixing and mastering is done at the Synclub studio.
The Synclub Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) is a virtual orchestra, that only exists within the computers at the Synclub studio, and is arranged (using Sibelius) and performed (with Cubase) by Andy Horrell.
For non orchestral sounds, releases are under the Synclub Studio Orchestra,
And when purely solo synth, released as Andy Horrell.
All vocals are by guest artists, duly credited
Synclub recording label
Studio effects processing had evolved as technology and price developed. Generally, a synth based studio doesn’t need too many effects, echo and reverb being the main backbone. This was catered for using tape echo (Simms Watt), spring reverb (some nasty Carlsbro thing !), Progressing to a Boss DE200 echo and the most notably step forward at the time was the arrival of the Yamaha SPX90, which was the first affordable digital effects processor with a respectable reverb. Things moved on to the Alesis Quadraverb+, RSP Intelliverb and then TC Electronic M3000, which was finally replaced by the software version Powercore VSS3. All effect processing now is plug in software based.