I’ve worked with the old Lynx Aurora’s for years and made a few records with them and always thought they were decent quality, but when I tried out the Aurora (n) I was absolutely blown away. The stereo image, depth and speed grabbed me instantly. Even if you have a top-quality microphone and headphones, good gear can only take you so far when recording your voice on the road without proper insulation surrounding you. That’s where a portable recording booth, also called a vocal isolation booth, can make or break your vocal takes. The 360-degree Acoustic Isolation Shield has a 6'8" (203cm) internal height (6'11" external height), with a footprint of 33"x33" (84cm), giving plenty of space in case you get a little pumped up while recording. It uses proper acoustic pads for the walls, which are twice as heavy as moving blankets and are designed specifically for sound absorption, featuring an 80% noise-reduction coefficient to cancel reverb. The best part? You can lay down pro vocals without the hassle or added expense of renting studio time. We have used the Prism ADA-8XRs at the studio and they sound superb. Still one of the best after 20+ years, but my Orpheus was just getting a little long in the tooth for my setup and I was recommended the new Lynx Aurora by an engineer friend.

When Mark Thompson secured the space it was remodelled entirely, and now houses Studio 1, with a 55‑square‑metre live room and a slightly smaller control room, as well as the much smaller Studio 2 and a few other facilities. Despite its comparatively 'comfy' dimensions, it is capable of hosting quite large recording projects, mainly due to its clever layout and the versatile interconnections between the various rooms. Interestingly, the building has a long musical pedigree. The premises were used by songwriter/producer Anthony Marshall and his firm Snap Management (hence the name of the studio) just before Thompson and Funky Junk took over the lease. But originally, in the early 20th Century, the building was home to the Boyd Piano Factory, owned by the same group as the Decca Record Company, who are said to have manufactured gramophones in Manor House at that time, quite possibly on the same premises.We will not, without your express consent, supply your personal information to any third party for their or any other third party’s direct marketing.

The studio is centred around an ultra rare vintage Neve 5316 analogue console from the early 70s, which we modified to have moving fader automation.Buy Isovox Portable Mobile Vocal Studio… 3. CAD AS34 Acousti-Shield Stand Mounted Acoustic Enclosure Funky Junk’s Mark [Thompson] already had a great collection of some of the best vintage gear imaginable, and we wanted to give it a home in a space that was accessible and within people’s (rapidly shrinking!) budgets. Overall, it’s pretty incredible that such a large booth can fold up and be transported so simply, then be set up again wherever you want. This also works great for small apartments or places where room is limited. Simply store it after your session is done, instead of having a permanent vocal booth taking up valuable floor space. It’s usually quite a straightforward process because I work in Pro Tools on all my rigs, so really it’s just the I/O settings will need to be tweaked for the setup I’m using. If it’s something I’ve recorded at Snap then the main considerations are that the sessions leave the studio in a good shape before I take them to work anywhere else. This involves proper labelling, annotation on takes, comment-box notes for anything that might need attention as well as colour labelling of regions which I might need to refer to. The colours of the regions can be really important when building comps – especially if you’re going through lots of takes of something.