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34
JONATHAN MILLER dons his
wellies for a trip out into the
Suffolk countryside to pay a
visit to Monkey Puzzle House,
a keenly priced residential
recording studio of much merit.
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Puzzle House is a new, purpose-built
residential recording studio. We have created
a studio that encapsulates all that is – or was
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– good about the classic studios, ironed out
their faults using modern means, and added essential
new technologies, thereby creating an affordable, cuttingedge
facility.’ That's what the website says, anyway. Of
special interest is the studio’s very reasonable quoted
daily hire rate of £250 (including an engineer) – especially
when one sees what gear one gets access to within its
scenic surroundings.
Long And Winding Road
Situated on a rural crossroads on the outskirts of the
quaint Suffolk village of Woolpit, an initially unassuming
Victorian flint-fronted cottage fronts an adjoining
dark wood-clad barn that is also typical of the area’s
architectural vernacular – the Monkey Puzzle House
residential studio itself.
Monkey Puzzle House is also home to studio owner
Rupert Matthews, an affable and relatively young
individual who clearly lives and breathes his craft, having
bravely put his money where his heart is.
Step through a side entrance from a gravelled
courtyard and one immediately finds oneself in an
expansive country-style kitchen – the hub of Monkey
Puzzle House, with doors leading directly to the beautiful
control room centred around a recently installed Solid
State Logic AWS 900+ Analogue Workstation System and
attached to an eye-catching and spacious live room.
Mathews starts here: “The last studio I built – as part
of a multimedia business in a leased farm property down
in Surrey – had doors that went from the control room
through into the live room, which I never really liked.
Another studio I worked in... was
the same, as was Ridge Farm,
so, here, to draw people out of
the control room, the process
of walking into the live room
gets people trapped in the
kitchen; they’re still involved in
what’s going on, or feel they’re
listening comfortably, but it
certainly makes the control
room space feel a lot bigger for
a room that’s not actually huge,
even though it’s a comfortable
room to have a bunch of people
hanging around in. Besides, not
AUDIO MEDIA MAY 2009
having the stereotypical sofa behind the desk means
there’s not always someone behind you, so you don’t
have to turn around every few seconds to hear what
they’re saying.
"By putting the sofa in front of the desk you can kind
of see what they’re saying without having to change
what you’re doing too much. So the kitchen really helps
– something I haven’t seen anywhere else; it just seemed
the right thing to do, so I went with it.”
Just Have A Little Patience
Matthews’ interest in recording dates back to his Sussexbased
childhood: “…through having played in bands,
and being the person that always brought along the
tape deck and Dictaphone to the session, putting it in
the corner, and working out that hiding it under blankets
and things somehow made it sound better!”
Such experimentation soon had Matthews hooked,
quickly moving onwards and upwards in the recording
world, courtesy of an unspecified two-track Ferrograph
tape machine, before settling on an audio-cassette-based
four-track upon which he started recording local bands:
“That was going pretty well; then, at the beginning of the
’90s, I borrowed some money from my folks and bought
an ADAT, eight microphones, and a tiny little mixer – not
an incredible choice of equipment, but I started charging
people for a recording.”
Matthews’ much-needed break came soon after:
"When I was at college – I would have been 16 at the
time – I was recording a band on my own equipment,
doing Led Zeppelin covers, which I was really excited
about, just on the basis of them being a bloody great
band who had always recorded well. I was struggling a bit
with the drums, trying to make them sound really good.
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