Booze and bangers: The studio spaces will have their own minibars
(Picture: Handout)Whether it’s ordering another round of drinks or deciding to start a revolution, ideas both good and bad have long been cultivated in London’s pubs and bars. Now, one musically inspired Soho bar is offering patrons with plans to record an album the chance to do exactly that, without having to leave the venue.
Thin White Duke — which opened on Great Windmill Street earlier this year, with a name inspired by one of David Bowie’s short-lived (and controversial) alter egos — will offer two members-only studio spaces, fully loaded with mini bars, instruments and recording gear.
Two membership schemes will be on offer. The full membership, which offers unlimited studio time (with a four-hour block maximum), £8 studio cocktails and 10 per cent off other drinks and food, will cost £2,600, which works out at around £216 a month.
However, monthly memberships will cost £160 per month, offering the same food and drink deals, but with four hours of studio usage per week — which effectively works out as £10 per hour. Two-hour blocks can be booked for an extra £50 each.
Members will be able to bring in non-members — for example, a producer with a membership can invite non-member musicians in to record — which represents a decent deal, seeing as many rentable recording studios in London tend to cost hundreds of pounds a day, at least.
Two studio spaces will be on offer, with ready-to-use equipment including a Yamaha Maple Custom drum kit, a Nord Grand Digital piano, a Moog Subsequent 37 synthesizer, SSL controllers, microphones and amplifiers. Mac Studio desktops with production and mixing programmes Logic, Pro Tools and Reason are also included, as is an on-site sound engineer.
Audio captured in the studio can be played through the sound system in the bar, and the studios will stay open until 2am from Tuesday to Sunday, for any musicians keen on burning the midnight oil.
