Recording Services

If you are looking for that special sound, you need a great studio room, great microphones, a great recording console and people that know what they are doing. Although some great records have been made on laptop computers and simple microphones, if the best quality is your goal, we have the edge you are looking for that you can only get from a world class recording studio like Troubled Clef Studios.

The “Montserrat” room

Troubled Clef Studios offer a number of large and spacious recording rooms in our studio in San Miguel de Allende, including the iconic "Montserrat" room. Design based on Sir George Martin's AIR Studios Montserrat, the original iconic studio that is unfortunately no longer with us, Troubled Clef allow you to record in a room similar to the room where Dire Straits, The Police, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Rush, James Taylor and countless other epic artists chose to record. This includes a Steinway grand piano, and plenty of space to ensure creativity is never sacrificed in the process of recording your art.

The Neve Console

We went to extemes to find a vintage Neve 8232 console and procure it, crate it and have it shipped to San Miguel de Allende.  Not a small task at all.  But we did it, and now you can record through it.  Why is this important?  The tone of the pre-amps on Neve consoles are just the best.  Hands down.  And having a piece of history like this at Troubled Clef Studios is epic.  We take all the inputs from our Montserrat live room through the Neve and then route them to either Pro Tools/Logic or to Tape and then to the DAW.  This coloration of the sound creates a level of warmth that is unparalleled and something that uniquely defines the Troubled Clef product and "The San Miguel Sound".

The best microphone selection

We have over 55 microphones including vintage “museum pieces” that were actually used by major artists in the 1970s, including the very Neuman U47 microphone used by the late Bon Scott of AC/DC on every album recorded by the band before 1978. Add to that other Neuman microphones, AKG microphones, U67s, 414s, D12s, Shure, Sennheiser, Golden Age, etc. and we have a microphone for every instrument, style and singer. The sound comes from the microphone and if you don’t have the choices, you can’t ensure that the recording is going to be perfect. We have every choice you could imagine.

The Steinway Grand Piano

We have a beautiful and modern Steinway Model B grand piano that is always tuned and ready for your recording. And it sits in the same alcove design as AIR Studios Montserrat, but we can wheel it out if you prefer.

The Alvin Taylor Drum set

Friend of the studio, the great Alvin Taylor (drummer for Little Richard, Eric Burdon, George Harrison, and hundreds of others) provided us his beautiful Gretsch Catalina kit, and we can augment that with a huge array of drums, snares, toms, cymbals, etc. that we have available for use. You don’t need to bring in your kit as it is all here waiting for you, and who wouldn’t want to play on Alvin’s drums.

Amps

Choose from our array of amps including Marshall JCM, Vintage Fender Twin Reverb, 1964 VOX AC50 (Rare), GK Bass Head, or if you like use our Kemper Profiler and you bring in your amp profile and we’ll use that. We have a dedicated Amp room to isolate guitar amps from bleed, or you can wheel the amp into the live room and play next to it. Your choice.

Guitars

Feel free to use any of our guitars in the collection, from US Fender Telecaster, Martin Acoustic, US Fender Jazz Bass, Fender Stratocaster, Rickenbacker 330 and 360 (our 360 is one of only 2 in the world that were custom built for us, when we put in our order with Pearl Jam in the 1990s for this 12 string classic).

Over 5 Terabytes of Kontakt Sample Libraries

And if we can’t give you the actual instrument to create that sound you are craving for, we have a sample of it. Our massive sample library means you will have access to any sound, whether a recording of actual sound or a synthetic creation, pad, drone, etc. to ensure your music is perfectly balanced for you.

Pro Tools or Logic - You choose

We are equally experts in Pro Tools and Logic, and are happy to provide you with the stems of your recording any any format. Our plug-in libraries are huge too.

We even (still) have tape

We assume most recordings today will go through our console straight to digital, but if you want to have some analog warmth, we’ve got you covered. Our Tascam MSR16 1/2” tape machine is always ready to saturate the warmth into your recordings. Great on distorted guitar tones. We have plenty of tape rolls ready, so you can track to it, and then transfer the analog tape tone to digital and mix it in with your other tracks to get the right blend for the job. We can support SMPTE lock as well, if you want to keep it on tape as long as possible too.

Mac Pro, servers, etc.

When it comes to technology, we’ve got you covered. With over 40 years of computer experience onboard, it is no wonder that we have the latest in systems. From our Mac Pro system that has massive amounts of memory & local storage, to our racks of redundant high speed storage systems. Our networks are state of the art 10Gb/s throughout with the latest enterprise hardware from Apple & Dell, all racked up and ready to go.

AudioMovers “ListenTo”

We built our studios to be a part of the global recording world - not to be isolated from it. If you are working with us, whether you are physically present in the studio or not, we can be a part of any live project anywhere on the planet due to our commitment to AudioMover’s ListenTo software. If one of your musicians or collaborators can’t make it to the beautiful town of San Miguel de Allende, no problem - just have them be a part of the live recording using this incredible, low latency solution, over the Internet. If you are new to this, we’ll help get your sessions setup to take full advantage of it as well.

And we are green too…

Our entire power system is solar, with redundant backup and conditioning. If there’s a brown out, or power failure, no big deal. We are our own power company. We harvest clean, green energy from the sun and use it to power our studios day & night. We don’t stop if the grid does, so your creativity is protected from the elements. Add to that our 1Gb/s fiber Internet connections, and you have some of the best tech available at your fingertips.