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, but modernized with the best acoustic treatments designed by the world's best acousticians, to be acoustically perfect.  It pays homage to the original iconic studio that is unfortunately no longer with us, but where Dire Straits, The Police, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Rush, James Taylor and countless other epic artists chose to record the greatest hits of the 1980s. Our room includes a perfect 7' 6" Yamaha C7 concert grand piano, 1950s Hammond B3 organ with vintage Leslie speaker, 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 Reverb Chamber

Unique to Troubled Clef Studios, we have an actual large reverb chamber.  Few studios still have these in the world, but our reverb chamber allows us to blend a unique and special character of reverb into any vocal, instrument or production that can only be heard in our studio.  Yes, we have all the best digital reverb systems in both analog & digital forms, but this is really special.  And it is part of the Troubled Clef experience.

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 Concert Grand Piano

We have a beautiful and modern Yamaha C7 Concert 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.  This piano was painstakingly sourced from Texas and carefully shipped to San Miguel.  It is from 1980, but we are only the 3rd owner.  Past owners treated this piano with kid gloves and it is literally in "as new" condition, perfectly tuned and serviced and sounds incredible in our live room.  The piano is on a dolly and can be moved to any location, to ensure the recording is incredible.  The C7 is the most widely recorded piano in recording studios and we are proud to have the same piano as found in luminary studios such as Abbey Road, London.

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.

A real Hammond B3 organ & Leslie speaker

We are proud to say that we have a real 1950s Hammond B3 organ & vintage Leslie speaker to ensure that you have the best vintage sound you can imagine.  The B3 featured on so many classic recordings throughout the 20th and 21st century, and we want to be sure that we have in place what you need to recreate the past and yet do it in a modern facility of the future.

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 15 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.  Our Pro Tools Ultimate system includes HDX optimal hardware to guarantee no latency recording, and DSP enhanced signal processing.  Great for large mixes, and we are industry standard.  If you are recording at Troubled Clef Studios, you can be assured that the files we provide to you will be familiar to what you expect from any high end recording studio.  We also have our own secure and private file delivery system that guarantees your audio files are never scraped by AI, or intercepted by any counter party that you don't want to hear your audio before you have released it.  We understand working with professional clients, and have done so for many decades.

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, including AVID HDX cards for optimized DSP processing, 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.  Our backup systems are 4 tier, and include local and offsite backups through our secured servers in Texas.

Sessionwire

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 our partnership with Sessionwire. 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. Sessionwire allows us to have unlimited number of parties be a part of your recording session, from anywhere in the world.  We have used this technology to work with producers in Los Angeles, while recordings were being done in real time in Mexico.  If you have musicians that need to be in session, but cannot be in San Miguel de Allende, we can work with them to provide a low latency, high quality 48k recording over the Interenet in real time with your sessions.  Just ask and we can explain more about how this incredible technology is available for your project if you need it.

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. This is important in Mexico, which doesn't necessarily have the power reliability from the grid that we would all want.  But no big deal for us - we are our own power company, with over 30 KwH of battery capacity allowing us to run for days, even if the power is out in the region.

Add to that our 1Gb/s fiber Internet connections, and you have some of the best tech available at your fingertips.  Add to that our server cluster in Texas for delivery of your final product, and we can handle the 100% uptime that you need for broadcast quality work.