Running an RME AVB Studio | The Thin White Duke (Soho, London)

A network-controlled recording studio, inspired by an icon.

The Thin White Duke Studios is a recording studio hidden underneath an acclaimed cocktail bar in Soho, London. Conceived as a way of battling against the rise in bedroom productions, The Thin White Duke Studios is a membership-based creative space, offering use of any of three recording and production spaces with an engineer available at all times.

With three beautifully designed rooms inspired by David Bowie and his alter ego, The Thin White Duke Studios has a modular concept, with the ability to use what would traditionally be a Live Room, Control Room and Vocal Booth as individual production spaces.

This is possible thanks to RME's AVB-ready devices, with an AVB network handling audio recording and transport everywhere from the cocktail bar to the control rooms and vocal booth. Both the live and control room feature 12Mic preamps and M-1610 Pro converters (replaced by the M-1620 Pro), whilst the RME AVB Tool handles microphones and monitoring for the vocal booth.

Another M-1610 Pro and AVB Tool in the bar allows the team at TTWD to route music directly from the studio to the bar, allowing them to surprise artists with their own tracks on the house speakers.

We sat down with Giovanni and Max from TTWD to talk about the inspiration behind the studios, the need for a full-service membership-based studio like The Thin White Duke, and how they're using RME products throughout the studio and bar.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 What inspired the studio concept?
02:59 From radio station to recording studio
05:01 Discovering RME Audio and AVB
10:53 Using TotalMix FX

[davidsharpmuzik]

The RME support via Synthax for me has been first class and they have the best gear I believe, so you can't really lose with them. I love the way this studio looks to encourage musicianship but uses tech to support that - and that environment is very special

[matthewhopkins]

Amazing concept. Well done guys. I'm surprised that RME discontinued the AVB tool - it was a nice device.

[spencermakote]

This is a fantastic use of a small space, I worked as an engineer at Soho Radio briefly. I wonder what the control surface is?