Enter
The Village!


The Village in LA is known for its creative musicality and technological genius. This month they have chosen TEC-nominated ATC SCM25 Pro Mk2 monitors for three of their main recording rooms – Studio A, B, and D. 

This Los Angeles’ premiere Westside recording facility has hosted Common, Shakira, Alanis Morrisette and the Smashing Pumpkins, to name few stellar artists. Jon Batiste recorded 'We Are' on Verve Records which won Album of the Year at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. 

Women play a leading role at The Village, where the philosophy and culture of embracing, and supporting diversity, equity and Inclusion is very much present. Among their long-standing engineers, writers and producers, is Alisse Laymac (top right)  standing next to manager Tina Morris.

CEO of the Village studios Jeff Greenberg (right with  Snoop Dogg below with Aerosmith) was honored alongside GRAMMY-winning Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne at the 10th anniversary MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert at Club Nokia in Los Angeles on May 12, 2014


Established in 1968 in a 30,000 square foot former Masonic Temple, The Village is a multi-story, multi-studio complex featuring the best of both vintage and modern gear. Its historic Studio D, one of the largest studios in Los Angeles, has a spacious live recording room with three iso booths and a live echo reverb chamber connected, via audio and video tie lines, to the building’s second floor 4000 square foot performance space, complete with stage and chandeliers.

 
The Village’s studio D and its other main studios boast Neve consoles: Studio A features a vintage 72-input 8048, and Studio B, with its VRLSP, is a favorite for scoring work. Also in the complex is Studio F, a compact, multi-purpose surround suite. The Village’s studios are all equipped with Pro Tools HD 3 systems that are linked by Fibre channel SAN.


Dr Dre and Snoop

The Village remains vibrant today largely because of its original artist-friendly philosophy," says CEO Jeff Greenberg. According to studio manager, Brooke Boyle, evidence of this consistent philosophy are loyal clients to include: T-Bone Burnett, Smashing Pumpkins, Roy Thomas Baker, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters.


Ben Harper, Jackson Brown and Tom Freund

To be a fly on The Village’s walls would make one
a witness to legendary recording sessions of Rock and Roll history --past and present, including:
The Rolling Stones’ Goat’s Head Soup, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, Eric Clapton’s, After Midnight, as well as his Grammy Award-winning Tears in Heaven, most Steely Dan records including Aja, numerous Bob Dylan records, as well as modern blockbusters including the last three Smashing Pumpkins releases, Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth, Gwen Stefani's Love.


Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie working on
new material @villagestudios Studio D.

Angel. Music. Baby., GRAMMY winning artist Kelly Clarkson's My December, and GRAMMY winning albums Taking The Long Way and Continuum from the Dixie Chicks and John Mayer. Also Stone Temple Pilots recorded their latest CD at the Village.


Audeze

The recent buzz at The Village is due, in part, to almost daily live recordings in the facility's Neve 88R-equipped Studio D, where the nation’s hottest radio program, KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, broadcasts some of the most exciting music to be found on the air--or on the ‘Net. Helmed by influential tastemaker Nic Harcourt, the morning sessions at The Village are not only broadcast in real time but are also simulcast and archived on KCRW.com. In one recent week alone, Village staff engineer Ghian Wright recorded Morning Becomes Eclectic sets by The Swell Season, Bat For Lashes and M.I.A. Red hot up-and-comers The Magic Numbers, Koop, The Editors and Ryan Adams
are all among the popular live artist broadcasts from the Village.


Grammy®-winning Brent Fischer Orchestra @ Village studio C in 2024


 

 

 

 

Top: Village Studios A, B, & D featuring ATC speakers; Village Women's Technical Team: Hannah Samuels, Nicole Schmidt, Alisse Laymac, Tina Morris, Paniz Farokhnia. photos: Village studios. 

The Village attracts top musicians who need the finest equipment, ambiance and support services to record their music. In addition to great artists, the studio has recorded the film scores for Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, Moulin Rouge, Girl Interrupted, Stewart Little, Million Dollar Hotel, Hurricane, Next Friday, The X-Files Movie, Toy Story 2, Mulan, The Shawshank Redemption, There's Something About Mary, Big Daddy, Oscar and Lucinda, Con Air, Dr. Doolittle, Mad City, the Oscar winning Good Will Hunting, and Ali.


Snoop Dogg with CEO Jeff Greenberg 

Twilight Sessions......The Dead Ships, In The Valley Below, Beach Party, In The Valley Below....PIXIES went live on KCRW broadcast from Studio A at the Village with their first album in 20 years.

For the past three years, The Village has been nominated as studio of the year by the readers of Mix magazine and in 2006 won a Tech Award for outstanding sound production for its work on Walk The Line.

The Village is also considered to be one of the Hollywood film industry’s premier recording and post-production facilities where film scores for Walk the Line, Hairspray, Pursuit of Happyness, Lemony Snicket and I Heart Huckabees were recorded. Additionally, TV spots are recorded at the Village for handful of commerical companies including Jack In The Box and Porsche as well as American Idol.



Studio F (designed by Vincent VanHaaf) recorded Missy Elliot’s Under Construction, and Nelly’s Nellyville, two of the most successful hip-hop albums of 2002/2003. Additionally, Usher's Confessions and Janet Jackson's Damita Jo was recorded in F.


Noel Zancanella with Common

Other engineers and producers hard at work at The Village on recent projects have been producer Ry Cooder, Bob Ezrin recording Army Of Anyone, Roy Thomas Baker recording the latest Smashing Pumpkins album and Desmond Child working on Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell III and The Scorpion's latest record.


l-r: Jeff Greenberg, CEO of The Village, in Ed Cherney's private studio in The Village photo: bytheC

Powering The Village’s hit making studios are a bevy of Apple Macintosh computers, which run ProTools™ in the various tracking and composer studios, and scheduling and accounting software in executive offices.


Alanis Morrisette worked in Studios A and F. Pictured above with Producer,
Guy Sigsworth Engineers, Sean McGhee & Andy Page

Greenberg notes, “About 95% of our sessions these days are recorded to hard disk and backed-up nightly through our Storage Area Network – a process that depends entirely on the performance and reliability of our Apple Macs. Our Storage Area Network is a centralized server that sends all of the sessions through fiber to a secure block of hard disks with a RAID configuration. A dedicated Apple Macintosh G5 CPU backs-up all of the data on a nightly basis, ensuring security and redundancy for all of our sessions,” adds Greenberg.
The Dead Ships

Summing it all up, Greenberg explains, “Whether recording in one of our tracking studios, surfing the web during a break on any one of the numerous iMacs in the studio lounges, writing in a composer’s studio, or working in one of our offices, our goal is to help make the experience enjoyable. The goal is to provide the latest tools and best people to help deliver artist/producer's vision.”

Contact: Tina Morris, Studio Manager
310-478-8227
The Village (310) 478-8227
web site: http://villagestudios.com


Watch the video interview with producer John Wooler from the historical Village Studios here!

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