Between Vintage Gear and the Serenity of the Park: A Visit to Studio Nord
There are places where you get the feeling that time has deliberately chosen to slow down. Studio Nord is one such place. Located in a former dance hall that’s over a hundred years old, surrounded by parks and just a short walk from the Bremen-Oberneuland train station, one of the last true classic recording studios has survived here: a large recording room, several control rooms, vintage equipment that others can only dream of—and an atmosphere that can’t be manufactured, but simply exists. If you’d like, you can even stay overnight in the guest apartment upstairs and fully immerse yourself in the experience.The focus is never on the technology—as outstanding as it may be—but rather on the music itself and the space it needs to come to life.
Gregor Hennig has been shaping Studio Nord since 2013. Having grown up with electronic sound generators, moving between indie and synth-pop, grindcore drumming, and free improvisation with mechatronic instruments, he has produced around 250 albums over the past thirty years. It is precisely this knowledge and curiosity that he brings to the Studio Nord Academy, where musicians gain direct access to equipment, spaces, and expertise through workshops. We spoke with Gregor Hennig about his work and his perspective on electronic music.
Hello, Gregor. How would you describe the Studio Nord in a sentence or two?
Gregor Hennig: I regard the Studio Nord as a place where music can live. Its ‘beating heart’ is certainly the recording room, which was designed a good half century ago for recording entertainment orchestras. This makes high demands on the acoustics, and spaces of this kind have become extremely rare. Aside from that (and aside from the fact that we possess a great deal of equipment from that era), what has always mattered the most to me personally is that the studio should not feel like a laboratory and should feel inspiring to people.
In your view, what are the advantages of a professional recording studio today, given that one could theoretically record things at home in a bedroom studio?
Naturally, there is no universal answer to that, because there are as many different requirements placed on recording studios as there are musical styles themselves. I think that large parts of contemporary popular music can certainly be realised to a high standard without an actual recording studio. If I now claim that traditional recording studios remain relevant precisely where the aim is to create something new, that may seem absurd at first. And yet, the way forward rarely lies in reinventing the wheel, but in focusing on individual personalities. If I want to capture a particular, unmistakable attitude, it does help enormously to work with the involuntary and unplanned elements that arise in a live situation, and that requires space in which that music can happen.
To you, what is the appeal of working with real tape? And since many musicians today are only accustomed to the modern DAW multitrack workflow, is a certain degree of adaptation on their part sometimes needed?
Analog tape has many advantages. Alongside the unmistakable sonic characteristics that analogue technology generally offers, the most important thing for me is the greater degree of concentration that inevitably results when tracking to tape. In my experience, it is impossible to concentrate as intensely when one knows that everything could be edited later, compared to a situation where everything genuinely depends on the moment. In short: musicians play better when it really counts. Furthermore, working with a DAW easily causes a drift towards formal perfection. But fewer "mistakes" also means a more generic result. I think that things become more personal when the actual performance is left unaltered.
This does require a very considerable degree of adjustment, which in my view is always worthwhile. That said, in many cases, we nonetheless decide to move to the DAW during the process, because many modern production styles and techniques simply cannot be realised without a substantial amount of editing.
Your website states ‘technology spanning ten decades’, how did all of this equipment accumulate and its way into the Studio Nord?
Our oldest microphone dates from the 1920s. It still sounds fantastic and was a bargain find on the internet. The majority of our microphones, however, come from the stock that the studio's original founder acquired in the 1950s. We also have multiple consoles and tape machines from the 1980s, since that was the period in which this type of equipment reached its peak. The preamplifiers and processors from the 1940s to the 1960s are, to a large extent, part of my own private collection of old units with rather oversized knobs.
Your equipment list includes a great deal of old broadcast technology, both German (Neumann, Telefunken, BFE, Eckmiller, Siemens, etc.) and American (Raytheon, Gates, RCA, etc.). Is this a matter of sonic preference and/or a certain sense of tradition?
When it comes to quality, there is simply no way around German mid-century broadcast technology. This is quite simply because that technology was developed and built with state funding, not least owing to its military relevance. Quality regardless of the cost. The American broadcast limiters are used mainly for sonic reasons. The sound of pop music as we know it today has been shaped by vintage American valve technology. These devices thus still deliver that ‘sounds like a record’ quality, even now.
Is there a particular piece of outboard gear that you like the most?
As far as outboard equipment is concerned, it is probably the RCA BA-6A: a mono broadcast limiter that contains no particularly exotic components, but still sounds fantastic. The unit is basically just a level control, but everything that passes through it ends up sounding bigger and more present. I guess the secret probably lies in the transformers.
Does all this old gear also require a good deal of maintenance work?
We have a staff technician whose bench is never empty. But on the other hand, most of this old equipment was built so robustly that, with rather minimal maintenance, it will easily go on working for another hundred years, and that kind of longevity is something you simply cannot find in new products anymore.
What role can digital tools play in a predominantly analogue studio?
Things like pitch correction, timing correction, impulse convolution, stem separation and much more simply cannot be done with analog technology. In future, a wide range of AI-supported processes will probably be added to this, although many of them are not yet up to professional quality standards. These digital tools are useful and frequently used here, but in my view they are also not indispensable.
On the subject of modular synthesizers — how do you use modular synthesizers in the studio?
The modular is used relatively rarely here when it comes to recording bands and ensembles. There are some cases where it fulfills a function similar to that of a pedalboard, that is, as a curated collection of individual effects processors.
What fascinates you personally about modular synthesis?
When Doepfer first introduced the A-100 (I had just come of age at the time) in the mid-90s, I bought one of the first systems. I found the almost boundless freedom it offered – even though it was mostly composed of very classic synthesis modules – very wonderful. My experiments often led to nonsense, but I think that is also precisely what music needs sometimes. There is also no better way of learning synthesis than by working with a modular. It is a bit like driving without satellite navigation; eventually, one will come to know the area rather well.
This year's Summer Academy at the studio will, for the first time, include a workshop on modular synthesizers. Could you give us some insight into this?
There are many reasons why I was determined to run a workshop on modular systems. My own fascination, for one, but also the intention of improving the proportion of women taking part in our workshops. So I asked directly at Schneiders Laden who would be best suited to the task. Through them I got to know Anna Z., a great artist that will be hosting the workshop.
We will have modular systems on site, on which participants will work in small groups. Over the course of an entire weekend, Anna will run an intensive course covering everything there is to know on the subject, from the underlying physics, structure and signal flow, to patching strategies and artistic experimentation. There is also the option of staying at the studio itself; we will dine together and enjoy a weekend full of enthusiasm.
What should participants see or understand differently after these two days?
My impression is that there is a considerable gap between the genuinely rather nerdy, electrotechnical complexity of the modular system itself and its often fairly intuitive use in practice. And I think that is a good thing, because this tension also gives rise to new ideas. Nevertheless, I am firmly convinced that most users can benefit enormously from the background knowledge this workshop can provide. Once one understands how a tool works, the horizon of what is achievable expands.
Who is this workshop intended for, and who is it perhaps not suited to?
Participants should have some experience with a modular system. Beyond that, however, the barrier to entry is low, since an understanding of the underlying physics is not necessarily assumed, even among experienced users. The workshop is therefore suited both to those who wish to be inspired by people deeply immersed in the subject, and to those who already belong to that group and wish to expand and refine their techniques and knowledge.
