I came across this wonderful video this morning - what a legendary place that was. I was fortunate to have worked there for a while as an assistant engineer in 1987 and ’88. I was of the fortunate few who got to come over from the studio I started at in 1986 - Alpha International. As I was watching, I was wondering if the whole SigmaAlpha merger event was going to be mentioned. I learned a lot about recording and producing watching the pros and have fond memories of my days in Philly.
I came across video while researching the Philly soul scene. This is a fantastic presentation on the history and the photos are just stellar. This is better than many "actual" music documentaries I've seen. Thank you!
WOW! This was a fascinating insight into the Sigma Sound Studios with an incredible visual record of first class photographs. These should be published in a coffee table volume. This must be one of the best if not THE best visual records of any recording studio.
wow ! this was a great and very interesting info about the Sigma Sound Studios , I just happen to acquire a Otari MX5050BQ 2 4 channels and used to belong to Sigma Sound Studios it has the blue logo in the back of the machine , I'm curious to find out how and when this Otari MX5050 was used in the studio .
Could you clarify how Sigma achieved stereo room sound with mono-recorded claps during the Electrodyne console era? I came up with some alternatives: - Two EMT 140 reverbs, one for each stereo channel - Haas effect by delaying audio in one channel - Panning the close mic to one side and room mic to the opposite - Played the mix into the room, picked up that in stereo and blended in that during mixing. The use of digital reverb like Lexicon in Sigma's early days with the Electrodyne console is less clear.
6:54 slide presentation (~45 min.) 9:19 Craig Michaels. Control Room 5? 10:04 pre-history 19:13 Jay Mark, probably M79 24-track on the left 46:41 yeah, writing up console, patchbay, external gear settings was a hassle☹️😡 47:22 Vince wearing April Wine / Sigma / Capitol Records / WMMR t-shirt. (I somehow managed to score one and cherished it) 47:27 Carla / Studio 5 48:19 Bob Titus, Sigma Philly TSD 48:30 George Bennett used to work at Wally Heider's IIRC. Studio 8 was the 48 track mix room 49:27 Edgar Winter
Many thanks for this important history! I had a question about the Panasonic table top radio in some of the photos. Was it somehow connected to the mixing board, or was it there to monitor over-the-air broadcasts? Thank you!
