Sunset & Gower Studios
Hollywood, CA

City Recorders began life as a small demo recording studio in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley in 1976. It was on Ventura, where Colfax Avenue deadended into it. Some people might remember that the west end of the building was built to resemble a six pack of Coca-Cola. As people we knew asked for rental time it came to be known as EASY STREET RECORDING.

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Control room in City Recorders Valley studio Scott begged, borrowed, and borrowed for a long time enough equipment to get our first studio off the ground. He established relationships with several nearby studios where we traded and borrowed mics for big sessions.

Control room in City Recorders Hollywood studio The new Hollywood studios were huge. They had been the screening rooms for Paramount Pictures originally. The control room was where the projecters were and the recording rooms were where the executives sat.

This is an old black and white photo of Studio A from the control room. The space was huge, much larger than it would seem from this picture. We built a percussion booth that had room enough for 4 drum kits. It was handy for large singing ensembles and isolating horns. Panels on the side wall could 'fly out' to set dampening and portable dampening walls were available as well. The high ceilings helped keep the sound live and still provide 'air dampening'. We blew all the money we could on the Kawaii piano. Studios are very often judged by how their piano records and ours got us a lot of sessions.