Driving through Berlin’s tranquil Lichterfelde district, you can easily miss one of the most important sanctuaries of classical music production: Teldex Studios.
The impressive Teldex Studio complex lies hidden away behind a pretty Wilhelminian-style building with a physical therapy practice in the backyard – this seclusion certainly can’t hurt when it comes to focus at work.
The roots of this hall go back several years; it used to be Teldec’s large studio. When this company, together with Erato, was dissolved by its owner Warner in 2002, some former employees of the companies fortunately came together to take over the studio complex and continue to operate it under the fitting brand name “Teld-Ex”. An immediate partnership with harmonia mundi France ensured full order books right from the start, and the list of customers since then is essentially a who’s who of the classical music world.
The heart of the facility is undoubtedly the large studio, which has almost the same dimensions as the legendary Studio 1 at Abbey Road Studios for a reason. With one significant difference: the ceiling is much lower, which makes the Teldex hall much easier to control acoustically. The only thing missing is the crosswalk in front of the door.
What’s at least as fascinating as the hall, however, are the little gadgets that came with the takeover: cabinets full of microphone treasures from the 50s and 60s. Many a studio owner might be tempted to throw morality and lawfulness out the window for just a portion of this treasure trove. The rows upon rows of meticulously maintained M49s, M50s, U47s, U48s, M149s, TKM50s and so on are an eye-watering sight to behold.
The takeover also brought with it a fundamental technical overhaul of the entire complex. The costly SSL console installed at the time has by now also been resigned to the history books, having been completely converted to the Ravenna-based Merging System. As a result, the control room, projecting into the large studio like a spaceship, is dominated by controllers that control the MassCore system. And as impressive as the flush-mounted PMC monitors in the walls may be, the good old B&W 801s are wheeled out on a regular basis. We’re talking the old Matrix version, not the newer Nautiluses – history all over again.
No matter how good the hall and how desirable the treasures in the microphone cabinet may be – all of this is of course meaningless without the people behind it, being congenial at shaping the ideas of the musicians in the hall into reality with vision, expertise and musical intuition. It also can’t hurt that the complex is situated in proximity to the Berlin University of the Arts, one of the world’s best cradles of sound engineers, where some of the Teldex sound engineers teach and almost inevitably recruit new colleagues.
What is special about the work here is the unpretentious fusion of sober technology and traditional microphones. While in many studios the old microphone is audibly the star, here the old treasures are only used as sound shapers to the extent that they support and bring out the sound characteristics of the musician. This can be heard again and again on the recordings from Berlin, in which vintage and current state of the art experience a grandiose fusion.
Music tips – recordings that capture the venue’s signature sound
Perfume movie score – Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle | J.S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion – RIAS Kammerchor, Akademie für Alte Musik, René Jacobs | Bach, St. John Passion – RIAS Kammerchor, Akademie für Alte Musik, René Jacobs | Schubert, piano works – Arcadi Volodos | Beethoven, Schubert, Pfitzner, Strauss – Lied recordings with Matthias Goerne | Beethoven, piano concertos – Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, Pablo Heras-Casado | Bach, Brandenburg Concertos – Freiburger Barockorchester