Out of Hiding: Diamond City Studio Returns a Secret Facility to NYC

December 12th, 2016 by David Weiss

“It’s been a crazy year,” says Ayad Al Adhamy.

It’s easy to understand why he feels that way. 2016 is when Al Adhamy took it all to the next level with the opening of Diamond City Studio in lower Manhattan, enacting a welcome rebirth for a prolific facility that has operated for years outside of the public view.

Once you get familiar with Al Adhamy’s unusual history, it becomes clear why taking over the former Gigantic Studios, which straddles the borders of Chinatown, TriBeCa and SoHo, seems like a natural next move for him. Formerly the synth player for sonic umami purveyors Passion Pit and frontman for Team Spirit, Al Adhamy knows firsthand what artists – not to mention engineers, producers and labels — want from a studio.

With Diamond City, he and partner and in-house engineer/writer Joel Witenberg (bassist for indie rockers Surf Rock is Dead) are ready to give it to them. The plan:

Make the place as multifaceted as possible in terms of revenue streams
Don’t take on every commercial recording project possible – if it doesn’t feel right, just say “no”
Enjoy the f*ck out of everything that they say yes to

Ayad Al Adhamy is helming the re-emergence of an under-the-radar room. (All photos by Eddie Rivera)

A Studio in Hiding

The studio on 59 Franklin Street has lived out an interesting history, to say the least. It’s legacy dates back to 1980’s NYC, when producer Mark Bingham (Flat Duo Jets, Glenn Branca, REM) first occupied a good-sized facility with an unusual layout: a railroad design where the 350 square-foot control room looks out through a 250 square-foot lounge/live room, then on to a main live space more than double the first live room’s size at 550 square-feet.

While it’s different not to look directly into the main live room from control, the middle room – which can be opened out to the main room or kept cordoned off – gives the facility an extra level of flexibility for recording drums, guitar amps, or anything else. It’s a benefit that’s clearly appealed to some people who know how music should sound: Bingham eventually hightailed it for New Orleans, and then in the ‘90’s it served for a time as Philip Glass’ private studio before he opened the Looking Glass studios, before becoming the in-house studio for Gigantic Records.

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“Five years ago it felt like New York was the epicenter,” he says. “Then, for some reason a lot of engineers and music makers have moved out West. There’s way fewer people making music here. Then property and real estate and prices started shooting so high so quickly. The Magic Shop closed, and that’s been around for 25 years. No one knows what’s happening with Avatar.

“That’s when it was like, ‘Oh, man, all these traditional — and that’s the key word, traditional — studios are closing down.’ They just can’t keep up with the Internet age. Being able to make a lot of your music at home, studios are just being less relied upon to make commercial products. That’s why when Chris gave me the call to take over this space it was a crazy question like, ‘Is this the right time to do something like this?’ The answer was ‘yes’ if we don’t try and follow that traditional studio path like doing the day rate kind of vibe. Joel comes from more of a studio background than I do, but Joel is a band guy.”

“We’ve both been on the other side of the glass,” Witenberg says. “We know what it’s like to be an independent band in this day and age where it’s so difficult. Just doing stuff on your own is easier and more cost effective. Catering to change Is definitely the approach.”

Artists First and Varied Revenue Streams

Al Adhamy and Witenberg are putting a top priority diversifying their offerings and revenue streams. “The first thing is to open the doors up to different avenues,” explains Adhamy. “Like podcasts — we’re doing more podcasts and editing and doing more commercial writing as songwriters for clients like Vice, which was the label for Team Spirit.

“This is also more of a home for projects that we choose to take on. We’ll do day rates for people who are friends of ours. We tend to be able to pick and choose projects. If it’s like, ‘Oh, this is something we really don’t want to be a part of,’ we might not take the project on. Instead of being like, ‘Okay they’re going to pay us a day rate. We’re going to do it. This is the day. This is the date.’

Fun is factored into the project process.

“It’s like trying to move away from the traditional, ‘I’m an engineer. We’re going to do this,’ and have more of a collective atmosphere of fun and vibe. We like to exude energy. When people come and work with us it’s like professionalism and fun. Those are the two things that are really important when you’re an artist making a record. We’ll say, ‘Hey, what did you want for your project? What’s your outcome? Let’s work on this project from writing to mixing to just hanging out.’

“Being artists before we were producers, we do know how stressful it can be, and where your mind goes when you’re recording. A lot of studios don’t go into the mentality of being in a band. That’s something that’s first and foremost to us, comforting the artist and doing what they want to do. It’s almost like a therapy session half the time.”

Besides bands and their own various production projects, Diamond City is nurturing a funky mix that includes everything from podcasts to hosting in-studio live shows. “Public Announcement is one podcast that works out of here once a week or so,” says Al Adhamy. “We’ve been doing listening parties for record labels putting out records. We set it up, get some beers over here, put the record on – it’s a nice vibe.”

Renovating and Upgrading

Al Adhamy and Witenberg got the keys to the kingdom in April, then set about on a renovation of the space that went more than skin deep. When Zane ran the studio, gear, instruments and effects – particularly pedals — were often sprayed around in a way that could spark spontaneous experimentation, but also be interpreted as clutter.

“There was a lot of stuff piled up when we came in here,” Al Adhamy laughs. “There were just lots of shelves with stuff on it, lots of cabinets with things everywhere. The first thing we said was, ‘Let’s just rip everything out where I can put stuff on now,’ which created space.”

The pair got insights from Phil Abbott, a jack of all trades who Ayad befriended at Pyramid Sound in Ithica. Then they rolled up their sleeves with two other friends to form the workforce and continued to troubleshoot the space, from both an aesthetic and creative standpoint.

“We changed all the carpet, updated the ceilings, painted all the walls, redid all the fabrics in the live room, made new baffles,” says Al Adhamy. “The B room is one of the biggest changes. That used to be filled with packing blankets because I know Chris loved doing drums in there – that’s where he did the Holy Ghost drum sound. It’s very, very tight. We wanted it to be more of a functional B room so we took everything down, painted everything, and sanded the floors.”

The fruits of their labors in the live spaces is the rejuvenation of an uncommonly flexible tracking environment. With the ability to open and close the doors between the large and small room, varied instrument placement and miking techniques can lead to classic ‘70’s style or super-tight drum sounds, enormous guitar amps, subtly intimate acoustics, and much more.

A rethinking has expanded the main live room.

A Mega SSL

One thing the partners didn’t have to change was the SSL console — the 80-channel board was unquestionably part of the package.

“What made it a keeper?”Al Adhamy deadpans. “Can you imagine moving this thing anywhere? We moved a console once before that was a third of the size, and we were like ‘Not again.’ This is an SSL 8000 with four mix buses. These were film boards back in the day. In some ways it’s the closest functionality to a J that the G + ever went to with bussing and outputs. It’s pretty much the 4000 with a few more outputs which is great for us when we do stems. They’re all stereo buses and super awesome.”

Grand Central SSL — this 8080G+ packs quite a footprint.

While that many channels may seem like overkill, at Diamond City they often get used up in a hurry. “When you come in here and see the size of this board, you’re like, ‘How could you use up all the channels?’ Very easily actually. Think about modern Pro Tools sessions, how many channels are up there. Then even when you start combining and mixing down or making groups, if you’ve got a full drum kit and everything, you’re done.”

Besides being sufficiently ample for tracking, the Diamond City duo loves the console even more for mixing. “It’s great. It’s so much fun,” says Al Adhamy. “There’s probably an equal amount of mixing and tracking done here. It’s just so much fun to mix on a console. Everything is really quick, and you can’t really go wrong with the EQs. Even if you crank them they’re mostly delicious sounding, and even if you cut the lower mids, if you just go like down, down, down, on each of them it just scoops all of 200 (Hz) in a fine point, just doing that across the board instantly cleans stuff up. It’s super quick, just the flow of it, the feel. It makes everything smoother, more efficient. You get a sound that you’re after a lot quicker.”

Contributing to the listening experience in the control room are SSL Alpha Link and Apogee Rosetta 200 converters, along with monitoring from Genelec 1032B’s, Dynaudio Air 25 mains, and — of course — Avantone Mixcubes and Yamaha NS-10’s.

A Man with G.A.S.

If it’s possible to be distracted away from the mighty SSL in the control room, the wall of gear to its left will grab attention. In between the patch bay and tape machines, Diamond City has assembled a mouthwatering collection of mic pres, dynamics, EQs, and effects to sculpt the sound beyond the SSL.

“We’ve got some classics and then some left-of classics,” Al Adhamy notes. “There are the Brent Avril 1073 and 1066 rack for most of our main pres. We have the VP28’s which are DIY kit API-modeled 500-series pres with the double-up amps that are just awesome. The outlet gauge just makes such a huge difference. Using all those on drums sound great as well. We’ve got some Thermionic Culture gear, and we love that stuff. Culture Vulture we use on almost everything.”

Scan the racks, and other oft-used highlights at Diamond City include Neve AM6-17-A- BBC EQ/compressors, Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier, Summit Audio TL-100 compressor, Empirical Labs Distressors, Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor and a Universal Audio 1176 Revision F limiter. Other pieces of interest among many include the Inward Connections StepEQ, Bricasti M7 reverb, Roland Space Echo, Roland Chorus Echo, and Roland Dimension D.

Sink your ears into this gear.

The mic list is extremely comprehensive, with 40-plus sound-capture devices in the locker led by an arsenal of Neumanns and also including an AEA 44CE ribbon, Coles 4038, Lomo 19a9 1964 Soviet tube, Royer 121 ribbon, Sony 38B vintage FET condenser, and Tab Funkenwerk/Wunder C12. All of this to capture a big array of instruments, amps, pedals, and synths – many of which were obtained by Al Adhamy and Witernberg while on tour – onsite. The collection includes a 1966 Danelectro vintage 12 string, Gibson Flying V, 1967 Fender Mustang Bass, 1968 Fender Vibro Champ amp, 1970’s era Soundcity Concord, Roland Jupiter 6 Europa Mod, Korg Arp Odyssey, Dave Smith Prophet 08, and Vostok Modular synth.

On the software side, Diamond City is done up with Pro Tools 11/12, Logic Pro X, a fully stocked UAD-2 QUAD, Waves Diamond Bundle, all Sound Toys plugins, all iZotope plugins, complete PSP collection, and Native Instruments Komplete 5.

Additional flavors are also available from the two relatively compact tape machines, and Ampex MM1200 and Tascam 38. “I wanted to find something that’s space-friendly and has more of that vibe, because a lot of people want tape,” Al Adhamy says of his machine selections. “What I find is that people don’t actually want tape. They want a broken, old sound.

“There’s an assumption that tape has all these words that you can’t put to it,” he continues. “In reality, if you use a tape machine how it’s supposed to be used, it pretty much sounds like Pro Tools, especially if you’re hitting it in the right ways and your gain staging is all correct. It sounds like Pro Tools especially with the Studer — an Ampex will have a bit more vibe.

“It’s like if you think of a ‘60’s recording by The Beatles and you look at that now,” Witenberg adds. “If someone made a record sounding like that now, you would say it’s a lo-fi record. It’s like people are chasing the experimentation of how to record. That’s what was happening at that point in time.”

Thanks to Al Adhamy’s newfound obsession with orderliness, the heavily stocked studio comes off neat as a pin – although maintaining that look may become increasingly challenging. “I’ve got GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome,” he admits. “That’s something that comes with being addicted to finding gear on eBay. On eBay, you know you’ve got wait for it – you’ve got to wait for that moment!”

Now Sharing: A Hidden Gem

The original Diamond City space in Greenpoint remains in business, strictly as a production/mix suite by the experienced audio pro Justin Gerrish (Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, John Mayer) who also works out of the Manhattan studio. Meanwhile, after months of patiently renewing this semi-secret facility on Franklin Street, the Manhattan studio feels cleared for takeoff, keeping busing with multiple NYC indie artists such as Hints, Simon Doom, Jack Killen & Ela Minus. Established musicians such as Bashiri Johnson, Cold Fronts, Rubblebucket, POP Etc & Rostam Batmanglij have also been clients.

Indie inspired.

For Al Adhamy and Witenberg, reintroducing the recording/mixing world to a place with an equally deep history of success and restricted access is an intriguing dichotomy. On the one hand, they’re stewards of a space with a distinguished legacy of hits and elite tenants. On the other, they’re starting completely from scratch.

“It’s some of both,” Al Adhamy agrees. “You can’t help but feel the history behind it. Even when you walk in here you’re like, ‘Wow, this is a cool space. It has a good energy.’ I think that’s an important thing to uphold, especially in a time when studios are coming and going.

“Chris made great records here. The list for him goes on and on. Taking it over, it comes with a responsibility. That’s why we wanted to really make this space feel as comforting as possible and to have a really good vibe in it. It’s been a secret spot. It’s never been a commercial studio.”

The partners know that turning Diamond City into a true gem won’t be easy, but that’s why the commercial recording aspect is only one small part of the plan. The rest of the objectives will be achieved by other means – many of which they’ve thought through, and others which remain wonderfully undiscovered.

“We talk to people, think about ideas, brainstorming, what can happen with the space?” says Al Adhamy. “We’re just looking for the right partners to share the space with us. As I said before, I had a record label. I know how key it can be to be able to say, ‘Oh, we have a spot where we can have our artists record, work on writing with people, take interviews, do acoustic sessions, do radio promo’ — just the whole range of services involved with trying to promote a band. If you have a bunch of bands, it’s a very useful place to be in the middle of this city.

“We’re keeping that vibe open, getting more of those partners, and so far we’ve been doing it. We’re just trying to get to the point where we can sustain it, and join the ranks of the classic New York studios.”

— David Weiss