The Carvery is a Grammy award nominated mastering studio based in East London.

The Carvery Studio has certainly come a long way from cutting dubplates in an east London living room, to becoming a respected, multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy Award nominated mastering studio.

Since 2004, the studio has been behind some of the independent music scene’s best-loved releases. From electronic heavyweights including Aphex Twin, Bonobo, 2ManyDJs and Dimitri From Paris, to hip hop pioneers such as Madlib, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Nu-Mark and Methodman – the list is endless.

But how does one come to be the go-to mastering studio for some of the most respected labels and artists?

The answer is community. From the very start, mastering engineer Frank Merritt was already embedded in the vinyl collecting and DJ community of London since the early 2000s (he is a founding member of the Sofrito label and club night alongside collector Hugo Mendez and artist Lewis Heriz). Whilst actively supporting grassroots labels, venues, artists and charitable projects, as well as placing profit secondary to the goal of creative excellence – The Carvery Studio has become an epicentre of musical flourishment.

Now, that strong network has culminated in the creation of The Carvery Studio’s new resources platform, celebrating the very community that has brought them success. Everything herein is brought to you by passionate creatives – people who themselves are esteemed in their own fields and are connecting to peers in other creative industries.

EAST LONDON ROOTS

As with many small businesses, the studio had humble beginnings – namely in the living room of a Hackney Wick warehouse, when Frank Merritt (mastering engineer and owner of The Carvery Studio) and friend George Thompson (producer Black Merlin), saw the need to cut dubplates for friends, competitive scratch DJs and their own DJ nights in East London.

After years of building up clientele and savings, Frank branched out on his own to buy an industry standard vinyl lathe – the Neumann VMS 70. It originally came from the US, where it had begun life in Nashville cutting many of the famous Motown records of the early 70s, before being used by Sony in the 80s, and finally ending up in EMI’s Townhouse Studio in Shepherd’s Bush. Following the catalogue of these labels over those decades, one can only speculate at the sheer number of records (hits or otherwise) that this Neumann lathe has cut.

Since then, The Carvery Studio has grown with and helped nurture a plethora of influential independent labels in the fertile creative grounds of London and the UK, including Rhythm Section, BBE, Soundway, Strut, On The Corner, Glitterbox, High Focus and Gilles Peterson’s Arc imprint. Not to mention being sought out by similarly respected European, African and American labels.

 

“Really love it! Bass behaving much better and over all sounds cleaner and wider. Absolutely smashed it!” – Bonobo

Services

Vinyl Mastering

As it happens, we love vinyl, old and new alike it is by far our favorite way of listening to music. Over the last decade vinyl has gone from a format in fear of extinction to the fastest growing area of the music industry now finding itself at a 28 year high in worldwide production.

Over the last fifteen years, our engineer Frank has mastered and cut thousands of great records cementing him as one of the most sought after vinyl mastering engineers in the UK.

Audio Restoration

The vinyl re-issue market is an important part of the vinyl industry. For the last decade The Carvery has been honing its restoration skills and is now widely recognised as one of the top restoration studios in the world. We have produce hundreds of critically acclaimed projects where the audio has come from poorly stored master tapes or badly kept records, in need of in depth restoration.

Our restoration suite is fully equipped with the most up to date restoration software, including Cedar and Izotope RX8, as well as high end vinyl transfers on a choice of transcription turntables including our much loved EMT950 and Garrard 401.

Streaming

Streaming has become the most popular way for us to consume music. In a bid to increase to quality of the audio we listen to digitally, listening platforms such as Spotify, Tidal and Apple have developed algorithms, which reduce the volumes of tracks that are seen as too loud for streaming. The result is a need for a master that doesn’t violate these algorithms.

Digital & CD

For many clients CD is still an important part of the digital music industry. If you require your files delivered as a DDP to your chosen CD pressing plant, please advise when discussing your project.

Attended Mastering

We welcome attended mastering sessions, primarily for vinyl mastering or simply to attend the cut once you have approved your masters. For many artists and engineers, attending the cut is very much part of the music making process and a right of passage for newer producers. It helps producers understand better how their music will translate to vinyl.

Stem Mastering

For those in need of a little help getting their mixes in balance, or having trouble with the acoustics in their room, we are proud to offer our new Stem Mastering service. The way it works is, instead of us mixing all the individual parts of you track, we ask you to supply us with the bass, kick, melody (guitar/synth etc), vocal and percussion as five or six separate mix groups, or stems. We then mix the elements so they are perfectly in balance and produce your master from our new mix of your track.

Booking a Session

If you would like to book a session or would like more information about our Mastering services, please email info@thecarverystudio.com or call us on 0208 533 9532 for a quote or estimate.

Sending Audio

Before sending your audio for mastering, please read our guide to supplying audio for mastering  It contains important information to help us work on your project more efficiently and in turn save you time and money.

Please include one of our easy to fill out Mastering Info Sheets for each format so we know which track goes where.

For sending audio please use our secure WeTransfer Service   Don’t forget to name your tracks with you catalogue number and in the correct order.

For any further information please call 0208 533 9532