You never know who is about to walk through the Nimbus studio doors on any given day. Lucky for us, Grammy and Juno award winning singer-songwriter, Bryan Adams, just happened to stop by.
A legendary studio
Nimbus 9 Studios has a rich history. Formally known as Little Mountain Sound, everyone from Motley Crüe, Aerosmith, Loverboy, Metallica, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, and Bryan Adams have recorded their biggest hits here. When a student walks through the studio doors, you can still feel the energy of “You Give Love a Bad Name”, “Doctor Feelgood”, or “Permanent Vacation”, permeating through the air.
Back in the day, you wouldn’t be surprised to walk into the studio lounge and find Bryan hanging out, waiting for anyone he could write with. It was there at the studio that he met his long-time writing partner, Jim Vallance. Together, they began working on his critically acclaimed and breakthrough album, “Reckless”.
That Famous Nimbus 9 Sound
Almost 40 years later, and numerous Number 1 hits and tours under his belt, Bryan Adams still loves the sound of Nimbus 9 Studios. So, on a rainy June 19th afternoon, we set up 4 U87s as close as we could get to the ceiling in the loading bay to capture the reverberation character of the space. A speaker was then set up and played a sine wave from 20Hz to 20K, which excited the room. It was recorded so we could add the reverb character to any source tracks later through a convolution reverb. As a result, Bryan can now record in any studio around the world and get the famous Nimbus 9 loading bay sound.
Our head Tech, Eric Shea (pictured right), got the call from Dean Maher (Campus Director, and Bryan Adam’s previous recording engineer!) that Bryan Adams wanted to come by. One of our students, Ben (pictured left), was also at the studio recording his own band. He was able to assist and sit in on the session, getting real-life, hands-on experience. Being the awesome guy he is, Bryan then invited students and staff over to his studio, The Warehouse Studio, for a tour and hang. While the studio spaces at Nimbus are not available for commercial use (they are only for students), we’ll always make an exception for old friends!
A big thank you to Bryan Adams!
Learn More About Music Production
Want to learn more about reverb character, sine waves, and many more things mentioned in this post? Then check out our Music Production Recording & Business program! Our next intake begins August 29th, 2022.
