Bally Rehearsal Studios.
Tottenham Hale, N17. London. 

Also known as "The Piano room", or "The One Through The Office". 

The most reverberant of all of our rooms, but not overly echoey.  It has parquet flooring with rugs that can be lifted up for added reverb, and if this happens the reverb has a very short feedback length, with a short inital burst of early rarefactions and then very short reverb tail/envelope.  It has a good emount of reverb, but it has a very short 'tail' to it, never more than 0.1 of a second, so about 7/10 in terms of how much reverb there is, and is thus by far and away the room that adds the most reverb to the sound. This means that while many other rooms have a more 'in your face' design, this room is much more open.  We have had many shoegaze bands and also heavy metal bands who love this room, as a combination of very tall ceilings, bare walls and carpet, as well as acoustic treatment for mids and highs means that you get a great drum sound in this room, very alive, with a bit of a more 'rounded' sound that the bit of reverb gives it.  It is easily the loudest of all of our rooms, and many bands insist on this room every time that they book a session. It is the studio that divides the option most out of all of the ones we have.  Some bands insist on it, and will change their rehearsal date to secure it, whilst some bands always prioritise other studios. 

This is one of the two studios that we have that is step free,  but you have to walk through the office to access it, which is not a problem for the vast majority of bands, we've had plenty of bands that have brought large amounts of equipment in there with no problems, but it does mean a bit more effort is needed in regotiating the equipment through the office, which is always kept clear for this exact reason.  As with all studios it has a choice between standard lighting, intimate lighting from small lamps, stage lighting with professional LED multi-colour PAR64 lamps, LED strip lighting which in this studio are yellow, and a mirror ball lighting which is provided by a lamp which changes colours, meaning you always have the best chance to capture the exact mood you want

Our Pianette

As you can see from the photo's, we have a pianette piano in Studio 4.  However, unfortunately she is no longer in a playable condition, and is mainly for display purposes only.  She is at least 70 years old, and although she still retains her beauty, unfortunately her tone and playing ability have mostly gone. Being the sentimental types at Bally though, we couldn't possibly put her out to pasture, so please admire her for her ageless beauty but don’t be too hard on her if she can no longer play like she once did.  The main cause of this because the temperature in the room can vary dramatically.   Get 5 or 6 people in the same windowless room that has 40cms of insulation on all walls and pretty soon you start to build up a bit of heat which builds without bands noticing. Naturally, the band will then put on the air conditioning to cool it down, and with all of these changes in temperature, the strings will naturally tighten and contract.   Over many years of this, the ability for the piano to hold its tuning is affected, regrettably. 

Room Dimensions: 
 
This studio is just over 15.5 foot by 13.5 foot, giving a total square footage of about 210 sq foot, it also having the best head height too, at over 13 foot.   As with all of the studios, lots of acoustic insulation means that the studio is warm in the winter, while air conditioning and an industrial fan keeps it cool in the summer. 

Photos of Studio 4.