Music & Band Services

The Playback live room

Bat for Lashes rehearsing for their tour supporting Radiohead, May 2008

The jewel in the Playback Systems crown is our live rehearsal and pre-production facility in central Brighton. This is without doubt the best facility of its kind south of London. Used regularly by bands on the EMI roster, we’ve also had such luminaries as Orbital, Lamb and Rhythm Masters through the doors since opening in 1999.

Thousands of hours went into its careful acoustic design. It features a 500 sq. ft. suspended wooden floor on absorptive neoprene blocks, braced walls filled with 25 tons of sand, and a 4-foot thick concrete surround above. In this acoustically neutral space sits the house PA, a state of the art Void Air Motion system (replacing our Funktion One) twinned with custom-built bass cabs and powered by industry standard QSC amps with a full rack of DSP & fx at the users disposal. Add a 4-way monitor mix, with optional in-ear monitoring system and wireless mics and you can see why EMI recommend us to touring bands. An engineer is available on site at all times to make technical issues as transparent as possible, and our friendly, relaxed attitude means we’ve had numerous deals signed and number one singles written here.

Recording is also possible, with either 2-track C/W condenser mics or a full 16 channel Pro Tools setup, with or without engineer.

Transport, storage, backline

There’s 24 hour, ground-floor access, an industrial scale loading bay, and our VW LT35 2.5L Turbodiesel High-top LWB van which is available with or without driver/sound engineer. Storage is available close by in our fully Red Care Alarmed facility.

We are happy to provide assistance to clients needing to move equipment at odd hours of the day. In addition, due to the fact that we all regularly work with backline and other equipment, management companies can save time and money by phoning through a list of equipment stored on our premises to be either prepared for transportation, or delivered to the gig in our 2.5 Ton van.

Guests at the Playback live room have included Orbital, Rhythm Masters, The Kooks, The Ordinary Boys, The Lo-Fidelity Allstars, 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Bat For Lashes, Electrelane, and many more.