Armstrong Studios was set up to provide quality recording facilities to a booming Australian Rock industry in 1971. Its humble design and configuration lent itself to some great records including the early Skyhooks albums amongst many others.

In 1976, the studio, and the control room in particular, was redesigned and rebuilt by Tom Hiddley, a household name in studio design and construction. His company, Sierra Audio (previously Eastlake Audio and then Westlake Audio), was probably the biggest mass producer of studios and control rooms in the world at the time.

The company has been responsible for famous installations such as The Record Plant, Sunset Studios and of course, The Westlake Studios itself.

Ern Rose, who has been a part of the studio since those days and remains a strong advocate of the Studio One control room, says it's designed to have maximum direct sound and minimal direct reflections. The principal of having indirect or diffused reflections is really what control rooms are about, You want to hear the affect of some room around you otherwise it becomes very fatiguing. In a totally dead room it's even a strain to talk!

The speakers in there are the original Sierra design but with some updated components. The components have been kept state-of-the-art. It's all good, there's no hidden traps or anything. I think it's just a good room. A subwoofer has been added to extend the bottom end below 50Hz as nowadays those very low frequencies feature in many genres.

As it happened, Whispering Jack, the biggest selling album in this country, was recorded and mixed in that room. Most of Split Enz and The Little River Band's careers were made there. Australian Crawl, Jimmy Barnes, Diesel, The Cruel Sea, Olivia Newton John and made their big albums there and the list goes on (remember Up There Cazaly?)

Then there are the movie scores, Crocodile Dundee, Mad Max, The Man From Snowy River its fame soon spread far and wide. David Bowie recorded there on a recommendation from Bob Clearmountain who had mixed The Little River Band. Mick Jaggar, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, BB King and Tom T Hall have all worked there as well.

In what can be described as something of a coup, in 1995 Edensound Mastering moved its operation from RBX Studios in Richmond straight into one of the best acoustically designed monitoring environments ever built and all they had to do was brush away the cobwebs.

Engineer Martin Pullan has worked in some fine studios both in Australia and internationally. As one can imagine, he feels right at home in the expanse of the old Armstrong/Metropolis Studio One facility. However, he appreciates the fact that being able to occupy a room with such a fine and successful pedigree, at any stage of one's career, is a rare opportunity.