Castle Ultimate Studios

Please email us for our calendar. Our pricing/booking info can be found here . We are booked quite a bit in advance, so if you think it's too early to talk to us about booking, it's not. We also do mix/master only sessions so don't hesitate to ask. These can be done on a quicker basis as well.
IMPORTANT NOTE: We are booked through June 2009. Feel free to ask about doing a project just know we're currently full and it's not likely you'll be able to. We will still take just about ALL mixing and/or mastering jobs as they can be done at odd hours and such.
We are a low budget high quality recording studio in the easy bay that does rock / hard rock / emo/ hardcore / metal / death metal / pop ska / classical / acoustic / whatever. We are Aaron Hellam and Zack Ohren. We are located in Oakland, CA about 20 feet from Emeryville, CA where we both live. Here's a brief and not too accurate equipment list:
ROOMS:
- 32x22 drum/live room with floated wood riser(10x10) for nice drum sounds, acoustically tuned and treated with Auralex acoustical treatment.
- Control room also well treated with large window into live room and vocal/iso booth.
- 20x15 extra live room for super live drums/lounge area with TV/DVD/Video games
- 9x9 Small isolation booth for guitar amps or singers.
All our equipment is mounted in a lovely Omnirax Force 36 recording workstation.
COMPUTER:
Intel Q6600 Quad Core based beast computer.
2GB dual channel 800mhz DDR2 ram
At least 1.5TB on 5+ drives of super high speed storage
Nvidia 8600GT dual DVI graphics
DUAL 19" LCD monitors
RME AES-32 sound interface LYNX Aurora 16 (main sound interface AD/DA)
Nuendo 3.2 (our primary recording software)
TC Powercore MkII hardware plugins including MD3 mastering suite
Cubase SX
Wavelab
Waves Platinum Bundle (huge effect package)
Blue Tubes Plugin bundle
Antares Auto-tune
Antares Mic Modeler
Antares TUBE
TC Works Native Bundle
Magneto
WARP VST
Amplitube
Drumagog and an enormous sample library
UV22hr dithering
T-racks VST plugins
Much Much Much More....
Plus many other various effect pedals and analog devices.INTO/OUT OF THE FIREFACE:
Chandler TG2 Abbey Road Edition 2ch preamp.(2 EMI channels) TRIDENT S40 Preamp/EQ/Comp
TRIDENT S20 dual mic preamp
2xEmpirical Labs DISTRESSORS w/brit mod and stereo link
2xDBX 160a compressor/limiters
Radial X-amp RE-AMPING box
Radial J48 direct box
Presonus Eureka Class A channel strip
CHAMELEON LABS 7602 Microphone Preamp/Equalizer KRK VXT8 monitors
DBX 386 Dual channel tube mic pre-amp with A/D(refitted with JJs)
ART 2 channel tube EQ
Bellari 2 channel tube preamp
ADA Microcab cabinet simulator for direct guitar recording
One Sony MDRV700DJ headphonees
One Sony MDR7505 headphones
One AKG K271 high definition studio headphones
Two Vic Firth drummer headphones
MICS::
8 Shure SM57s
2 Neumann KM184s
1 ROYER R-121 ribbon microphone
1 AKG C414 B-XLS
2 AKG 451Bs
1 AKG D112 kick mic
1 Roland SKRM100 Sub Kick subsonic microphone 1 Shure Beta 57
1 Sennheiser MD421II Dynamic Cardioid Microphone
1 Sennheiser e609 Guitar cab mic
1 Sennheiser e604 Drum Mic
1 Sennheiser e904 Drum Mic
1 SM58
1 Audix D5 kick mic
1 SE Electrions SE2200
1 Audio Technica AT4047
2 Octava 012s
1 Rode NTK Tube mic
1 Rode NT1
1 CAD K177
various misc dynamic mics
GUITAR/DRUM/BASS/ECT:
Peavey Rockmaster---sonicmaximizer---poweramp
Vox AC30 Custom Classic
Peavey 5150 II with JJ tubes
Fender Deluxe
Peavey and Fender bass heads
THD 2x12 cab
Ampeg 4x10 bass cabinet
Marshall 1960A 4x12 cab
Mesa 4x12 cab(vintage 30s)
Premier 10,12,14 inch toms and 20" kick
14" DW collectors snare
14" Pork Pie Black Beauty remake snare
various sabian and zyldjian cymbals
8-bit Nintendo with all the classics
modded xbox with thousands upon thousands of games at your disposal
27" television
air conditioning
heating
all sorts of other fun toys....