Greystone Zurich

About

With over 20 years in mixing, mastering, and live performance, Greystone Zurich has a combination of experience and ambience that sets it apart. We are a small professional recording studio located in the serene ponderosa forest just outside Flagstaff where we strive to deliver consistent quality recordings in a relaxed and creative environment.

Greystone Zurich offers a comprehensive list of services that begin when an artist walks in the door. Recording, mixing, and mastering are included in any project. With front-to-back Neve processing, industry-standard plugins, five stages of monitoring, and a robust 22 channel analog interface, our artists are always in good hands. The studio also offers complimentary beverages, facilities, and lounge area.

REVIEWS

"Working with Will at Greystone Zurich Studio was the most relaxing recording experience I’ve ever had. The room is so warm and comfortable, it was a joy to step into the studio each day. He has top quality equipment and really knows how to get the best sound. I was extremely pleased with his clear and timely communication habits and his collaborative ethos. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the song we produced and I look forward to working with Will again."

-Antara Hunter

"Dude it sounds amazing. Thank you seriously from the bottom of my heart."

-Justin Merkel

"I recorded a disc of instrumental guitar arrangements of Grateful Dead music with Will Phillips at Greystone Zurich in the summer of 2022. He was so very supportive of my desire to get everything just exactly perfect! Many of my arrangements are improvisatory in nature, so this necessitated recording many takes of the songs in order to get things 'just exactly perfect'. He was able to seamlessly splice different performances together and capture my artistic vision on record in a manner that represents how I might perform these works under the most ideal conditions on a really good night. As the recording progressed, the songs spoke to me in a new way that begged for overdubs, despite that I had originally planned a solo guitar cd. Adding new color with other instruments became an intuitive process and allowed the music to breathe more naturally. Will was thorough and patient, and helped see this to the end. I am blessed with a recording that I feel proud of, and have captured the moment in time in a way that will bring pleasure for many years to come."

-Craig Yarbrough

“Lovely crisp sound. No one will be able to guess that we recorded it in my apartment!”

-Mosskin

"It sounds amazing! Thank you for bringing this to life with me!"

-Thomas Gunn

Studio Tools

Monitoring

Yamaha NS 10 M Studio

Yamaha HS 5

Avantone Mixcube

Sony MDR 7506

Acoustic Research AR15

I/0

Neve Newton Channel x 2

Neve 5057 Orbit 16 ch Summing

Soundcraft 22 channel interface with Ghost pre and RME Convertors

Audient ID 22 monitor control/interface with Audient op-amp pre and Burr-Brown converters

Art Pro MPA II preamp with Genalex Gold Lion tubes

Dbx 286a compressor/deeser

Plugins

Brainworx

Universal Audio

Waves

Analog Obsession

Lindell

VST

Kontakt 8

Arturia V Collection

Complete Analog Drum Machine Library

Comprehensive Acoustic Drum Library

Microphones

Avantone CR-14 Ribbon x 2

Warm Audio U47jr

Shure SM7B

Shure SM57 x 4

Audix OM2

DBX RTA-M

Sennheiser e609

Sennheiser MD 421 x 2

AKG SolidTube

Cables

Mogami Gold and Silver

Canare L-4E6S Star Quad with Neutrik Connectors

Other

1970 Slingerland Mahogany

M-Audio Keystation 61 mk3

Martin DXM Acoustic Dreadnought

Tenma Oscilloscope

Tenma Isolation Transformer

FAQ

Can I have the raw files or stems to work with outside of our session?

No, sorry. Tracking and mixing obviously both have a profound affect on the sonic characteristics of any song and moving it through various hands can negate the style and feel of a mix which has the potential to reflect poorly on the efforts of Greystone. Please come prepared to play your best and Greystone will take care of the rest!

Do you have Auto Tune or other pitch correction tools if I don't get a good take?

While any modern studio comes equipped with these tools, I do not use them on vocals or instruments except in the rarest of cases; for example: if a take is absolutely perfect and one note has hurt the song in an obvious way that neither I nor the artist can live with. Any artist preparing to enter the studio should practice and prepare to the upmost of their ability before the sessions. If you are unable to hold a note, you are not ready to record your vocals in a studio.

What is your stance on AI?

I do not use DAWS, plugins, or any other technologies that rely on AI for tracking, mixing, or mastering.

Ableton? I thought Pro-tools was the "industry standard"

At one time, Pro Tools was considered the industry standard for mixing. This was mainly due to the fact that there were hardly any other full-package options available for the professional recording world. While it's still an obvious choice for many engineers, other DAWS have now proven to be equally powerful for both mixing and mastering and many have incorporated other helpful ideas to allow for faster workflows as digital processing has advanced. Greystone uses Ableton because it provides seamless workflows for digital/analog environments and ideas, and accommodates every possible necessity that a mix engineer might encounter. Much like Cubase, Logic, Reaper and others, Ableton is a full-fledged professional audio software suite that incorporates a highly advanced and intuitive framework for recording, bussing, summing, and mastering.