Power Station at BerkleeNYC

Power Station at BerkleeNYC is a multi-room commercial recording studio at 441 West 53rd Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, a few blocks from Broadway. Tony Bongiovi founded and designed Power Station in 1977 inside a former Con Edison power relay station, with rooms built for live-sounding multitrack recording. It ran as Avatar Studios from 1996 to 2017, and Berklee College of Music renovated it and relaunched it under the Power Station name in 2021. According to the studio, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Chic, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Herbie Hancock and Esperanza Spalding have made recordings here, and it won Mix magazine’s TEC Award for Studio of the Year six times.

Recording studios

• Studio A: the flagship tracking room, with a flexible isolation system and good sight lines for everything from rock bands to 60-piece orchestras and Broadway cast albums. It is centered on a custom 40-input Neve 8088, which the studio says was the last of its kind built by Neve.
• Studio B: a medium-sized room with three isolation booths and an SSL 4000G+ Special Edition console; it can be tied to Studio A for larger sessions.
• Studio C: an expansive live room with 24-foot ceilings and three large isolation booths, one modeled on Motown’s Detroit studio with cork walls and a checkered floor, run from a 72-input Neve VRP console.
• Studio G: a mix and overdub room designed by Roy Hendrickson around an SSL Duality Delta, with an isolation booth for small tracking dates.

Studer 24-track and two-track tape machines, Pro Tools Ultimate systems and five EMT 140 plate reverbs are available across the rooms.

Video and the Black Box Theater

All studios have built-in 4K PTZ cameras, and in-house video services add RED cameras, a crane, a jib and a movable track. The lower-level Black Box Theater has a full lighting grid, a large LED wall, a video control room, a green room and two dressing rooms. The building also houses Berklee NYC’s Creative Media and Technology master’s program.

Booking

Booking inquiries go to the studio manager by email or by phone.