The Hit Factory

The Hit Factory is a two-room recording and mixing studio on the third floor of 676 Broadway, between Great Jones and Bond Streets in NoHo, Manhattan. According to the studio, The Hit Factory has existed in six New York City locations, plus London and Miami, over the past 51 years. The current rooms opened in 2008 as Germano Studios, a private boutique facility for records and film work run by owner Troy Germano, and returned to The Hit Factory name in 2023.

History and records

The studio credits its earlier West 48th Street, Broadway and West 54th Street locations with Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, Paul Simon’s Graceland, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. and The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die. Records made at 676 Broadway include Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. and Keith Richards’ Crosseyed Heart. According to The Hit Factory, its studios have been part of more than 170 Grammy Awards since 1975.

Studios

• Studio 1: a 30-by-20-foot live room with 15-foot ceilings that can hold a five-piece band, a large choir or a 20-piece string section, plus a C. Bechstein Concert L167 baby grand. The control room has an SSL Duality Delta 48-input console, Exigy S412G mains with dual 18-inch subwoofers, a deep rack of Neve, API and Chandler outboard, and Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and Sony 360 Reality Audio mixing.
• Studio 2: a mix-focused room with an 18-by-14-foot live room for vocals, overdubs, a string quartet or a six-piece horn section, a Bechstein A2 upright, an SSL Duality Delta 48 and the same Exigy monitoring. Its Pro Tools system duplicates Studio 1’s, so projects move easily between rooms.

Engineers and services

A staff of chief and senior engineers handles recording, mixing and immersive mixing. The studio has also released plug-ins, including the HitVerb convolution reverb built from captures of historic Hit Factory live rooms.

Booking

Sessions are booked directly with the studio by phone or email. The Hit Factory emphasizes complete privacy for artists.