Van Gelder Studio

Location: Hackensack, NJ (1947-1959); Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1959-2016)
Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder
Era: 1947-2016
Labels: Blue Note Records, Prestige Records, Impulse!, Savoy, Riverside

Overview

Rudy Van Gelder's studio defined the sound of jazz. The Hackensack location operated in his parents' living room while he maintained his optometry practice. In 1959, he built a purpose-designed facility in Englewood Cliffs with unique pitched ceilings contributing to the natural acoustics.

Equipment

• Fairchild 660 compressor/limiter (serial #1)
• Pultec EQP-1 parametric equalizer
• Two EMT 140 plate reverb units
• Neumann microphones (U47, M49, KM-54a)
• Schoeps CM 51/9 microphones

Acoustic Characteristics

Englewood Cliffs studio featured pitched ceilings (uncommon for recording studios), creating distinctive room sound that became part of the "Van Gelder Sound."

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