The basement area was home to the main studio area — much of the original ground floor was knocked out to give a double height studio, some 20 feet high by 40 feet long. The original control room was on what remained of the ground floor and looked down onto the studio. Abbey Road’s Studio Two had a similar layout. The Sheffield brothers built and ran Trident from 1967. The first major hit recorded here was My Name’s Jack by Manfred Man in March 1968 and it was that which launched them as a professional studio. Lou Reed recorded Transformer here at Trident, produced by David Bowie who in turn, recorded many of his own albums here including Ziggy Stardust. Rick Wakeman was the in-house session keyboard player at the time and can be heard on many of these recordings, including the classics, Life on Mars and Changes.

It was the Sheffield brothers relaxed attitude to engineering that made many artists want to record here. In other studios, such as Abbey Road, the engineers walked around in white coats. Although the brothers didn’t exactly know a lot of how everything worked, they managed to get by on the idea that giving it a kick might solve the problem. Trident always had the newest and most ground-breaking equipment. They were the first in the UK to use Dolby and own an 8-track machine. Whereas other studios would spend months testing anything new, the Sheffield brothers believed that if it had been manufactured in the first place, then it was good enough for studio use. Their 8 track machine was why The Beatles came here in 1968 to record Hey Jude (Abbey Road still only had a 4 track machine).

The White Album tracks Dear Prudence, Honey Pie, Savoy Truffle and Martha My Dear were also recorded here. Many other artists were recorded for the Beatles’ Apple label including Billy Preson, Mary Hopkins, James Taylor, George Harrison’s triple album, All Things Must Pass, containing the massive hit My Sweet Lord, and Ringo Starr’s It Don’t Come Easy. Harry Nilsson recorded Without You here and met up with John Lennon, forming a long association of drinking and socialising. Paul McCartney inadvertently helped Queen on their road to success — he used to block-book the studio and not always turn up. Queen, signed to Trident’s management arm, were allowed to use this down time for free and the result was Bohemian Rhapsody.

Trident gained a reputation for its piano which can be heard on Hey Jude, Elton John’s Your Song and many other tracks. It was a handmade Beckstein that was over 100 years old and its classic sound was much sought after but, after being re-strung towards the end of Trident’s history, lost its magic and was never quite the same. Trident was sold in December 1981 and the studio carried on under different management until 1985 when Tape One took over. The Sound Studio took over in 1993 and although we don’t record supergroups, we do see our fair share of famous actors; in fact it was a recent VO session with Bob Geldof where he confirmed he came to Trident with The Boomtown Rats to record I Don’t Like Mondays.

Trident stopped recording music in the mid 1980s, then in 1993 Trident Audio Post opened specialising in voice over recording.