For years, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, better known as The Crystal Method, recorded their big-beat electronica from a studio they called The Bomb Shelter, which they built in a converted 2-car garage attached to a 1950s-era house in Glendale, Calif. That studio was where they produced such albums as Vegas (Outpost, 1997), Tweekend (Interscope, 2001), and Legion of Boom (V2, 2004). The Bomb Shelter had a lot of funky ambience, but, according to Jordan and Kirkland, it was not a perfect recording environment.

Kirkland recalls. “We were really happy there. And we used to live there early on. But as with most places that are the size of a shoebox, you eventually get that feeling of being confined.”

“It was very difficult to have anyone come over and do overdubs or to have vocalists come over,” Jordan recalls. “There was just nothing set up for it. We really wanted to be able to do that.” And considering that Jordan and Kirkland use guest singers for all of their songs that have vocals, it became a real issue. The Bomb Shelter's sub-par air conditioning and ventilation also contributed to their decision to start looking for a new place to call headquarters.

About two-and-a-half years ago, Jordan and Kirkland began searching and eventually settled on an industrial space in North Hollywood. There, with the help of a studio design firm, they built their striking new facility, Crystalwerks, a multiroom complex stocked with Apple Macintosh computers and monitors, Digidesign Pro Tools hardware and software, a Digidesign D-Command console, and an eye-popping collection of vintage synths and processors. The main control room (see Fig. 1) has hardware synths on both walls — all wired into the patchbay for easy availability. On the floor along the walls are even more vintage keyboards and drum machines, and a center island contains synths and outboard gear. To the left of the room is a soundproofed machine room that houses the computers and the Pro Tools hardware. On the right — behind sliding double-glass doors — is a live room. A second studio, currently used only for storage, is beyond that.

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