The Farm Stone Room

Also used on Peter Gabriel’s “Intruder” and many other hits, the combination of heavy reverb and massive compression has been widely influential and instantly recognizable ever since.

Seeking to recapture that magic in their own studio, “Fisher Lane Farm” in the UK, the band Genesis enlisted the original engineer Hugh Padgham to build a drum room to the same specs as the one at Townhouse Studios where the iconic drum sound was produced. And while both rooms are sadly now gone, IK was given exclusive access to the Farm before it closed forever to preserve its distinctive sound in a brand-new plug-in. The Farm Stone Room is here to give your drum tracks the sonic impact that only this type of rare stone live room can offer.

Even if you’re not familiar with the award-winning line of T-RackS mixing and mastering plug-ins, you’ll find the controls in The Farm Stone Room easy to use, yet powerful and comprehensive. This single-panel plug-in contains the main tone-shaping elements of the original space and more.

INPUT STAGE: Adjust level and stereo mode of the input signal.
DRY CHANNEL: Mixer controls allow fine tuning of the dry signal for precise dry/wet balancing.
STEREO ROOM COMPRESSOR: A transparent stereo compressor to make the most of the stereo room channel.
STEREO ROOM CHANNEL: The first of the two reverb channels with a natural and open sound that faithfully captures the Fisher Lane Farm Stone Room.
STEREO ROOM EQUALIZER: Customize the tone of the stereo room channel with this fixed 3-band EQ.
MONO CRUSH LISTEN MIC COMPRESSOR: An aggressive vintage compressor that can instantly deliver a distinctive character to the mono crush channel.
MONO CRUSH CHANNEL: Vintage sounding mono reverb, delivering unparalleled presence and vintage vibe.
MONO CRUSH EQUALIZER: Customize the tone of the stereo room channel with this 3-band EQ with semi-parametric mid.
REVERB SETTINGS: Control every detail of the room character by adjusting pre-delay, decay time, room size and high-pass filter.
CURTAIN SETTINGS: Customizable “Curtain Open” or “Curtain Closed” dampening for a bright or darker sound.
OUTPUT STAGE: Adjust the level of the signal leaving the processor.

The Mono Crush controls are unique to The Farm Stone Room, capturing the room in punchy and dirty mono using a vintage STC® 4021 “Ball & Biscuit.” An SSL® Listen Mic Compressor (LMC) was modeled and inserted in this section, which blended with the stereo Neumann® U87s room mics, gives you the amazing drum sound of tracks like Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight,” Genesis’ “Mama” and Peter Gabriel’s “Intruder.”

The Farm Stone Room plug-in not only represents an accurate recreation of the stone live room at Genesis’ studio, it’s also the closest you can get to the legendary Townhouse Studios drum room it was modeled after. The stone walls of this relatively small-sized room give drums a huge sound, especially when run through the SSL® 4000G mixing console that producer/engineers Hugh Padgham and Nick Davis used at both Townhouse Studios and Fisher Lane Farm and faithfully reproduced here.

These studios no longer exist and there are few, if any, similar stone drum tracking rooms left in the world. Fortunately, thanks to Genesis and the help of Dave Kerzner and Nick Davis, IK was invited to the Fisher Lane Farm to fully capture all of the elements of this rare and special space before it was closed.

For decades artists, producers and engineers have looked for ways to make drums sound MASSIVE. One of the most important elements to achieving great drum sounds are the sounds of rooms and room emulation reverbs. This is one reason IK’s Sunset Sound and FAME Studio Reverb plug-ins are so popular.

Now, with The Farm Stone Room, it’s possible to achieve a drum room sound that you can only get from a well-designed stone room. Whether you want to get a drum sound as big as top hits recorded in the ′80s or add another dimension of HUGE to drum sounds useful in all styles of modern music from rock to hip hop, nothing else can get you the big smashed drum sound of The Farm Stone Room.