THE VINTAGE KEYS STUDIO STORY
Vintage Keys is a music production company and recording studio founded and run by multi-skilled musician, composer, producer, sound engineer, arranger — and, more recently, shameless YouTuber — Steve Christie (BA Mus).
Steve has spent more than 30 years working in the music industry as a producer, sound engineer, session musician and arranger. His career began in the mid-1990s at AIR Studios in London, where he worked with artists including Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Pulp, Simply Red and Elastica, and learned his craft from some of the industry’s greats, including Sir George Martin, Giles Martin and Tony Visconti.
Musician, Composer & Producer
Steve is a multi-instrumentalist with a particular love of unusual and historic instruments. He plays piano, harpsichord, organ, Ondioline and Ondes Martenot, as well as guitar, bass and drums. He also has perfect pitch and can readily work things out by ear.
As a composer and arranger, Steve is equally at home writing for orchestral instruments, voices, bands and unconventional combinations of sounds.
Over the years, he has created music under a number of different guises. His own project, Steve Christie’s wRong, produced several albums, including the now-legendary comedy/library LP Children’s Television Themes From A Parallel Dimension, recorded in 2003. The album imagined the TV themes that could have existed, with such classics as Smack and Learn and Stop It! Shut Up! and Listen!
Other projects have included the jazz/prog outfit Lounge Lizard, and more recently Christie Revolta, whose latest album is called Fun.
Together with songwriting partner Louisa Revolta, Steve also created The Goose and The Crow, a comedy cabaret act, along with an album making extensive use of Vintage Keys’ collection of instruments and equipment.
A Studio Built From the Ground Up
Steve’s approach to recording is heavily influenced by the experimental spirit of 1960s producer Joe Meek. Rather than simply collecting vintage equipment, he likes to understand how it works — and, where necessary, modify, restore or build it himself.
Much of the studio’s unique equipment has been designed, built or modified by Steve, including a 1950s RCA Orthophonic preamp, used as both a microphone channel and EQ; a custom-built stereo spring reverb; a Metallique gong speaker; a replica Altec 436B; and an EMI RS 124 compressor with additional functionality.
These aren’t museum pieces. They’re working studio equipment and are used regularly in recordings at Vintage Keys.
The Vintage Keys Collection
At the heart of the studio is a large collection of fully working historic electronic and acoustic keyboard instruments, some dating back as far as 1911.
Among the collection are a beautiful Steinway ‘A’ grand piano, an ex-Apple Studios Hammond M102 organ — famously seen and heard in Peter Jackson’s 2021 film The Beatles: Get Back, filmed in 1969 — and an ex-Dave Gilmour/Pink Floyd Leslie 910 cabinet, alongside a huge range of vintage keyboards, amplifiers, effects and recording equipment.
And the important bit: these instruments are here to be played.
They’re not simply for looking at. The collection is available for use in your recordings, whether you’re after the sound of a particular vintage keyboard, a rare acoustic instrument, an unusual effect or simply something that doesn’t sound like every other studio.
Take a look at the Instruments & Equipment pages for the full collection of studio treasures.
More Than Just a Recording Studio
With a team of on-call session musicians, an in-house engineer and producers, Vintage Keys can accommodate a wide range of projects — from full bands and small ensembles to singer-songwriters, voiceovers, soundtracks and experimental recordings.
We can also take the studio on the road, providing an on-location mobile recording service when the right sound requires the right place.
Vintage Keys also operates as a specialist vintage equipment repair and servicing hub, with particular expertise in valve/tube-based organs, synthesisers and amplifiers.
Around 99% of the studio’s vintage equipment is maintained by Steve himself, and he is also available for servicing and repairs of vintage keyboards, organs, amplifiers and related equipment.
Whether you’re looking to record an album, find an instrument nobody else has, recreate a particular vintage sound, repair a treasured piece of equipment — or simply make something a little bit strange — Vintage Keys is built for it.
See our Services pages for more information.