MGM Music Scoring Stage

Largest motion picture scoring venue in the world, based in Culver City, CA, USA. Originally the historic MGM Scoring Stage, it is also known as the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage. Nowadays it is also referred to as the Sony Music Scoring Stage. It's part of the Sony Pictures Studios complex. In the 1970s, the entire lot was acquired by investor Kirk Kerkorian, and in the following years the filming and post-production studios changed hands several times, until Sony Pictures made them their global headquarters in 1990. They modernised and revitalised the 180,000-square-metre lot, and in 1994, the sound recording stage was renamed the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage, honouring the diva who had recorded some of her most celebrated work on the premises. Despite everything, though, the 600-square-metre live room, one of the largest recording spaces in the world, remains almost entirely in its original condition. Only a few details of the room itself have been altered through the years, but the technical equipment is up to the most modern of standards. The studio, which is still known as the MGM Stage by many industry professionals, is equipped with a cutting-edge Neve 88R console featuring 96 input channels and 192 inputs with motorised faders during mixdown. The building that now houses the scoring stage was built in 1929, originally as a filming stage, although even in its early years it was used for sound recording purposes from time to time. The soundtrack to the colossally successful 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz was recorded here, and subsequently the studio was used solely for sound recording. The list of classic films with soundtracks recorded at the MGM scoring stage includes such milestones as Gone With The Wind (1939), Ben Hur (1959), Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965).