Fine Recording Studios

Fine Recording Studios (officially Fine Recording, Inc., abbreviated FRI) was founded by Robert Fine, encompassed four studios, disk-mastering operations, and Walter Sear's Moog laboratory. It was located in the Great Northern Hotel in Manhattan and was operating from 1957 until 1971. Operations began in 1957, first doing mixing and disk mastering while the hotel’s former Ballroom was transformed into a recording space. In the summer of 1958, the first recording sessions took place in Ballroom Studio A, and continued almost daily until 1971. Studio B, which was located in what had been the ballroom’s service kitchen, was used for small-group sessions, voice-over recording, transcription services and other purposes. Studio C was built in 1959 in the suite of rooms on the top floor to cover the growing sound-for-film business. A few years later, the adjoining suite became available, and Studio D was built as a second sound-for-picture studio. The disk-mastering suite, also on the penthouse level, had stereo and mono mastering rooms. In the late 1960s, Walter Sear had a studio/Moog synthesizer production lab on the 12th floor. From the early 1960s until the end of operations, there was a large tape-duplicating operation in the basement. Duplicating was originally set up for quarter-track, full-track and 2-track reels, but Fine Recording Studios was also one of the first east coast facilities to duplicate 4-track “Muntz” cartridges, 8-track Lear cartridges and the Philips Compact Cassette. The studio ceased operation and was sold to Reeves Cinetel in 1971. Known to have been used by Mercury Recordings and Cadence (2). Can be identified by an etched "F" in the runouts. In such cases add a company: Lacquer Cut At. (The vertical element of the 'F' is often doubled, leading to interpretations as IF, FI, # etc. - see images.) Engineers known to have worked here; George Piros Russ Hamm Fred Christie Walter Sear John Quinn (2) Kenneth Fredrickson Gerald Block Robert Eberenz Ted Gosman Bill Stoddard