Spaceward Studios was founded by Mike Kemp and Gary Lucas during the '70's and was located firstly in Mike's rooms in college (1972), then in a small centre-terrace hose in Grafton Street and subsequently (July 1975) in a basement in Victoria Street, Cambridge, where they recorded a vast array of artists from the mid '70's through to the late '80's. The studio moved to the Old School Stretham in 1981. This building went on to house the off-shoot company Spaceward Microsystems Ltd which innovated cost effective broadcast quality graphics to the television industry, and later Studio Audio and Video Ltd (which brought state of the art digital audio editing to the desktop with its SADiE digital audio editor / workstation (DAW)). Another offshoot is Spaceward Graphics Ltd and its award-winning Satori range of paint and image-editing products.

Mike Kemp now runs Sintefex Audio, a company dedicated to innovative research, development and consultancy in relation to digital audio technology and manufacturing of digital audio products for the professional user.

So the history falls neatly into 3 distinct periods... 1972 - 1975 (2 x Revox) 1975 - 1981, Victoria Street, Cambridge (16 track) and 1981 - 1988, The Old School, Stretham (24 track).

1975 - 1981, Victoria Street, Cambridge

"The conrol room was small and dark, very like a space capsule with beer in it." Robyn Hitchcock

Spaceward Studios occupied the corner house 19 Victoria St (opposite corner to the Clarendon Arms). This was (at that time) joined to the adjacent house in Clarendon Street, known then (and perhaps now) as 34 Clarendon Street (and this address was sometimes used as well as the main Victoria Street Address. The studio room was the basement of 34 Clarendon Street and the control room was the basement of 19 Victoria Street. Access between the two was at the ground floor and basement levels. I believe that since then the houses have been separated and sold independently as small town houses.

An interesting historical note is that opposite 19 Victoria Street (next to the pub) was / is an artists' studio which was then occupied by Luck and Flaw (Roger Law and Peter Fluck) who went on to do the Spitting Image puppets - but they often brought the early models over to use the 19 Victoria Street kitchen window ledge for photographing them as it was often in the sun!

More coming soon...

 

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