De Lane Lea Studios
Warner Bros. De Lane Lea Studios is a recording studio, currently based in Dean Street, Soho, London, England. In 2021 the studio is to move to new, purpose-built premises, on the site of the old Foyles bookstore, on Charing Cross Road.
Although the studios have mainly been used for dubbing feature films and television programmes, major artists such as the Animals, the Beatles, Soft Machine, Queen, the Rolling Stones, Bee Gees, the Who, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, Wishbone Ash, Renaissance, Electric Light Orchestra and Deep Purple recorded songs there, particularly at the former premises at 129 Kingsway and at Engineers Way, Wembley, where Queen recorded demos in 1971..
Major William De Lane Lea, a French intelligence attaché for the British government, founded De Lane Lea Studios in 1947 to dub English films into French. The studios were adapted according to the demands of the market, and expanded significantly on various sites in the 1960s and 1970s. Music recording increased dramatically, and the growth of commercial radio and TV also led to new work in advertising. De Lane Lea was succeeded on his death in 1964 by his son Jacques, who was also a film producer, director and writer. He left the company in 1978.
De Lane Lea now specialises in sound post-production for cinema and television. It includes six individual studios, including Studio 1, the biggest in-town dubbing theatre with one of Europe's most powerful AMS Neve DFC mixing consoles, built on what was previously a TV studio and before that an orchestral recording studio. Recently the studios have been used for films by directors such as Nick Park, Tim Burton, Mike Newell, Guillermo del Toro and Chris Weitz.
Warner Bros. purchased the studios in November 2012.
