Abbey Road's Head of Technical Services, Simon Campbell, talks us through some enhancements to our biggest space Studio One which is home to many of the worlds biggest movie scores. Recent projects include Solo: A Star Wars Story, Black Panther, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and the multi award winning The Shape of Water. Original Soundtrack for Marvel's Black Panther was scored and composed by Ludwig Goransson in Studio One last year.

In the last few years, with the builds of our new studios at Abbey Road - the Mix Stage, the Gatehouse and the Front Room - and the refurbishments to Studios Two and Three, one of the only recording facilities here that has remained largely unaltered over the same period has been good old Studio One. Last week that changed when we took the opportunity to restore the studio floor to something approaching its former glory as well as greatly improving the studio lighting.

The studio floor was last given a similar going over in 2004 and lessons learnt then put us in good shape to ensure the recent work - carried out by CMT Wood Flooring through contractors Prestige Interiors - went to plan. Given the size of Studio Ones floor and the impact it has on the rooms acoustics, a key decision was to treat the floor, once sanded, not with varnish moreover with Bona Craft Oil 2K - a penetrating oil that should keep the floor looking and sounding good for a long while yet. With the studio lighting we were looking to both increase the overall light levels for orchestral sessions, as well as introduce a greater degree of flexibility when sessions prefer mood lighting i.e. dimming.

Abbey Road's in-house electricians, GA Electrical, did their usual, marvellous job on the installation after a bout of rigorous testing, together with the studios team, to ensure the correct number and type of lamps were installed. While all the above went on in the studio area, the Abbey Road technical team spent their time in the control room to chiefly improve the facility's HD video infrastructure (running approximately 2km of cable in the process). Well done everyone and it goes to show that whether it be flooring, lighting or technical infrastructure; if you spend a good amount of time over the course of a couple of years doing the groundwork, you can get quite a lot done in a week.