Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Recording studio in Sheffield, United States
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is a recording facility in Sheffield, Alabama that now operates as a music museum. The building preserves the recording rooms, mixing consoles, and instruments from the era when international productions were made here.
Four session musicians founded the facility in 1969 after leaving another local studio to control their own recordings. Over the following years, the studio attracted artists from rock, soul, and country who recorded albums here.
The studio takes its name from the nearby Muscle Shoals, a stretch of the Tennessee River that gave the entire region its musical identity. Musicians from around the world traveled here to capture the particular sound that the house instruments and room acoustics created together.
Tours last about 60 minutes and provide access to the ground-floor and basement recording spaces. Tickets remain valid all day, so visitors can return later if needed.
The basement rooms have no windows to the outside, which helped keep street noise out and created the dense sound. Musicians often worked through the night when the town was quietest to avoid any distractions.
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