Armstrong's Studios

Armstrong Studios, also known as Bill Armstrong's Studio and later renamed AAV (Armstrong Audio Video), is an Australian commercial recording studio located in Melbourne, Victoria. During the decade from 1965 to 1975, Armstrong Studios in South Melbourne was arguably the top independent recording studio in Australasia.

Founder Bill Armstrong was born in Melbourne in 1929. After studying electrical engineering at Caulfield Technical College he started his career as an engineer at radio station 3UZ from 1954–56, where his work included disc cutting of radio shows and live-to-air orchestral music broadcasts. From 1956-60 he was the manager of a recently founded independent label, W&G Records, whose A&R manager Ron Tudor discovered and signed The Seekers. Armstrong established the W&G disc-cutting room and in 1957 built their recording studio in West Melbourne. That year he also supervised the sound system for Phillips Bell at the Main Stadium at the 1956 Olympic Games¸in Melbourne.

From 1960-61 Armstrong was the manager of the Custom Recording Department at 3DB in Melbourne, where he recorded radio commercials and soundtracks for television advertisements. From 1961-65 he was manager of Telefil Sound Recording and Film Studios, which was at the time the largest commercial recording studio in Melbourne. Housed in a converted Melbourne cinema, it was equipped with one, two and three track Ampex recorders, and its clients included the local divisions of the EMI, CBS and RCA labels.

In 1965, Armstrong opened his own studio in a small terrace house in Albert Rd, South Melbourne. One of the first pop recordings made there was the backing track for The Easybeats' 1965 breakthrough hit "She's So Fine", which was overseen by British-born engineer Roger Savage, who had recently arrived from the UK as an assisted migrant. Reflecting on Savage's subsequent importance to the Australian music industry in a 2013 ABC radio interview, Bill Armstrong quipped that Savage's assisted passage to Australia represented "probably the best £20 the Australian government ever spent".

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