Big Blue Meenie Recording Studio

Big Blue Meenie

Former type	Production House
Genre	Recording Studio
Predecessor	Quantum Sound
Founded	Hackensack, New Jersey (1991 (1991))
Founder	Tom Aldi Julie Gilles Tim Gilles Joe Mahoney
Defunct	January 11th 2015
Headquarters	Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.
Key people	Sal Villanueva, Producer Kevin Neaton, Engineer Jeff Canas, Engineer Matt Messenger, Engineer Erin Farley, Eng'g/Prod. Assistant Alex Eddings, Engineer
Owner	Tim Gilles
Number of employees	~12
Website	http://www.bigbluemeenie.com/

Big Blue Meenie was a production house in Jersey City, New Jersey famous for its clientele.

The facility is located on 512 Paterson Plank Road, near Washington Park, and was built in the late 19th century. Prior to 1981, it was used by a Chandelier factory, until it stopped operation in the late 20th century.

In 1981, the producer of Madonna's self-titled first album Reggie Lucas, purchased the building and opened a recording studio, Quantum Sound Studios. By 1986 it was reported to feature the first SSL mix room, a 48 input SSL 4000 console with Total Recall, in Northern New Jersey as well as an extensive collection of MIDI synthesizers and gear and a Synclavier digital audio system.Grammy Award-winning music studio engineer and producer Andy Wallace mixed tracks for Helmet and Rage Against the Machine, as well as many others at Quantum in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Other musicians and producers used Lucas' studio for hire approach for recording, like INXS and Queen Latifah. By 1994 Lucas left the studio, and although he had spent a lot of time and effort fitting the original factory with the control rooms and recording spaces, by the time it was purchased by its successor in 1998, the old Quantum studios were in a state of extreme dilapidation.

In 1991, Tim Gilles (nicknamed "Rumblefish") and his then wife, Julie, as well as Joe Mahoney and Tom Aldi started Big Blue Meenie Studios in the basement of his house, in Hackensack, New Jersey, primarily using an 8-track recorder. After several years of growing success and a positive reputation among musicians in the area, the group began closing down their original locations and made arrangements to buy the former Quantum Sound Studios in 1998; on February 2, 1999 the building was officially purchased. On June 18, 1999, the facility officially opened with the then first of its kind mixer, an Amek 9098i analog console built by console engineer Rupert Neve. The Amek at Big Blue Meenie is one of about twenty in the world. Under the producer Sal Villanueva and the rest of the engineers, several post-hardcore bands began their career recording at the studio; Thursday recorded their debut album Waiting in 1999, and Taking Back Sunday recorded Tell All Your Friends in 2001, which on its 2005 reissue featured a bonus song called "The Ballad of Sal Villanueva". Thursday has continually gone back to Villanueva, including his recording of the breakout album Full Collapse in 2001.