Soundtrade Studios is one of Sweden´s oldest and biggest recording studios still in business.

The story of the musical hotspot that is Soundtrade Studios started with… moving pictures.

In the northern Stockholm suburb of Solna, movie theaters were a common sight during the first half of the 20th century.

Citizens would spend their hard-earned money for a couple of hours of cinematic escape from reality at any of the following spots: Castor, Thule, Vingen, Saga, Svea — and here, on Råsundavägen 45: Savoy.

Fast forward to the 1960s, with television sets becoming a common household item, and things were suddenly beginning to look bleak for the local cinemas.

For Savoy, that meant seeing its large interior being turned into a rehearsal space for Swedish pop sensations Hep Stars (fun fact: the group boasted a line-up including Benny Andersson — yes ”that” Benny Andersson of Abba fame — on organ).

The genie was out of the bottle, the ball was set in motion. Now there was no turning back — history was being written.

Having become aware of the spacious interior, and (we’d like to imagine) having been smitten by the romantic notion of occupying an old cinema, legendary band leader and composer Marcus Österdahl decided to put pen to paper and turn Savoy into a fully-fledged recording studio in the early 1970s.

Österdahl, ”the Swedish George Martin”, subsequently named the business Marcus Music, which soon became known as the first 24-track studio in Sweden, attracting Swedish heavyweights of the time such as Abba, Lill-Babs, Monica Törnell, Lars Berghagen, Sven Ingvars, as well as international acts Lee Hazlewood, The Hurricanes and Wigwam of Finland — to name a few.

Such was the demand that, a few years later, the studio soon housed the first computerized mixing desk in Scandinavia, and a high-speed cassette duplicating plant with the first direct printing onto cassette in the region was introduced.

With the opportunity to record in a 140 square meters large recording space, and with state-of-the-art outboard gear — including a brand new EMT 244 digital reverb unit, as well as a plethora of Urei equalizers and compressors, harmonizers, flangers, and noise gates — artists were soon queuing up to get access to the studio.

As the end of the ’70s was approaching, punk rock reached Sweden.

A trio of young men, known to their friends as Fjodor, Gurra, and Pimme, caught a glimpse of a newspaper ad inviting people — anyone really — to come to Marcus Music and record a single for a paltry fee.

With borrowed money enough for three hours worth of studio time, and bellies full of a beer-heavy breakfast, the trio marched up to the studio and recorded the two seven-inch sides that would later be known as ”Antirock”, the debut single launching their band Ebba Grön into rock superstardom in Sweden and its Nordic neighbours.

In the wake of a successful decade, Marcus Österdahl decided to move his business abroad, to London.

The Marcus Music studio was sold to CG Langenskiöld in the 1980s, who modernized the space and its equipment. Langenskiöld also saw fit to do a little rebranding, and thus the studio — for the first but not the last time — became known as Soundtrade.

Now, the studio could accommodate the needs of contemporary pop and rock acts such as Shanghai, Barbie, Style, Easy Action, and Europe. Famously, the latter’s global mega-hit ”The final countdown” was recorded in this very space.

The following decades the studio saw a number of ownership changes yet again, with the global education network SAE Institute housing its classes in Soundtrade during the years 1995—2021 (with the location also being known as Studio 301 for a period during the early 2000’s).

But regardless of the name of the owner, or the studio, one thing has never changed: Ever since the 60’s, music has always echoed between these walls. Ideas have been born and put to tape. Artists, producers and engineers have never ceased to create musical magic at this very spot.

ABBA Europe Pink Miriam Bryant Zara Larsson Rammstein Cher Axwell Veronica Maggio Michael Bolton Sebastian Ingrosso Cornelis Vreeswijk Carola Mauro Scocco Björn Skifs Avicii Christian Falk Lisa Nilsson Westlife Europe Neneh Cherry Jerry Williams Refused Atomic Swing Lasse Stefanz Teddybears Kygo Gary Moore Siouxie & the Banshees Il Divo Daniel Adams-Ray E-Type Sabina Ddumba Blacknuss Pusha T

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