Spiritland Builds New Studio for Netflix’s ‘Building The Band’

Manchester, UK (August 18, 2025)—Netflix’s new unscripted series Building the Band was produced in Manchester, where Spiritland Productions installed a new SSL System T S400 console to handle the music elements, including a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 mix.

​Spiritland co-founding director Antony Shaw acquired the S400-48 at the request of Oliver Waton, head of department for audio and lead sound supervisor on Building the Band, which is from production company Remarkable Entertainment. The reality competition series aims to create the next great pop vocal group, with 50 contestants forming bands without meeting face-to-face, relying instead on musical compatibility, chemistry and vibe. AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys hosts the series. Tony Award-winner Nicole Scherzinger serves as a mentor and judge, joined by guest judges Kelly Rowland (Destiny’s Child) and the late Liam Payne (One Direction). Building the Band debuted on July 9.

Spiritland set up operations at Versa Manchester Studios, formerly the home of Granada Television. Building the Band, the first show to use Spiritland’s new audio control room, used multiple studios across the campus, as well as space across the street at Aviva Studios. The Spiritland team built out a massive Dante network for the show on Versa’s fiber infrastructure to feed dozens and dozens of reality dialogue and vocal radio microphones together with band and other inputs to the front-of-house and monitor consoles, the System T music console and a production console.

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The System T S400, introduced at the 2024 NAB Show, combines the compact form factor of the fixed-frame S300 surface with the controls and visual feedback provided by the modular S500’s Fader Tile. Spiritland, specializing in live and recorded music broadcasting, also has a System T S500 in its Spiritland One OB truck.

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The initial house band rehearsal was canceled, Waton shared, so his first opportunity to use the S400 was on the opening day of production. “I’m quite familiar with Anthony’s workflow in the truck, so I just dialed in approximate EQs, threw all the faders to zero and let the monitor guys gain-up all the preamps. The band started playing and I said, ‘There’s the mix.’ Since then, I’ve only had to do some light tinkering. System T, as always, sounds fantastic with minimal processing changes required.”