Walking back into Sensible Music in King’s Cross and down the corridor to State Is Flow Studio, you immediately feel that this is not just another “room with gear”. It feels lived in, worked in, and very intentionally designed around one idea Maverick keeps coming back to, the flow state.
As he puts it, State Is Flow came from a phrase they kept using in sessions,
“Our best work is done in that capacity of being in a flow state, and having access to tools but not letting them get in the way of the process.”
That philosophy runs through everything here, from the DAW choice and routing, to the instruments hanging on the walls, to the way he brings artists and community into the space.
Hybrid at the heart, Logic on top
Maverick describes himself as “DAW fluid”, however Logic is the main workhorse.
“We are predominantly off Logic, but I am somewhat DAW fluid, using Pro Tools to track, dabbled a bit with Luna, the workhorse is Logic.”
Conversion and routing are built around an Antelope Orion. He was previously on a simple Apollo Twin plus an Audient via ADAT, then decided to step up into a proper console style workflow and higher channel count.
He did his research and kept seeing the Orion pop up in serious rooms.
“I started seeing the product, which I did not know much about at the time, in more and more studios. I think the last one I saw was Sylvia Massy was using it and I was like, well if it is good enough for her then it must be a good piece of kit.”
The Orion gives him enough I/O to keep things feeling like a console session, rather than a tiny interface that constantly runs out of channels, and the digital patching opens up different workflows between the live booth and control room.
Alongside it, there is still an Audient interface providing extra mic pres over ADAT. That combination, Antelope digital brain plus solid workhorse pres, keeps the rig flexible and expandable.
The Toft console, now a tone and fader playground
One of the first things that hits you when you walk in is the Toft Audio Designs console. It used to be the heart of the room.
“I used to use this as the main kind of pre and a lot of the time now I really use it for I/O within Logic. I will send my groups back out here for EQs and faders. So I throw my drums back up and then print them back in, throw my vocals up, print them back in.”
It is classic hybrid thinking. Use the console for what it does best, musical EQs, ergonomic faders, muscle memory, but let the converters and DAW handle the heavy lifting.
There was a practical shift as well. As much as he loves the Tone of the Toft, the reliability was not always there.
“Wonderful bit of gear, but then every third day it would give you a bunch of noise and there are certain jobs where that is just not going to work.”
That pushed him towards some of the newer SSL front end, particularly the SSL Pure Drive style preamp / interface.
SSL front end, bus glue and colour on tap
Under the desk there is some very serious outboard. Top of the pile, and very close to both our hearts, is the SSL Bus+. In fact, there are two of them.
“It is the Bus+. Wonderful bit of gear. I use it in all kinds of applications. I have one as a send so I can process post process, and then I have one set up as a two bus along with the Fusion.”
Like many of us, he grew up on records mixed through G series bus compressors.
“Obviously the G comp on many of my favourite records. So actually having that kind of technology, but then all of its hidden extras and its ability to be mono, dual mono, stereo, there is a wonderful set of features on it.”
The Bus+ and Fusion live in what Maverick calls an “always on” setup on the mix bus.
“The Bus+ and the Fusion are an always on idea really, just really getting used to it and getting to learn the bit of equipment, sat it front and centre and not looked back since.”
Front end wise, he has moved much of the day to day tracking from the Toft pres to an SSL Pure Drive unit.
“The SSL, I really enjoy this, preamps again in the new SSL tradition, the kind of long press and short press menus. Then we have different types of saturation, and we can change the impedance as well for different microphones… This was the switch from the aforementioned Toft really.”
He has another one going into a mobile rack, so he can roam around the various spaces at Sensible Music and still keep the same tone and workflow, which is smart.
Add into that a pair of dbx 160A compressors, perfect for drums and other transient material, and some Harrison EQs that he is clearly in love with.
“It is the EQs, Warren. It is the EQs. They are absolutely remarkable, even just in terms of the high end, it feels like sometimes demo record with just the smallest movements… If anything, it is about not overusing them because they can give you a good dopamine hit.”
Monitoring is on Focal Trio6 as mains, with an Avantone style single cube for level and midrange reality checks.
“I find them really to be my ears… if I get sent demos, I wait until I am back in my room to listen to them, because it gives me a great impression of what things sound like.”
Tactility, controllers and “gamifying” the studio
Although there is plenty of software in here, Maverick clearly values touching things. There is a Softube controller, disguised with SSL style stickers, that gives him a physical fader and transport.
“The transport, the looping and the fader all happens on there… my hand sits on the fader a lot of the time. For automation it is amazing, being able to draw that in rather than click.”
He will also use it like an expression fader when playing in strings and MIDI parts, “painting” dynamics in as he plays.
On top of that, he uses an iPad running Logic Remote which becomes a bit of a secret weapon for self-recording and for making players feel involved.
“When I am recording by myself, I will take it around the studio and then I can record myself remotely. Or sometimes with certain performers, especially drummers, I will give them the Logic Remote, so even though they are in another room, they can see what I am doing next door. It allows a kind of gamification of the process.”
That little detail says a lot about how he thinks, he wants artists to feel like they are inside the process, not just at the other end of a talkback mic.
Instruments everywhere, ideas everywhere
State Is Flow is packed with instruments that almost dare you not to pick them up.
There is an American Strat that once belonged to a guitarist from Babyshambles, confirmed by chance in a conversation at Abbey Road. It has big frets, a humbucker in the bridge, and just rings.
There is a double bass that was rediscovered in the Sensible Music attic. Maverick is only just getting into it, however it is already inspiring new parts. There is a Kala-style bass ukulele with rubber strings and a DI, a beautiful Half Note bass strung with flats, ukuleles, mandolin, and a fretless Encore Strat that has almost no sustain but a wonderfully odd, cello like quality.
“It gives you a very interesting tone that is more maybe celloistic… It is one of those things again that if you start something on it, great. If you try and add it to a track afterwards, it is just a bit of a… So you write a cool riff on it and then sample it.”
Keyboards and synths are equally serious. A Nord Lead 3 handles a lot of the jazz, soul and fusion textures that are central to the studio’s identity. There is a Komplete Kontrol master keyboard that “pianists do not mind”, which matters a great deal if you want players to feel at home.
Add in Maschine MK2, a Behringer X Air stage box that they are turning into an in-ear monitor rig for live work, and of course a traditional Hammond organ with its own built in amp and a Leslie.
The Hammond also donated its spring reverb tank to the studio signal path. Maverick uses an Orange Terror Stamp head to pre-amplify the spring, then DI’s the return into the Audient.
“I harvested this from a Hammond organ and just thought, well it sounds great on the Hammond, but if I take it out, I can use it on everything.”
One of the most distinctive instruments in the room is a Chinese harp, a guzheng or guang, essentially an ancestor of the Japanese koto. He found it second hand from a Chinese artist in South London.
“It is in a pentatonic scale… it sounds like a yoga advert or a horror film on the uneven side.”
It has sound ports on the back, which means lots of mic’ing options and radically different tones, and if needed he will sample it and play it from a keyboard.
Strings and brass also show up, even though he does not consider himself a strings player or horn player. There is a violin sitting there with a missing string, however the point is how he uses these instruments.
“I utilize strings and brass of which I do not play either. I do them like vocal stacks, rhythm brass or rhythm strings, literally just putting down harmonic stacks… I like to write on the intended instrument, even if I am not virtuistic in it.”
Later he will bring in proper players to layer on top, however often he keeps his own parts as well, so the initial feel stays in the track.
There is also a lovely nod to his beat making roots, a signed copy of Jay Dilla’s “The Shining” on the wall, signed by Dilla’s brother Illa J.
“It is an artist who really changed my approach to making music and such a big influence for me, so an incredible moment and pride of place in the studio.”
Mics and the live booth
Off the control room is what Maverick calls a live booth, “bigger than a vocal booth, smaller than a live room”. He has recorded full drum kits in there many times, getting a tight focused sound.
The main vocal mic is a B87 from Bee’s Knees, a small Australian family company.
“This is our U87 as it were… slightly darker tone than the U87 AI, which obviously has that very modern punch, but I think they modelled this one off a vintage, so it just has a tone that sits well with a lot of the jazz and soul and R&B vocals that we do.”
There are also Austrian Audio OC18 and OC818 mics doing a lot of work. He has been using them as main vocal mics and is about to try a pair of 818s as overheads and on piano. They were the main workhorses during a recent week-long writing camp.
Ribbon wise, there is a single Coles 4038 that gets used on “many many a source”, doing exactly what a Coles does so well.
Guitars in the booth include a Baby Taylor that his co-writer Toby fell in love with during a trip to Los Angeles, a Yamaha Pacifica that was Toby’s first guitar at university, and a tiny Orange Micro Terror amp that gives them quick guitar tones without taking up half the room.
Flow state and “industry unstandard”
The name State Is Flow is not just branding, it really is a mission statement.
“Our best work is done in that capacity of being in a flow state and having access to tools but not letting them get in the way of the process.”
He is very clear that study and theory are important, however you have to be able to let go of that when it is time to create.
“Study is great, and learning through interaction and spreading information by just communicating is incredible. But when it comes to the moment of creation, it is really just forgettable. Approach everything with as much naivety as possible… If we have a main instrument, then start writing on something you have never played on before.”
This ties into a phrase they have actually gone so far as to trademark.
“Our new registered trademark, Industry Unstandard. We actually took the time to register that, Industry Unstandard as in we celebrate an unstandard industry.”
He dislikes it when people in the business say “this is the standard way of doing things”.
“It kind of irks us a little bit. We like things to be creative… It is a standard until someone comes along and does it in a different way.”
Industry Unstandard is both a critique of that mindset and a vision of the kind of industry they want to help build, diverse, experimental and unconstrained.
Community, improv and the Brick Lane Jazz connection
Maverick’s work is not limited to the studio. For around three years in London he ran an improv night for jazz and R&B singers and instrumentalists.
“A lot of people played in our nights for the very first time. We loved to have a mix of experience and newbie energy and support both to come through, because I feel that is where you get just incredible results.”
Those nights started in their old studio, then moved to 91 Living Room on Brick Lane, a proper home of modern London jazz. From there, they became involved with the Brick Lane Jazz Festival and eventually moved into consultation work for larger festivals.
That community energy is clearly part of the DNA of State Is Flow. The studio is not a sealed, private bunker, it is part of a bigger ecosystem of artists, events and collaborations.
From beatboxing and design to a transatlantic sound
Maverick’s route into music is very much a “patchwork of passions” story.
As a kid and young adult he was beatboxing, DJing, collecting “an obscene amount of vinyl” and falling in love with hip hop and sampling. Artists like Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Jay Dilla were foundational.
“My love of jazz and soul came through hip hop. The things they were sampling were jazz and soul.”
He was invited into a fifteen piece jazz band called the DBass Collective and that became his unofficial college. He would beatbox, host and freestyle rap while surrounded by conservatoire trained players and street jazz musicians.
No one was recording the band, so he taught himself engineering in rehearsal rooms, pointing mics at players and learning through trial, error and repetition.
In parallel, he built a career in graphic design, creative direction and brand guardianship, working with clients such as major banks and media brands, dragging them gently into the 21st century. Eventually he hit a crossroads.
“It just came to a point where I realised that if I followed that path, I was never going to really realise the music aspect of everything. So I quit, moved down to London and set up a small studio.”
At the time he was living up in the Highlands near the Cairngorms, travelling into Aberdeen for work and making music remotely. He has always loved what he calls a “transatlantic sound”, the intersection of British and American traditions that he grew up on through his vinyl.
His first big artist project came with a Texas based vocalist called Jronius. They met online, he handled the music, Jronius handled lyrics and vocals, they demoed three tracks and landed an album deal.
That album and his own debut were signed to BBE Records, which is also home to the classic debut works of Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Jay Dilla. The same label and the same executive producer he had admired for years.
That journey is represented physically in the studio by the signed Dilla “Shining” vinyl on the wall, signed by Illa J at a gig in Camden after the label gave Maverick a copy to bring him.
Partnership with Toby Cotton and the move to Sensible Music
State Is Flow is not just Maverick, it is a partnership with artist and co-writer Toby Cotton, described in the press as “indie soul”.
Their collaboration started with a simple but powerful request.
“We had one session and he booked in for the next three months. He said, can we meet every Tuesday to create an EP together.”
They made Toby’s debut EP, took it up to a beautiful studio just outside Milton Keynes called The Friary with a big SSL console, and had such a good experience that it naturally evolved into a production partnership.
They opened their previous studio in a shared building with visual artists, slowly taking over more of the space as painters and sculptors moved on to other studios or even other countries.
Recently they made the jump into Sensible Music’s facilities at King’s Cross. Toby already has two albums written, very different from one another, and the pair are looking forward to putting them down in their new home.
Alongside their own projects, Maverick and Toby now co-write and produce for other artists as a duo, bringing their intuitive way of working into other people’s songs.
The spirit of State Is Flow
What I love about State Is Flow Studio is that it embodies an idea I talk about all the time. A great studio is not just about the gear. It is about how you use it, how it makes you and your artists feel, and how it helps you stay in that creative headspace where your best ideas appear.
Maverick has built a room that does exactly that. Hybrid routing that feels like a console, tactile control so he can perform the mix, instruments and oddities everywhere that invite play, a strong philosophical backbone in flow state and “industry unstandard”, and a deep connection to community and the wider London jazz and soul scene.
If you are drawn to that transatlantic blend of jazz, soul, hip hop and songcraft, and you like the idea of a studio where experimentation is the norm rather than the exception, State Is Flow at Sensible Music is very much worth keeping on your radar.
And as always, have a marvellous time recording and mixing.
