How the Stones Built a Studio in a Damp French Basement for Exile on Main St.

The band didn’t actually build a studio in the basement—they parked the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio truck outside Villa Nellcôte and ran cables down into the damp, low-ceilinged cellar. That truck, a converted milk float, carried an Ampex MM1000 8-track recorder and a custom Helios mixing console. The basement itself was more of a hangout and instrument storage space; the actual recording happened on tape in the truck.

The setup was famously ramshackle. Keith Richards’s guitar amps were placed in a wine cellar alcove, and they used whatever microphones were lying around—plenty of Shure SM57s on snares and amps, and U47s for vocals. The dampness caused gear to rust and tapes to shed oxide, which gives the album its grimy, overdriven sound. Mick Jagger later joked they were practically recording “in a swamp,” but the truck’s isolation and the basement’s natural reverb turned that limitation into a signature.