Recording - September 2013 - 51

is known for excelling in soundproofing,
by acting as a damping material to help
separate and isolate the walls. This did
an amazing job of keeping the outside
world from intruding, and stopping studio
noises from getting out.
The ceiling and the wall behind the
speakers remained nude, although colored with a pleasant shade of paint to
improve the vibe.
Patrick designed and built his own
absorbers to be placed on the primary
reflecting walls, the back of the room and
the sides. Using a 1" wooden frame, he
built medium-sized panels, roughly 1.5'
wide by 3' tall, filled with rockwool absorption material. Many people use 703
Owens Corning insulation to make acoustic
treatments, but the rockwool is considerably cheaper, especially considering that
there is usually a local source that provides
it as a homebuilding material, and it is not
marketed exclusively towards sound reinforcement. [Editor’s note: Rockwool products also contribute to fire safety—see
tinyurl.com/rockwoolfiresafety]
The room itself was very bright. With
movable panels you can control the
reflectiveness of the room easily, converting a silent iso-booth into a very bright,
shiny room, or vice-versa.
Bass management was a concern. Due
to the shape and size of the room, speaker placement made a huge difference in
the bass response of Patrick’s two active
Tannoy Reveal speakers. They provide a
great full-range spectrum of sound, without
the addition of a subwoofer. However, that
depends on where they are in the room.
The custom table that Patrick built specifically for this room was placed on casters
to allow for adjustment of the location of
the work desk. When the desk was moved
roughly 1/4 of the way towards the center
of the room, the bass response was near
perfect, and that is the ideal mix position.
As soon as I walked into the room, I got
that feeling that you do when you walk
into a well-designed acoustically treated
room. In my opinion, it may have been
too quiet if anything, judging by the compressing feeling on my ear drums as they
were searching for locational cues.
Desk and racks
The workstation itself is comprised of a
hand-made desk, designed with room for
standard racks on each side. (Figure 2)
On top of it is a PC running Pro Tools
through a Fast Track Ultra, providing 6
line inputs to accept the direct outs of his
analog summing board.
Currently there was no gear in the racks
at the sides of the desk. However, fitting
nearly perfectly were a pair of $15 Ikea
RAST night stands that are the perfect width
to support standard rack gear. Nicely
stripped, stained and placed, they were
another testament to Patrick’s handiwork!
RECORDING September 2013

Flexible use of the room
Patrick soon found out that this room wasn’t just made for mixing, but that he could also
track drums and guitars! Thanks to his movable workstation, he could make room for a
drum kit: the desk gets pushed towards one wall, making just enough room for a full drum
set, speaker cab and bass rig—compact but workable. (See Figure 3.) Drum tracking has
occurred frequently during the day, and high-volume mixing at night, with no complaints
from the neighbors.
Patrick played me some of the tracks they had multi-tracked in there, and I will say that
they sounded right on par with professional recording quality.
Clearly this room is built to grow, and does an excellent job of serving its current purpose
of tracking and mixing. All of Asimov’s recent materials have been recorded and mixed in
this room, so check out Patrick’s mixes at sludged.com and judge for yourself!
Jess Repanshek (repanshek@recordingmag.com) is a musician, audio lover and Apple
IT guy, based in Gilbert, AZ. He works on his own experimental music when he’s not working with classes as an instructor at CRAS (the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences,
www.audiorecordingschool.com) in Gilbert. You can learn more about Jess and his work
at www.audiorecordingschool.com/blog/

http://www.sludged.com http://www.audiorecordingschool.com http://www.audiorecordingschool.com/blog/ http://www.tinyurl.com/rockwoolfiresafety http://www.recordingmag.com

Recording - September 2013

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