Asbjoern Andersen


Ever thought about giving your studio a makeover - or perhaps you've simply outgrown your home studio? Here's the story on how Alex Gregson from 344 Audio did a major studio rebuild, complete with tips, lessons learned, and thoughts on whether you should go about such a huge project in the first place:
Written by Alex Gregson. Images courtesy of Alex Gregson
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Thinking about rebuilding your studio? Here are some questions to consider before you start: First of all, you need to ask yourself why building a dedicated studio space is right for your creative business. Will it help you accomplish a goal or work with new clients? Will it allow you to provide a better service?

You will then need to consider your budget. Is your budget realistic? Have you built an itemised breakdown? Where can you save money?

Next will come your plans for building soundproofing, acoustic treatment, interior design and equipment. Will these add value? Can you do the building yourself? Do you really need the best piece of equipment on the market?

The sitting area of the studio

Once you have figured out the basics and accepted that you want to go on this journey, you will need a marketing strategy to promote your studio in a way that attracts the clients you want to work with there.

You will have to ensure you are ready to take such a big step for your business, in terms of time and financial investment

The number of people working in your facility will also factor into your planning, does your premises have enough space?

With all this considered you will have to ensure you are ready to take such a big step for your business, in terms of time and financial investment.
   

Rebuilding The 344 Audio Studio: The Planning

An empty construction area with only a plastic-covered couch

The reason we wanted to rebuild our studio was to provide a better service to the clients we currently have and to the clients that we want. Previously, we worked from a home studio and rented facilities for larger projects, which was less comfortable for both us, Directors and other members of the sound team. Having your own studio allows you to choose the gear, workflow and look that is right for your business.

We had a budget of £20,000, which had to cover everything from rental deposits to equipment costs and soundproofing walls. We managed to save a lot of money by building soundproofing and acoustic treatment ourselves. We came in under budget, which left space for future investments in our second room. Every piece of equipment purchased was carefully planned to create an ecosystem that allows for a faster creative workflow and a high quality signal path throughout, while remaining cost conscious.

Having your own studio allows you to choose the gear, workflow and look that is right for your business

We hired a marketing agency to help us get into both local and national industry publications, which has already provided some excellent opportunities for the studio. We also have a list of current clients to invite to the new facility and a list of clients that we would like to work with in the future who we will be contacting.

With a view for expansion, we have an additional room which will house interns and freelancers to help when working on larger projects. We have a financial plan to allow for a return on investment and aim to get the most out of the equipment we have purchased and the room that we have built.
 

Rebuilding The 344 Audio Studio: The Execution

The construction process was by far the most difficult and time consuming part of the project. Soundproofing involved first of all, four days of research to discover the right methods and materials to use. Once we had established our battle plan, it was time to begin.

We hired a builder to construct the wooden batons that lay the foundation for our soundproofing stud walls. They had to be built with an air gap between themselves and the original walls. We then added Rockwool acoustic insulation slabs, which aided in sound absorption and helped fill the gap between the batons. After this, we fitted resilient bars which separate the next layer from the wood batons, as well as allowing the wall to flex and absorb longer wavelengths provided by the LFE speaker in the room.

The wall was very successful in reducing disturbance to us and neighbouring businesses

Finally, two layers of acoustic plasterboard were fitted to the resilient bars and painted to match the room colours. The wall was very successful in reducing disturbance to us and neighbouring businesses. There was still a quite severe noise leakage problem from the entrance, which had to be alleviated by constructing a double door followed by a heavy acoustic curtain.


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  • Trench Rammers is a one-of-a-kind sound library, created by sound designer Barney Oram. It features recordings of two 20th century Trench Rammers, some of the last operating machines of their kind in the world. The library features 48 files in total, capturing the Trench Rammers using a variety of microphones and perspectives, supplied in 192kHz 24bit WAV file format.

    This library contains multiple recordings of two antique Trench Rammers, the Pegson ER5 and the Warsop Benjo, and also features additional recordings of four antique stationary engines, the Amanco Hired Man (1920s), the JAP 1947, the Lister D (1940s) and the Norman T3000.

    Recorded in Leeds, UK, this library features multi-mic coverage and a range of distance positions captured on all included source content. Microphones used include; Sanken, Sennheiser, Neumann and DPA, captured with Sound Devices and Tascam recorders.

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    84 sounds that are clean, subtle and capture pretty much every object and action of the magic of fire and earth.

    From the rhythmic hum of the spinning potter’s wheel, to the splash of water, the scrape of clay with the tools shaping and smoothing surfaces, listen up for the symphony of creation.

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    Keywords

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Once the soundproofing steps had been completed, it was time to move on to interior design. From the beginning, we wanted to create an industrial revolution themed studio, which has cultural links to our home in Manchester, England. We went for neutral colours in the wall paint, absorbers / bass traps material and shelving to allow more specific elements to stand out. We also built our own studio furniture to save costs and create a more authentic industrial look. Using reclaimed wood boards, coach bolts and scaffolding poles, we constructed a fairly basic structure to build upon. Adding wood stain helped blend the furniture into the room a little better and bring out the natural wear of the desks.

We wanted to create an industrial revolution themed studio, which has cultural links to our home in Manchester, England

Next, we searched for various antiques to place in the room to finalise the look. These included a chest from the 1800s, various industrial cogs, classic British books to place on our bookshelves, and of course, a plant. It was finally time to install our equipment…

One huge workflow element we wanted to implement was the use of four screens. We fitted two identical monitors, one for the Pro Tools edit window, one for sound effects searching and miscellaneous tasks. We also fitted a 58-inch TV for client video playback. Finally, we decided to choose the Slate Raven MTi2 for our studio mix controller, as it had the most features and forward thinking workflow in its price range, allowing for custom macros and a touchscreen workflow.

We also had to create a 5.1 mixing environment, which meant that we would need a suitable interface and monitoring. We chose the Presonus Quantum for it’s low latency thunderbolt connectivity, ability to group outputs for up to 7.1 monitoring and it’s high quality digitally controlled preamps. We chose the HEDD Type 05 for satellites and ADAM Sub8 for our LFE. After testing one of our mixes on multiple systems, we found these to be the most transparent and comfortable to work with by far. They also have a phase and frequency linearization plugin for Pro Tools to help digitally align the speakers.

One of the other largely important tasks was to create a workstation PC that could handle our heavy Sound Design sessions. We got a custom 3XS system from Scan computers, which had all the bells and whistles needed to bring the studio build together. We spent most of our money on the key components, including the CPU and Motherboard, leaving room for future expansion on the 2 SSD drives and 32GB RAM.

An overview of the backside of the studio

The inclusion of a large MIDI keyboard, synthesizers and microphones were a crucial inclusion for creative purposes. We picked up a Korg Minilogue, mixer and guitar pedals for creating ominous drones and synthesized effects. Microphone-wise, we grabbed an NTG3 for Foley/ADR, an Aston Origin for Voice Overs and a Zoom H6 for recording sound effects, along with some contact mics and coil pickups. We also grabbed a dynamic mic for creating dialogue futz effects through the guitar pedals.

Finally, for acoustic treatment, we built 4 soffit bass traps to control low frequency build up in the room corners. These were made from thin timber wood uprights and particle board panels for the top and bottoms. The interiors were filled with acoustic rockwool. We then covered them with a breathable fabric. Our absorbers were a similar approach, with staples to attach the fabric tightly around the wood.
 

Rebuilding Your Studio: Tips and Shortcuts

Some of the lessons learned during the build process were invaluable, and we would love to share these with you. Most of all, the larger lesson here is that doing things yourself can garner much more worthwhile results, whereas hiring others can be overly expensive and may not save much time.

There has been no better time than now to build your own studio

Finding the right space from the beginning, in a good location with minimal traffic noise and disturbances will stand you in good stead for the future of your build and business operations.

Materials are cheap, and the internet is an unlimited resource for acoustic treatment advice, product reviews and the like. There has been no better time than now to build your own studio.

A crocodile head and a lightbulb full of nuts, bolts, and screws

Another piece of advice to readers would be to make your studio unique to your business. We included an industrial revolution theme as it’s something that we and many others are fascinated with in our local history. Use that as inspiration for how your studio could stand out from the crowd.

One element that we really underestimated was the soundproofing, which all in all took about 2 weeks to complete and was incredibly stressful. If we could go back and do it again with the knowledge gained, the process could likely have been reduced to less than a week. Do your research well in advance, and be realistic about the results you can achieve.

Please feel free to get in touch with us if you want any specific advice on materials or the build process. You can get in touch via 344audio.com.
A comfortable, professional workspace at 344 Audio.

A big thanks to Alex Gregson for giving us a tour of their new facilities over at 344 Audio!

 

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    The resulting ultrasonic spectrum is rich and allows for truly extreme manipulation of the content.

    Bonus: Two extra libraries included for free:
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Explore the full, unique collection here

Latest sound effects libraries:
 
  • Trench Rammers is a one-of-a-kind sound library, created by sound designer Barney Oram. It features recordings of two 20th century Trench Rammers, some of the last operating machines of their kind in the world. The library features 48 files in total, capturing the Trench Rammers using a variety of microphones and perspectives, supplied in 192kHz 24bit WAV file format.

    This library contains multiple recordings of two antique Trench Rammers, the Pegson ER5 and the Warsop Benjo, and also features additional recordings of four antique stationary engines, the Amanco Hired Man (1920s), the JAP 1947, the Lister D (1940s) and the Norman T3000.

    Recorded in Leeds, UK, this library features multi-mic coverage and a range of distance positions captured on all included source content. Microphones used include; Sanken, Sennheiser, Neumann and DPA, captured with Sound Devices and Tascam recorders.

    This library includes detailed SoundMiner metadata and utilizes the UCS system for ease of integration into your library.

    Behind the Scenes Video:


    Trench Rammer


  • The cozy natural rhythms of hums, scrapes, splashes and thuds soundtrack the pottery workshop where the earth meets art. Find the true sound of it with Vadi Sound Library.

     

    About Pottery Workshop

     

    84 sounds that are clean, subtle and capture pretty much every object and action of the magic of fire and earth.

    From the rhythmic hum of the spinning potter’s wheel, to the splash of water, the scrape of clay with the tools shaping and smoothing surfaces, listen up for the symphony of creation.

    You will hear the tapping and thud of ceramic pottery, wooden ribs, wire cutters, loop tools, and sponges, all kinds of rummage, and mud actions on the potter’s wheel. The clicking and whirring of mechanisms during firing cycles add a mechanical counterpoint to the workshop’s natural rhythms.

    You will get variations of sounds in different proximity, size, and style of action. This collection is handy due to the clarity and diversity of the raw sounds. They have both Foley and practical usability and room for further sound design.

    You will get intuitive, detailed naming, UCS compatibility and the usual Vadi Sound craft and attention to detail in 84 pristine sounds. Recorded in 24bit-96kHz.WAV format on our favorite Sennheiser MKH 8040 stereo pair and Zoom F6.

     

    Keywords

    Pottery, workshop, electric potter’s wheel, wheel, oven, heat gun, mud, clay, ceramic, glass, wooden, metal, cup, handle, push, pull, move, remove, shape, tap, shake, clank, level, lid, tool, organizer, toolbox, rummage, fiberboard, button, bucket, sponge, plate, Dremel.

     

    What else you may need

    You may also want to check out Drag & Slide for 477 sound files of dragging, sliding, scraping and friction sounds of different objects made of wood, plastic, metal on various surfaces. Our bestseller Crafting & Survival is another good choice to get access to 1000+ survival, gathering, movement and crafting sounds.

  • All files are recorded 32bit, 192 kHz, with Shure KSM 137, Line Audio Omni1, FEL Clippy XLR EM272, Sonorous Objects SO.3 and JrF C-Series Pro+ microphones, Sound Devices MixPre-6 II & Zoom F3 recorders. Library contains wav files of driving, interior and exterior foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is also available in UCS.

  • Introducing Devils Bane Trailer, a chilling symphony of horror encapsulated in 533 meticulously crafted sound files, ready to unleash terror upon your audience. Dive into a nightmare realm where every creak, whisper, and shriek is meticulously designed to send shivers down your spine.

    • 533 files
    • 3.5 GB of game audio assets
    • All in 96k 24bit .wav
    • Dark Horror Movie Trailer Sound Effects Library
    17 %
    OFF
  • Birdsong from the countryside of the Swedish rural region of Värmland.


   

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