Commercial Recording Facilities

A classic commercial recording facility is typically held to the highest standards both in terms of its design, systems, operations, and its impact on the surrounding community. These facilities often reside in dense commercial zones where sound interference (both in and out) is of constant concern. Before we can rightfully address any of the optimal internal room design allowances, we must first address the isolation needs of that space specific to its surrounding environment and decide on how to achieve maximum isolation in as small of a footprint as physically possible as space generally comes at a significant premium in these situations.

A desirable signal-to-noise ratio is a key component of any studio. Just as digital recording technology has improved the overall signal-to-noise ratio of the recording process, it is critical that modern studios maintain equivalent signal-to-noise in their acoustics.

HVAC systems must be specified and balanced to not exceed NC-10 (Noise Criteria) to ensure a peaceful and productive work environment free of extraneous noise that will interfere with recordings and playback.

Reverberation times (or more specifically Mean Free Time in room sizes typical to that of the average commercial recording facility) must meet a predetermined specification for each room according to its function. 

Spaces should be divided appropriately and streamlined to follow the direction of the workflow. This is particularly important in facilities that may have multiple clients booked for different aspects of the recording process at overlapping times.  One should never interfere with the other if maintaining a fluid, harmonious workspace is the goal. 

Home Studios

What could be more convenient than a professional studio inside of your home or on your own property? 

The home studio is the realistic model of the future for many producers, engineers, and artists as the entertainment industry continues to offer content at an all-time high in terms of both volume and accessibility. There is a general misconception that the label of “home studio” is synonymous with “amateur,” and at the expense of a serious sacrifice in professional quality. While that may be true in isolated instances, you can usually trace it back to an underqualified, albeit ambitious, individual placing their faith in a DIY design and build without a complete understanding of either process. The fundamental anatomy of residential architecture is not typically conducive to an optimal acoustic design approach without having to consider a few adjustments. Providing we can satisfy a few simple criteria on the design side, there is no reason why we can not set you up at home in an adequately isolated and properly treated room that responds as well as any commercial facility.   

Home Cinema

Let us bring the complete immersive in-theatre experience to you at home, without compromise! 

Whether you’re a film buff, a gamer or just looking for a finely tuned room to dive into your favorite music – our home cinema and hi-fi designs will leave you missing nothing from the traditional in-theatre experience.

With major content providers such as Disney deciding to pivot and direct future focus towards streaming content rather than “in-theatre” releases, we are left with a gap to fill. While the evolution of home theatre equipment has consistently provided us the playback tools needed to afford our modern systems the highest in A/V resolution, one of the areas in which this market has consistently come up short is as it relates to a proper acoustic design.

Many home cinemas end up designed by architects, with little attention in mind for acoustic related sciences. Often these rooms are poorly shaped, inadequately isolated, and void of any targeted acoustic treatment plan. As companies continue to develop their products around Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, it is more important than ever to incorporate proper acoustic design into your home theatre to ensure you’re getting the most out of your equipment. If you are interested in securing a Certified Dolby Atmos Cinema, we are qualified to meet the design criteria.

Let us design and build your space and move you one giant step closer towards bridging the gulf between the “in-theatre” and “home cinema” experience.

Film, Gaming, and Post-Production Facilities

Film is one of humanities’ greatest forms of artistic expression. There is no denying the significance of high-quality sound when it comes to creating a memorable and captivating film. Achieving exceptional audio fidelity is crucial to delivering an immersive and unforgettable cinematic experience that resonates with your audience. 

We can apply that same sentiment across the board to the wildly popular world of Gaming. Whether its crystal-clear dialogue, dynamic sound effects, an engaging but well balance score/soundtrack or fully encompassing the audience inside of a 3-D spatial audio environment, a properly designed acoustic environment is critical on both the front and back ends of each one of these processes.

Please reach out to us if you require any guidance or services relating to the design and build of ADR facilities, postproduction, editing suites, dubbing theatres, cinema theatres, Dolby 5.1,7.1 or ATMOS playback environments.

Performance Halls and Entertainment Centres

Achieving clarity and sensory immersion is critical in spaces of this kind and therefore particularly worthy of a design-forward approach.  

The fundamental goals and inherent design challenges we face in large volume spaces such as a performance, lecture and concert halls present their own unique acoustic design challenges, quite different from the average commercial recording facility. As a result, a different approach is required. Besides the usual sound isolation detail, though on a much larger scale, we need to consider the acoustic performance from two separate perspectives: the audience perspective and the performer’s perspective, taking great care to make sure we are not compromising either.

This multifaceted environment operates as a complete system so we not only concern ourselves with optimal projection and balance over a wide acoustical focus from multiple perspectives, but also aim to remain mindful not to interfere with the essential intent of the space. The design anatomy must facilitate and preserve this human exchange of emotive expression.

Extraneous noise must be eliminated as well as any noise-producing equipment in the facility. This includes HVAC and a noise criteria NC-15 to NC-20.

Custom Acoustic Treatment Solutions

The utility of a targeted acoustic treatment plan is not limited to critical listening environments; it expands across many applications.

Reducing incessant ambient noise in public spaces such as offices, educational facilities, restaurants, airports and hotel lobbies has become increasingly more important as research continues to show a direct connection between noisy, reverberant environments and poor human interactions, lower employee performance, and poor learning experiences for students. Low ambient noise in these types of spaces is a topic worthy of deep design or redesign consideration. Containing and focusing sound for speech intelligibility plays a key role in positive human interactions. Multimedia presentation centres and conference rooms benefit particularly well from proper acoustic treatment.  

Please see our resources page for articles on the effects of excessive noise and low speech intelligibility in both workspaces and educational facilities. 

Educational Facilities

Normalizing the utility of acoustically minded designs or redesigns in classrooms and lecture halls is something every educational institution should consider given the convincing amount of data we have clearly favouring its results. 

Most people would likely agree that an optimally designed learning environment is beneficial to everyone. However, its doubtful many people have ever considered the implications of poor acoustics in the education sector. Historically, very little attention has been directed towards the importance of incorporating acoustic design principals into educational facilities, especially in the public sector. Despite the fact that we have years worth of data to draw from clearly showing a convincing connection between poor acoustics and test scores, poor information retention and overall academic performance, very little effort has been made to retrofit a solution for these issues in older buildings. Only in recent years has it become more of a topical issue and something that is loosely incorporated into classrooms and auditoriums at the design stage of a new build. Even then, it is more likely to have been designed by an architect or interior designer using very basic and nonspecific acoustic principals rather than someone qualified in the field of acoustics. Reducing the ambient noise of a classroom and purposefully directing the flow of sound and reflections allows an overall improvement that facilitates more focus from the students while improving speech intelligibility which leads to greater information retention.

Please refer to our Resources Page and see the article titled “The Effects of Incorporating Acoustic Design Principals into Educational and Workplace Environments.”

Industrial and Vibration Control Solutions

No one would argue that facilitating an industrial environment conducive to 40+ hours of exposure each week is beneficial to everyone involved, especially over the course of a long sample period. Machinery in the industrial sector is often high impact, high output and consistently active which brings a heavy focus of attention not only towards quality hearing protection, but also in mitigating the issue at the source whenever possible.

The utility of containing airborne and vibrational transfer of sound extends beyond the purpose of general “noise pollution” and achieving response curves weighted for hearing protection. In some cases, it can also mean maintaining the performance and life expectancy of highly valuable equipment, and even the output of air quality in certain circumstances.

Get in touch with us if you need any guidance or services relating to:

• Industrial soundproofing of workspaces, enclosures, offices adjacent to plant-floors or other building structures
• Acoustic isolation of plant-floors, walls, or foundations
• Source-specific acoustic isolation of mechanical equipment
• The design and/or build and install of noise mitigating solutions such as acoustic screens, HVAC mufflers, dampeners, resilient mounts, or suspension mounts
• Evaluating occupational noise and vibration exposure levels for your workplace under applicable health and safety legislation

NOTE: We are not tied to any exclusive distribution deals and therefore have no interest in suggesting any particular third-party company’s components over another.  The only factor in choosing one product over another will be that it complies with our design criteria and that it is the right product for the application. Products with anecdotal or otherwise inadequate testing data will not be considered.

General Soundproofing and Fireproofing Solutions

“Speech is silver, and silence is golden.”
– Thomas Carlyle

As cities continue to expand and urban densities continue to concentrate, the need for a quiet living space or office space has never been more critical. Many modern homes have been designed or remodeled to accommodate basement suite rentals, Airbnb suites, and coach houses as a means to subsidise lofty mortgages. This co-existence of space does not come without a few compromises, so a plan to keep sound in and out of your personal space will greatly increase your chances of maintaining a harmonious long-term relationship between you and whoever you are sharing your home or office space with. 

Many cities in North America require that any new build offering a rental suite also offer a course of sound isolation between units in its design. These designs are usually put together by an architect with a very limited knowledge in acoustic practices or materials working to service a bureaucratic implementation equally as uniformed.

Having your architect work with one of our acoustic specialists or subbing out that portion of the design work entirely will surely yield a more effective result.

One benefit of this approach is that with a solid understanding of how to implement the proper acoustic materials in all the correct places we can also satisfy most, if not all, fireproofing requirements that the code and permit may also require. 

We have successfully helped several homeowners, business owners, strata councils and contractors find a solution for their general soundproofing concerns.  

NOTE: We are not tied to any exclusive distribution deals and therefore have no interest in suggesting any particular third-party company’s components over another.  The only factor in choosing a product will be that it complies with our design criteria and that it is the right product for the application.  Products with anecdotal or otherwise inadequate testing data will not be considered. 

Low Voltage Lighting Designs

An environment that inspires creativity is an invaluable asset in this market. Evoke your facility’s unique identity with a complementing light design.

Addressing the acoustic challenges in any given space is always our priority. Form will ever follow function in this regard. We also recognize the import of the elemental surroundings that work to impress their influence on the character of each room and offer a unique identity to any creative space. Creating and performing music for any genre is really just an effort to inspire a memorable sensory experience for the listener. Incorporating a multi zone/multi colour low-voltage lighting design goes a long way in elevating the creative process within the room during the stages of creation, which will certainly play a role in augmenting the final product of any work created within that space. And of course, help to achieve a favourable character in any viewing environment such as a performance hall, cinema or home cinema. 

We have worked closely with Limbic Media  on multiple commercial studio and performance hall projects. Between their proprietary “Aurora” and “Maestro” protocols, we can incorporate a lighting design into any space that we have a hand in designing and/or building that will fit into most budget structures.

System Measurements and Acoustic Analysis

As much as the professional engineer, producer or artist tends to lean on their ears for subjective purposes, we can gain a lot of valuable information from a basic array of objective acoustic and systems measurements across both the frequency and time domain. When measured properly, we collect a dataset that offers an accurate image of your room’s unique response, presenting us with an objective blueprint as to where your control room, tracking room or critical listening environment can use some improvement in terms of isolation, speaker placement, listening position, speaker delays, phase alignments, low end response, and achieving overall balance in the frequency and time domain with a targeted acoustic treatment plan and perhaps a few anatomical changes to the room shape if we have the option.

Taking acoustic measurements in a variety of different spaces for a variety of different reasons is something we are hired to do frequently. With a moderate investment of $100 USD, clients can purchase a USB measurement microphone with a calibration file for themselves along with the free-download analysis software “REW” and email us the resulting measurement files of the room to aid us in offering a quote for a treatment design and/or supplied treatment package remotely. For those who are a little more experienced and invested in the field, we can accept SMAART files for analysis as well. Please refer to our resources page for instructions on how to accurately measure your room and what equipment you will need to take the measurements yourself.  

CAD Drafting, Modelling and Rendering

All of our designs are drafted and modelled  using AutoCAD and/or Sketchup. Everything from simple 2D floor plans to a fully detailed conceptualized model and 3D renderings of the proposed design.

We include section details of all wall/sheathing assemblies, sound-sealed doors and windows,  individual acoustic treatment details, mechanical integrations (zero-loop electrical, HVAV, etc.) and design lighting.

In situations where we may be hired as part of a larger project – where the acoustic design element is only one of many – then we will work with your principal design or architecture team to integrate our suggestions into their primary designs via scaled overlays.  

Commercial Recording Facilities

A classic commercial recording facility is typically held to the highest standards both in terms of its design, systems, operations, and its impact on the surrounding community. These facilities often reside in dense commercial zones where sound interference (both in and out) is of constant concern. Before we can rightfully address any of the optimal internal room design allowances, we must first address the isolation needs of that space specific to its surrounding environment and decide on how to achieve maximum isolation in as small of a footprint as physically possible as space generally comes at a significant premium in these situations.

A desirable signal-to-noise ratio is a key component of any studio. Just as digital recording technology has improved the overall signal-to-noise ratio of the recording process, it is critical that modern studios maintain equivalent signal-to-noise in their acoustics.

HVAC systems must be specified and balanced to not exceed NC-10 (Noise Criteria) to ensure a peaceful and productive work environment free of extraneous noise that will interfere with recordings and playback.

Reverberation times (or more specifically Mean Free Time in room sizes typical to that of the average commercial recording facility) must meet a predetermined specification for each room according to its function. 

Spaces should be divided appropriately and streamlined to follow the direction of the workflow. This is particularly important in facilities that may have multiple clients booked for different aspects of the recording process at overlapping times.  One should never interfere with the other if maintaining a fluid, harmonious workspace is the goal. 

Home Studios

What could be more convenient than a professional studio inside of your home or on your own property? 

The home studio is the realistic model of the future for many producers, engineers, and artists as the entertainment industry continues to offer content at an all-time high in terms of both volume and accessibility. There is a general misconception that the label of “home studio” is synonymous with “amateur,” and at the expense of a serious sacrifice in professional quality. While that may be true in isolated instances, you can usually trace it back to an underqualified, albeit ambitious, individual placing their faith in a DIY design and build without a complete understanding of either process. The fundamental anatomy of residential architecture is not typically conducive to an optimal acoustic design approach without having to consider a few adjustments. Providing we can satisfy a few simple criteria on the design side, there is no reason why we can not set you up at home in an adequately isolated and properly treated room that responds as well as any commercial facility.   

Home Cinema

Let us bring the complete immersive in-theatre experience to you at home, without compromise! 

Whether you’re a film buff, a gamer or just looking for a finely tuned room to dive into your favorite music – our home cinema and hi-fi designs will leave you missing nothing from the traditional in-theatre experience.

With major content providers such as Disney deciding to pivot and direct future focus towards streaming content rather than “in-theatre” releases, we are left with a gap to fill. While the evolution of home theatre equipment has consistently provided us the playback tools needed to afford our modern systems the highest in A/V resolution, one of the areas in which this market has consistently come up short is as it relates to a proper acoustic design.

Many home cinemas end up designed by architects, with little attention in mind for acoustic related sciences. Often these rooms are poorly shaped, inadequately isolated, and void of any targeted acoustic treatment plan. As companies continue to develop their products around Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, it is more important than ever to incorporate proper acoustic design into your home theatre to ensure you’re getting the most out of your equipment. If you are interested in securing a Certified Dolby Atmos Cinema, we are qualified to meet the design criteria.

Let us design and build your space and move you one giant step closer towards bridging the gulf between the “in-theatre” and “home cinema” experience.

Film, Gaming, and Post-Production Facilities

Film is one of humanities’ greatest forms of artistic expression. There is no denying the significance of high-quality sound when it comes to creating a memorable and captivating film. Achieving exceptional audio fidelity is crucial to delivering an immersive and unforgettable cinematic experience that resonates with your audience. 

We can apply that same sentiment across the board to the wildly popular world of Gaming. Whether its crystal-clear dialogue, dynamic sound effects, an engaging but well balance score/soundtrack or fully encompassing the audience inside of a 3-D spatial audio environment, a properly designed acoustic environment is critical on both the front and back ends of each one of these processes.

Please reach out to us if you require any guidance or services relating to the design and build of ADR facilities, postproduction, editing suites, dubbing theatres, cinema theatres, Dolby 5.1,7.1 or ATMOS playback environments.

Performance Halls and Entertainment Centres

Achieving clarity and sensory immersion is critical in spaces of this kind and therefore particularly worthy of a design-forward approach.  

The fundamental goals and inherent design challenges we face in large volume spaces such as a performance, lecture and concert halls present their own unique acoustic design challenges, quite different from the average commercial recording facility. As a result, a different approach is required. Besides the usual sound isolation detail, though on a much larger scale, we need to consider the acoustic performance from two separate perspectives: the audience perspective and the performer’s perspective, taking great care to make sure we are not compromising either.

This multifaceted environment operates as a complete system so we not only concern ourselves with optimal projection and balance over a wide acoustical focus from multiple perspectives, but also aim to remain mindful not to interfere with the essential intent of the space. The design anatomy must facilitate and preserve this human exchange of emotive expression.

Extraneous noise must be eliminated as well as any noise-producing equipment in the facility. This includes HVAC and a noise criteria NC-15 to NC-20.

Custom Acoustic Treatment Solutions

The utility of a targeted acoustic treatment plan is not limited to critical listening environments; it expands across many applications.

Reducing incessant ambient noise in public spaces such as offices, educational facilities, restaurants, airports and hotel lobbies has become increasingly more important as research continues to show a direct connection between noisy, reverberant environments and poor human interactions, lower employee performance, and poor learning experiences for students. Low ambient noise in these types of spaces is a topic worthy of deep design or redesign consideration. Containing and focusing sound for speech intelligibility plays a key role in positive human interactions. Multimedia presentation centres and conference rooms benefit particularly well from proper acoustic treatment.  

Please see our resources page for articles on the effects of excessive noise and low speech intelligibility in both workspaces and educational facilities. 

Educational Facilities

Normalizing the utility of acoustically minded designs or redesigns in classrooms and lecture halls is something every educational institution should consider given the convincing amount of data we have clearly favouring its results. 

Most people would likely agree that an optimally designed learning environment is beneficial to everyone. However, its doubtful many people have ever considered the implications of poor acoustics in the education sector. Historically, very little attention has been directed towards the importance of incorporating acoustic design principals into educational facilities, especially in the public sector. Despite the fact that we have years worth of data to draw from clearly showing a convincing connection between poor acoustics and test scores, poor information retention and overall academic performance, very little effort has been made to retrofit a solution for these issues in older buildings. Only in recent years has it become more of a topical issue and something that is loosely incorporated into classrooms and auditoriums at the design stage of a new build. Even then, it is more likely to have been designed by an architect or interior designer using very basic and nonspecific acoustic principals rather than someone qualified in the field of acoustics. Reducing the ambient noise of a classroom and purposefully directing the flow of sound and reflections allows an overall improvement that facilitates more focus from the students while improving speech intelligibility which leads to greater information retention.

Please refer to our Resources Page and see the article titled “The Effects of Incorporating Acoustic Design Principals into Educational and Workplace Environments.”

Industrial and Vibration Control Solutions

No one would argue that facilitating an industrial environment conducive to 40+ hours of exposure each week is beneficial to everyone involved, especially over the course of a long sample period. Machinery in the industrial sector is often high impact, high output and consistently active which brings a heavy focus of attention not only towards quality hearing protection, but also in mitigating the issue at the source whenever possible.

The utility of containing airborne and vibrational transfer of sound extends beyond the purpose of general “noise pollution” and achieving response curves weighted for hearing protection. In some cases, it can also mean maintaining the performance and life expectancy of highly valuable equipment, and even the output of air quality in certain circumstances.

Get in touch with us if you need any guidance or services relating to:

• Industrial soundproofing of workspaces, enclosures, offices adjacent to plant-floors or other building structures
• Acoustic isolation of plant-floors, walls, or foundations
• Source-specific acoustic isolation of mechanical equipment
• The design and/or build and install of noise mitigating solutions such as acoustic screens, HVAC mufflers, dampeners, resilient mounts, or suspension mounts
• Evaluating occupational noise and vibration exposure levels for your workplace under applicable health and safety legislation

NOTE: We are not tied to any exclusive distribution deals and therefore have no interest in suggesting any particular third-party company’s components over another.  The only factor in choosing one product over another will be that it complies with our design criteria and that it is the right product for the application. Products with anecdotal or otherwise inadequate testing data will not be considered.

General Soundproofing and Fireproofing Solutions

“Speech is silver, and silence is golden.”
– Thomas Carlyle

As cities continue to expand and urban densities continue to concentrate, the need for a quiet living space or office space has never been more critical. Many modern homes have been designed or remodeled to accommodate basement suite rentals, Airbnb suites, and coach houses as a means to subsidise lofty mortgages. This co-existence of space does not come without a few compromises, so a plan to keep sound in and out of your personal space will greatly increase your chances of maintaining a harmonious long-term relationship between you and whoever you are sharing your home or office space with. 

Many cities in North America require that any new build offering a rental suite also offer a course of sound isolation between units in its design. These designs are usually put together by an architect with a very limited knowledge in acoustic practices or materials working to service a bureaucratic implementation equally as uniformed.

Having your architect work with one of our acoustic specialists or subbing out that portion of the design work entirely will surely yield a more effective result.

One benefit of this approach is that with a solid understanding of how to implement the proper acoustic materials in all the correct places we can also satisfy most, if not all, fireproofing requirements that the code and permit may also require. 

We have successfully helped several homeowners, business owners, strata councils and contractors find a solution for their general soundproofing concerns.  

NOTE: We are not tied to any exclusive distribution deals and therefore have no interest in suggesting any particular third-party company’s components over another.  The only factor in choosing a product will be that it complies with our design criteria and that it is the right product for the application.  Products with anecdotal or otherwise inadequate testing data will not be considered. 

Low Voltage Lighting Designs

An environment that inspires creativity is an invaluable asset in this market. Evoke your facility’s unique identity with a complementing light design.

Addressing the acoustic challenges in any given space is always our priority. Form will ever follow function in this regard. We also recognize the import of the elemental surroundings that work to impress their influence on the character of each room and offer a unique identity to any creative space. Creating and performing music for any genre is really just an effort to inspire a memorable sensory experience for the listener. Incorporating a multi zone/multi colour low-voltage lighting design goes a long way in elevating the creative process within the room during the stages of creation, which will certainly play a role in augmenting the final product of any work created within that space. And of course, help to achieve a favourable character in any viewing environment such as a performance hall, cinema or home cinema. 

We have worked closely with Limbic Media  on multiple commercial studio and performance hall projects. Between their proprietary “Aurora” and “Maestro” protocols, we can incorporate a lighting design into any space that we have a hand in designing and/or building that will fit into most budget structures.

System Measurements and Acoustic Analysis

As much as the professional engineer, producer or artist tends to lean on their ears for subjective purposes, we can gain a lot of valuable information from a basic array of objective acoustic and systems measurements across both the frequency and time domain. When measured properly, we collect a dataset that offers an accurate image of your room’s unique response, presenting us with an objective blueprint as to where your control room, tracking room or critical listening environment can use some improvement in terms of isolation, speaker placement, listening position, speaker delays, phase alignments, low end response, and achieving overall balance in the frequency and time domain with a targeted acoustic treatment plan and perhaps a few anatomical changes to the room shape if we have the option.

Taking acoustic measurements in a variety of different spaces for a variety of different reasons is something we are hired to do frequently. With a moderate investment of $100 USD, clients can purchase a USB measurement microphone with a calibration file for themselves along with the free-download analysis software “REW” and email us the resulting measurement files of the room to aid us in offering a quote for a treatment design and/or supplied treatment package remotely. For those who are a little more experienced and invested in the field, we can accept SMAART files for analysis as well. Please refer to our resources page for instructions on how to accurately measure your room and what equipment you will need to take the measurements yourself.  

CAD Drafting, Modelling and Rendering

All of our designs are drafted and modelled  using AutoCAD and/or Sketchup. Everything from simple 2D floor plans to a fully detailed conceptualized model and 3D renderings of the proposed design.

We include section details of all wall/sheathing assemblies, sound-sealed doors and windows,  individual acoustic treatment details, mechanical integrations (zero-loop electrical, HVAV, etc.) and design lighting.

In situations where we may be hired as part of a larger project – where the acoustic design element is only one of many – then we will work with your principal design or architecture team to integrate our suggestions into their primary designs via scaled overlays.