After years
of
building,
working, consulting and designing acoustical
treatments in some of the
best studios in the world I have been fortunate to
have landed along
side of a blank canvas here in Schooleys Mtn.
The concept
for
this
control room was based on Studio "B" at the old Power
Station Studios
in NYC. The first studio that followed this design was
Brickhaus Studio
in Red Bank NJ. and thefirst incarnation
of that room was completed in early 1989. I started
with
some very basic design concepts there but I was having
some strange
results with rock bands. Shortly thereafter I was
hired as a background
singer and immediately got the job of arranger to work
at The Power
Station on a single for the Canadian rock band Helix.
It was there I
met Tony Bongiovi & Roy Hendrickson (a staff
engineer who shared my
passion for all things quality). We spent countless
hours talking about
recording techniques, musicans and studio
design.
To make a long story short Roy and I were thrown in a room together and we mixed the single that I had been reworking at Brickhaus and Power Station and it went to #11 in about 3 weeks. From that point on it became obvious that redesigning the space in Red Bank was unavaoidable. Working in studio "A" and Studio "B" and knowing how I could hear everything was keeping me up at night. The next question was how I could get Brickhaus to sound like that. In 1990 I found a wealthy investor who wanted to watch me have fun with wood and eat German food nightly. During the process I brought in Roy and Brickhaus was completely rebuilt and we installed a Neve 8058 a small version of the console at Power Station studio "A". It was awesome. Almost everything that I could ever dream of only the brick walls that were what initially enticed me into moving there were becoming a bit of a problem. You see brick does not move and walls needs to move in order to to become a proper chamber.
About 4 years later after a family tragedy I closed brickhaus and moved into my living room in my townhouse. I thought that my music career was over and for qute a while it was. Here I was confined to a living room without being able to hear things like I had at Brickhaus or Power Station. It was then that I got a call from Tony Bongiovi asking if I would mix a record called John Bongiovi "The Power Station Years". I agreed and started mixing at Power Station New England. whcih was an exact replica of Studio "A" in Power Station. I went started the first of the 2 records there and studied the room. It did sound a little different and I realized once again it was what was behind the walls that played a role in how a room would react.
To make a long story short Roy and I were thrown in a room together and we mixed the single that I had been reworking at Brickhaus and Power Station and it went to #11 in about 3 weeks. From that point on it became obvious that redesigning the space in Red Bank was unavaoidable. Working in studio "A" and Studio "B" and knowing how I could hear everything was keeping me up at night. The next question was how I could get Brickhaus to sound like that. In 1990 I found a wealthy investor who wanted to watch me have fun with wood and eat German food nightly. During the process I brought in Roy and Brickhaus was completely rebuilt and we installed a Neve 8058 a small version of the console at Power Station studio "A". It was awesome. Almost everything that I could ever dream of only the brick walls that were what initially enticed me into moving there were becoming a bit of a problem. You see brick does not move and walls needs to move in order to to become a proper chamber.
About 4 years later after a family tragedy I closed brickhaus and moved into my living room in my townhouse. I thought that my music career was over and for qute a while it was. Here I was confined to a living room without being able to hear things like I had at Brickhaus or Power Station. It was then that I got a call from Tony Bongiovi asking if I would mix a record called John Bongiovi "The Power Station Years". I agreed and started mixing at Power Station New England. whcih was an exact replica of Studio "A" in Power Station. I went started the first of the 2 records there and studied the room. It did sound a little different and I realized once again it was what was behind the walls that played a role in how a room would react.
I then began
to
see if I
could design my next control room in my
townhome. There was no
brick to make me crazy so soon began construction of
the version 2
Power Station studio "B" control room. I realized that
the original
design would not fit in the living room, but Tony told
me that dont
worry "in this case smaller is better". So I began
with countless hours
spent drawing, reading and talking to Roy about
redesigning my
Brickhaus room but making it better. It turned out to
put the studio B
room in my townhome It would beed to be 17% smaller.
and there could be
no compression ceiling. because of height
restrictions. Again I
began looking at the shapes of the rooms and listening
to the Power
Station rooms.
You can read and listen to other rooms learn about new mathematical concepts but until you build you will never knwo for sure until you listen. In Brickhaus we built rooms and moved entore walls until they were as good as they could be. but in the townhome it was not that simple there was no crew there was no space and there was no time. The time\ was now time to tackle the task of building the best control room that I have ever built .
It took about 3 weeks once I started and It was better. unfortunately there was a fireplace on the back wall. I covered it but it was still there. fortunately it was not brick and I stuffed the back wall and used secret things between the walls to keep things from rattling. A month and ahalf later the room was complete Roy & I wired up a Harrison console "the Carry On Wayward Son console" and the next week the two of us were mixing BonGiovi. I recorded most of a never released record with Graham Tracey there but I needed a place to cut drums and loud guitars.
You can read and listen to other rooms learn about new mathematical concepts but until you build you will never knwo for sure until you listen. In Brickhaus we built rooms and moved entore walls until they were as good as they could be. but in the townhome it was not that simple there was no crew there was no space and there was no time. The time\ was now time to tackle the task of building the best control room that I have ever built .
It took about 3 weeks once I started and It was better. unfortunately there was a fireplace on the back wall. I covered it but it was still there. fortunately it was not brick and I stuffed the back wall and used secret things between the walls to keep things from rattling. A month and ahalf later the room was complete Roy & I wired up a Harrison console "the Carry On Wayward Son console" and the next week the two of us were mixing BonGiovi. I recorded most of a never released record with Graham Tracey there but I needed a place to cut drums and loud guitars.
So off I went back to the old computer files that I had used for the Brickhaus II control room and modified the drawings once again. I had a large industrial garage and decided to build the entire facility that would be called The Green Chapel on top of this structure. For this part of the undertaking I called upon the talents of Craig Snyder and Snyders Custom Builders. 20+ foot ceilings and a loft on top of an existing structure....
next