Studio33:3… With Meaning, Part 2

Don’t pass up Part One!

The clutter-free design extends to Haverstick’s extensive cable troughing in the floating floor, custom keyboard racks and a set of drawers for the studio’s Neumann, Telefunken, Microtech Gefell, Coles, Royer and other microphones. The team visited about 10 studios while finalizing their console, monitors and gear choices.

“A buddy of mine is at Elevation Church [in North Carolina],” McElhenny says. “They have an SSL Duality in their studio, and we had a chance to visit. The SSL sound is wonderful. It’s transparent, but you can color it, too, and you have compression and EQ right on the channel strip. That’s hard to beat.”

Good soon found a used Duality, and “Vintage King reworked the whole system inside and out and made sure it was running like new,” McElhenny continues, noting that the 48-input frame is loaded with 24 channels, with a large display taking up the right-hand side. “You can have the monitor dedicated to the Atmos control software. If we have the opportunity, we can fill those 24 channels out in the future.”

Atmos is ideally suited to the world of live Christian music, he believes. “You get to feel like you are sitting in that room with all these other people worshipping, and it speaks to you in a different way.” For the Good Friday service earlier this year, he says, “I was able to make an Atmos mix and downmix it for the surround system in our worship center. We have a couple of L-Acoustics hangs in that room, and we brought in additional speakers to fill out the surround sound for the production.”

In the control room, brilliant white fabric covers four inches of acoustic treatment, and there is a soffit bass trap running around the room. The rear wall diffusor, from Vicoustic, is built into a bass trap. Ceiling clouds above the three circular light fixtures manage room reflections.

VERSATILITY IN RECORDING

The live room’s acoustics, meanwhile, were designed for versatility, taking into account two large windows overlooking the parking lot that were to be retained. The room-within-a-room construction adds a second pane of laminated glass; the air gap and robust sealing ensure sound isolation. The interior wall opposite the windows is treated, and there are blinds to further reduce reflections.

“We wanted to make sure that it sounded great for drums, choir, stringed instruments or anything they did there,” Haverstick explains.

In Iso 1, a triple–sliding door allows the grand piano to be moved into the live room easily, if desired. A double-slider provides sightlines into the control room. “There’s soffit bass trapping around the perimeter and a curtain system to change the way the room sounds,” Haverstick says. “On the wall is a product that I designed and got a patent for called Flex-48.” It’s a clear plastic shield that can affix onto the front of each panel, creating a barrel diffuser that increases low-frequency absorption and makes the room livelier. “It was important for them to have something that’s variable, because they never know what they might record in there on any given day.”

Iso 2 features two amp rooms, one housing a Leslie cabinet, where they ended up adding shelves so that they can have more amps miked up at all times.

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“We love doing projects of all sorts, but this one was extra special to us,” Haverstick concludes. “We make lifelong friends doing these projects, and the people at the church couldn’t be kinder or more generous. In fact, I’ve been up there multiple times since finishing, and it just feels like home.

“I don’t get nervous when I send proposals out, but after hearing Sarah’s story and knowing what this project would mean to her family, her friends and this community, I was so hoping they would pick us. I wanted to honor her legacy with every step of the design. Sarah’s goal was to see the next generation come to know and worship God. Now they have an amazing studio to make that dream come true.”