Recording Studio

Fiery Water Recording Studio

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A few kilometers from Alessandria (Piemonte, Italy) the Fiery Water Recording Studio is a recording and mixing facility. It has a stereo control room, a live room and two iso-booths.

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The studio is built in a historical Piedmontese building, typical for its structure with walls in raw earth. Trunera, the typical name of these buildings, had red earth on the walls that created unusual acoustics: the porosity of the earth absorbed the medium high frequencies, but not the low ones.
The side walls also could not be drilled, so the treatment was completely designed ad hoc for the spaces in question; the result is one of a kind.
The studio consists of a control room, a live room and two iso-booths to make the recording more versatile and take advantage of all the acoustic "colours" of the room.

Details

Building and Project Management: Proaudio Consulting

Owner and resident engineer:

Info
Location Alessandria, Piemonte
Details
Audio Facility Recording Studio
Rooms Control Room Live Room Iso Booths
Audio System Neumann KH310
Control Room
Area 22 m2 Volume 55 m3
Reverberation time 0.20s @ 500Hz
Description
The side walls of the control room are made with earth, the side treatment was made without attaching a nail or screw to the wall, creating sound-absorbing and diffusing cylinders fixed to the floor and to the upper curb (which is fixed to the ceiling). The control room has a non-environment design, with a reflecting and very solid front, and a lot of absorption on the ceiling, on the back wall and on the sides. Another problem of the room was the ceiling, not particularly high and above all concave, which tended to focus the sound towards the center of the room. The lateral tube traps were tuned to the resonant frequencies of the environment, while the panels were hung with panels filled with a large layer of polyester fiber. The ceiling diffuser is a binary amplitude diffuser, designed ad hoc for the studio and replicated also in the recording rooms. This device has a dual role: absorb and spread with a rather wide band in frequency.
Live Room
Area 29 m2 Volume 84 m3
Reverberation time 0.30÷0.45s @ 500Hz
Description
The live room has a unique character due to the use of local materials: earth, wood and terracotta. Rotating gobos panels have been set up to be able to correct and vary the acoustics of the room in various configurations of use. The gobos have an extremely diffusing part and the other absorbent and diffusing. The aim of the project was to maintain a homogeneous and highest reverberation, given the volume of the room. Instead of common poly-cylinders, solid logs were installed to optimize diffusion at medium high frequencies and, thanks to the panel's solidity, avoid absorbing further low frequencies. The ceiling, originally with terracotta vaults, has been corrected with an architectural acoustic intervention that allows to further diffuse the sound in the room, avoiding flutter-echo with the floor. The "Fiery" absorber / diffuser was taken in the center of the ceiling, making it look like a flower suspended with side petals.
Iso Booths
Area 3 / 2 m2 Volume 8 / 5 m3
Reverberation time 0.15/0.16s @ 500Hz
Description
The iso booths are dead rooms, very absorbent, but have a particularly homogeneous (and therefore relatively brilliant) reverberation time in frequency. The first, smaller in size and adjacent to the recovery room, is essentially used as an amp booth while the second, more spacious, neutral and bright, is perfect as a vocal booth.