Recording Studio - DJ Studio

House of Glass

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House of Glass Recording Studio by Gianni Bini in Viareggio (LU). Rebuilt after the tragic Viareggio railway disaster in 2009, it is now one of the most important studios in Italy. In nomination for the Resolution Awards in 2013 as "Best Audio Facility" by the major English magazine.

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On June 29, 2009, the tragic and famous railway accident of Viareggio took place, where many people lost their lives. Even the old studio of Gianni Bini has been victim of the tragedy. This was a place that our staff was particularly attached to, both professionally and emotionally, not only because of the excellent acoustic results, but also because it was the starting point for collaboration between Fabrizio Giovannozzi and Donato Masci.

After the tragic explosion, Gianni Bini wanted to rebuild the studio: given the results of the acoustic parameters measured in the old studio, it would be a risk not to take the first design in hand. However, the intention was to build a more sophisticated and technically productive studio. Having new materials and instruments available, it was necessary to reconsider the whole acoustic design. It was possible to modify some aspects with respect to the old study and, in particular, the live room has been expanded with an entrance and an appendage that can be isolated from the main room and therefore used as an iso-booth.

Details

Owner, resident engineer, DJ producer and Ocean Trax label manager:

Details
Audio Facility Recording Studio - DJ Studio
Rooms Control Room Live Room
Audio System Yamaha NS-10 , Adam S3X-H , Adam S7
Console SSL Duality
Artists

Paola e Chiara, Mario Biondi, Alberto Arrighini, Chiara Civello, Jeff Cascaro, Barbara Tucker, Raffella Carrà, Raffella Fico, Francesco Gabbani

Layout Layout
Planimetria - House of Glass
Control Room
Area 35 m2 Volume 150 m3
Reverberation time 0.18s @500Hz; 0.34s @63Hz
Description
The control room was designed by the Live End Dead End (LEDE) principle, according to which the front should be absorbent and the back should be diffusing. The customer's prerogative was to get a great definition of low frequencies (especially in the range 40 ÷ 120 Hz), even for big monitors listening. To do this, a reinforced baffle was created in which the Adam S7 were inserted in order to maximize their behavior on low frequencies. For the control of low frequencies we designed special arrangements of sound absorbing material in the room and in all cavities. For example, polyester fiber panels were suspended vertically on the ceiling at a distance from each other. At the back of the room there is a QRD diffuser and other slat diffusers/absorbers, to return a few reflections of the medium/high frequencies widespread to the listening point.
Live Room
Area 45/15/15 m2 Volume 200/50/50 m3
Reverberation time 0.20s @ 500Hz; 0.34s @ 63Hz
Description
The big live room has a ceiling on two levels. In order not to focus the sound energy in the lower ceiling area, high-frequency reflective wood panels and absorbing medium-low reflective panels have been inserted. In addition, a medium-high frequency QRD diffuser was positioned to distribute the acoustic field in the room. In the part with the tallest ceiling, a side wall with solid wood absorbers/diffusers slats has been made. The size of the slats has been designed using acoustic optimization algorithms, taking into account both the absorbent capacity of the device and the reflective ones. High ceilings were hung from skyline diffusers in which led lights were also inserted. Thanks to the glass doors, the large and central live room accesses the two iso-booths. We tried to reach a configuration that would favor the interplay between musicians. We wanted to create a "music-loving" study where it was possible to record different instruments in acoustically isolated environments, giving the musicians the opportunity to see each other.