In Podcast 241 we asked if you would send in articles and pictures describing your own studio builds and to highlight the choices and decisions you made along the way so that the whole community could benefit from your idea, experiences and solutions. Earlier this week Bertrand Grichting started this series off. Community member Georges Majerus has also been in touch to share his experiences with the community. Over to you Georges...

First of all, I truly appreciate your podcast and the fact that you are dealing with real life problems of the average recording studio. You asked some feedback about how people handle control room acoustics so here are my 2 Eurocents about it.

Question - Why are people so fuzzy / worried / upset about windows in a control room?

Daylight is a blessing. In a former studio location, we had, what I would call the perfect control room with perfect acoustics. The ceiling was 3.5 metres (over 11 feet) high so we had plenty of room to hang boxes filled with all kinds of acoustic materials with the acoustics entirely designed by Roger Quested no less! (Yes the Roger Quested who delivered all of our speakers)

We did it all DIY and it was an acoustic dream and we had two rather large windows along the right hand side. The way Roger handled that was easy, cheap and good looking. He got us to install wooden Venetian blinds in front of the window. That way we had daylight and a really effective diffuser.

Unfortunately the building was remodeled and my former beloved control room is now a kindergarten. So I decided to set up shop again in my house where the rooms are nowhere near as high and the acoustics are not as perfect, but at least no one can kick me out.

I decided to set the control room in a larger space that is unfortunately asymmetrical. Have a look at the floor-plan and you will see immediately what I mean.

I even decided to not setup the console and the speakers in what would arguably be the best sounding place in the room but instead chose to turn everything round by 90° so that the ergonomics and the sightlines to the recording area would be much better. In my book, it's all about having a comfortable enjoyable workflow and having your back to the talent is not particularly conducive to a comfortable partnership. Furthermore I wanted to be able to install a screen for audio to picture work.

So the window to the Recording room is on my right hand side. It is of course angled downwards slightly and again I use those Venetian blinds all the way down when I mix and I pull them up when I track.

It was a deliberate choice to accept those acoustical compromises and for me they are acceptable. I could invest tons of money to get it fixed by remodeling the room but at the end of the day I will not earn a single euro more and I have learned to live with my acoustical environment and how it translates into the real world.

Keep up the good work and thanks for your insights!

Georges Majerus, Tritone Studios, Luxembourg

This Could Be You?

If you would like to the chance to have your studio design published on Pro Tools Expert and to win an iLok3 prize bundle then please send in your article with hi-res image files via our Contact Us page. Please include details or your thought processes, why you chose what you chose, and what you would do differently if you did it again.