Studio Building Q…

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Jacki,

Papa Rudi built the studio in Austria from scratch in his mid 20’s. I just asked him to catch me up on the specifics of the insulation, so he helped me out with this reply 🙂

The recording studio consists of several rooms, each soundproofed with heavy concrete walls, multiple layers of heavy, thick angled glass windows and soundproof doors.

It was a room-in-room concept with glass wool as damping material behind a second wall made of dual layers of plasterboard, so that the plasterboard was the inside wall of the room and the concrete walls the outside.

The rooms were also lined with sound-absorbing acoustic foam on one side, movable panels on the ceiling with one reflecting and one absorbing side to change the room acoustics, and built-in recording booths separated by several layers of the angled glass so you could see each other without hearing each other. The outside windows were soundproofed too, so even with a heavy metal band recording, the neighbours wouldn’t hear a thing.

In our studio here in England we have downgraded the soundproofing considerably. We rely on heavy curtains, wool carpets and the goodwill of our neighbours. So far it has worked out perfectly … except for some hiccups in the very beginning when we didn’t have air conditioning yet and had to keep the windows open for a few rehearsal sessions 😉

Since our studio here is not public anymore it’s not like the studio is constantly noisy. We aren’t recording heavy drum parts several times a week or have to do a day and a night shift like dad sometimes did in Austria when he was still recording and producing a lot of clients.

The Austrian studio was a luxury in the way that we could record at 3am if we wanted to, but with a little bit of planning ahead that’s easy to avoid 😉

I hope that answers everything!

Grooviest greetings to Canada!

[Howard]

Amazing Austrian studio Mona. I hadn’t realised just how much went into this side of the recording process. It’s nice to hear your downgraded Liverpool studio is working well for you.

[Jacki Hopper]

Thankyou Mona and Papa Rudi for your in depth and understandable explanation of how it was all built, quite interesting and education and I can guarantee you that both my late Uncle Everett (Ev) & my Grandpa Rea  (Mom’s Dad), both being house/building contractors/builders, would of been most impressed and pleased about this as I am equally, Thankyou again. Most fascinating and my curiosity nourished. ?