Mike Shea - How to Build a Small Budget Recording Studio from Scratch 4/E

Mike Shea has more than 40 years experience as an independent contractor specializing in the construction of rehearsal and recording studios. He has taught graduate courses at the Institute of Audio Research, served as editor of Recording World and technical editor of International Musician, and has written extensively about all aspects of professional audio. Mr. Shea resides in New York.

F. Alton Everest was a leading acoustics consultant. He was cofounder and director of the Science Film Production division of the Moody Institute of Science, and was also section chief of the Subsea Sound Research section of the University of California.

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I began my career as a recording studio engineer in the 1960s, at a time when one was not only designated as the audio mixer but also the studio designer/builder along with part of the crew that built the studios console. By 1970, I was attending lectures at MIT by Leo L. Beranek, a partner with R. H. Bolt of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and a leading auditorium acoustician. Attending college close to full time, attending seminars and lectures, and working in a recording studio while running my own four-track portable recording business, youd think that all kinds of needed information would be pouring in my direction. While all of the above gave me a great deal of insight into the field of acoustics, it seemed there wasnt anybody talking about the things that were most directly important to pop music recording. I, like many others at this point in time, was among the first to deal acoustically with a whole new situation. Take two electric guitarists, each running through mega-power stacks comprised of Hi-Watt amps on top of dual 4 12 inch speaker cabinets, a bass player using dual Ampeg folded horn cabinets with 18-inch speakers driven by a 250-watt Plush amp, a drummer with a giant drum kit played with sticks held backwards so as to have the thick end out, and a keyboardist using a Hammond organ attached to two Leslie speakers (with variable motor speed drives) and a synthesizer capable of producing sub-audible tones plugged directly into the console. Place all of this in a 20 25 foot room, hit record, and youll have an idea of what Im referring to.

Then along came F. Alton Everests groundbreaking book in the field of recording studio acoustics and his generosity in not only making available these findings, but also doing so in an accurate yet easily understood manner. Youd never understand what a big deal this was unless youve tried to explain to a professional acoustician/noise control engineer that it would not be possible to simply decrease the electric guitarists amplifier level or remove one of two 4 12 speaker cabinets that made up his stack, and yes, the electric bass guitarist did feel it was appropriate to thump his fingers against the instruments strings, thereby causing those low frequency shock waves of vibration. My introduction to the first edition of Mr. Everests book did not adequately put forth the feeling of gratitude that I hold for him. To further illustrate this point, I will explain what it was like back in 1971 when I was a student of the science of acoustics. At that time, one of the better publications in the field was the Soviet acoustician V. S. Mankovskys Acoustics of Studios and Auditoria.

The drill with this book was to read a short amount of text, then labor through a given mathematical equation. Read another line or two of text that varied the acoustical situation slightly, then work your way through the resulting more complex equation. The section covering Helmholtz resonators is only 15 pages long, however, it contains no fewer than 37 mathematical equations!