This is a picture looking across the circle of the ‘Spanish Village’ in the Rainbow where I lived and worked in 1971-72. The highly talented US crew gave me a great practical introduction to acoustics and studio design.
We used to sit in the sets at tables we had brought up there when we had a night off and watch bands. The Who, the Byrds, Frank Zappa, Curtis Mayfield, Yes, Santana, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Pink Floyd all played two or three concerts in turn. We launched Europe’s first permanent Rock venue. The equipment was put together by crew from the Fillmore East. We worked alongside ex NASA techs, and the crew from the 1971 Glastonbury festival. But that’s another story.
Test Case: 1971 design for the Rainbow, Finsbury Park.
Originally designed for music hall performances the building had a reverberation time of 2.9 seconds. This made loud amplified music almost unintelligible.
In 1971 I was invited to rebuild the facilities so the building could accommodate state of the art Rock and Roll. With the crew from the Fillmore East managed by Bill Graham, we tore into the old structure, renovating the magnificent fountain and Art Deco entrance hall. My team live in some of the music hall dressing rooms. Nothing was beyond possibility with technical assistance from the ex NASA moon-shot electronic wizards and the Grateful Dead Crew.
Wave machine
We built a machine to manufacture wave folded acoustic panels of the correct wavelengths to absorb the most troublesome frequencies. Placing these panels at strategic positions on the walls of the stalls and circle facing the stage mopped up most of the reverb – the result was astounding.
The result was tested using a starting gun, which was nevertheless very loud in the confined space. We built novel audio and visual mixers, large video projectors, speaker systems, amplifiers – and it all worked so well. I learned an enormous amount about first principles thinking and design during those 8 months – which seemed like years.
At one point during the Floyd’s residency ( for which we had installed early Turbosound boxes for the quadraphonic sound) we were informed there would be a large area power cut in the middle of the show. No problem.
350 kilowatt generator
We installed a 350kilowatt generator on the roof of the building and as the music faded and a long drum solo began, the audience lit up their lighters to illuminate the auditorium while we frantically removed the large cables from the mains bus-bars, and remade them onto the generator feed from the roof, where it had been placed, on large wooden beams, by a crane earlier that day.
Maybe 90 seconds and the switch-over was complete. Start the generator. The sounds came back up, the lights came on and the audience erupted. Just another show. Afterwards I heard the fans thought it was just another part of the show, rather than a major power cut.
Acoustic Treatment
From being a noisy 3,500 seat box the sound was controlled and gradually became legendary. The panels were disguised with smart colored cloth. The folding machine looked like a medieval siege engine with wooden cogs and plywood rollers. But it worked brilliantly.
Since then I have designed and helped to build more than 24 sound studios. Four of these have been for my own use, and the rest are commercial ventures in the UK, Sweden, USA and Australia.
The principles of studio design haven’t changed much over the years, but the understanding has deepened, and the materials have become more friendly. Gone are the days of maximum damping everywhere, dead spaces, ultra-heavy bass traps full of itchy fiberglass or worse. While there is still a need to have some dead areas in a studio, varieties of live areas are also part of today’s palette.
Design your studio space
In a listening space it’s important to consider who will be the target audience. Where and on which device will they hear your music? TV – MP3 – CD –Theater – game console?
Each medium has different needs in this respect and I’m always happy to listen to your ideas. That is the only way we are going to get the studio design right for your productions.
This is one of the benefits of our modular sound booths. We can tailor parts of the space to have different acoustic properties to suit different voices and instruments – and change the layout really easily.
Recent acoustic improvement jobs have included TV and Advertising Studios, Community and Church Halls and Radio Stations, advertising agencies and of course musicians.