Charles - I suppose you have a great choice of rooms to work in - so what's your favourite and why??

cheers
John

My favorite control room to mix in is Crescent Moon Studios, Miami - Studio A. It just has such an even sound and great sounding mains. And a very comfortable vibe too.

The most amazing sounding control room I have ever been in is a Studio in Paris where we had the DigiWorld 2001 Master Class. It really had the most incredible sounding mains. I heard much of Diana Krall's When I Look In Your Eyes album in that room, and besides being floored by Al Schmitt's engineering + mixes. The imaging in that room was something I have never heard before. I apologize, but I don't recall the name.

The ones I believe are the best looking are the control rooms of Criteria/Hit Factory-Miami. Absolutely gorgeous.

Thanks for the reply Charles. It's interesting that the control room is 26 x 25, i.e. almost square!!. The way people go on about room modes and ideal dimensions this flies well in the face of all that.

Do you find the Quested monitors smoother than Genelecs and others??

cheers
JOhn

Hi John, nice site!

Personally I am not a big fan of LEDE rooms... at least not the one's I've worked in. I tend to prefer the "non-environment"/ eastlake designs so far. The mixes I've done in those rooms always translated perfectly to the outside world whereas the opposite isn't so true...tut

I'm also not too sold on Genelec's... I heard Quested mains sound amazing at one place. (Unfortunately they took them down and sold them because nobody were using them! ) I also heard them sound God-awful at "several" other places... Go figure!

Charles,

That Paris studio was Mega Studio, the A room. The bigs there are all TAD components (tweeters, horns, and drivers) put together in a custom config by Thierry Rogen, the studio owner.

The Mega room sounds pretty good. I do however prefer the bigs and acoustics in our A room at Capitol Paris, which are Genelec 1025s with ATC superdomes, Dynaudio tweeters, 15" TAD drivers and 18" TAD subs. Those, along with the 1036 mains in Plus XXX's Studio 1, also in Paris, are the best bigs I've heard. Both rooms were designed by Christian Malcurt, which may have something to do with it.

Sorry if this comes off as an ad.

Jon

Thanks, that really was a great sounding room. I was told they had been tuning it for the previous few days, it really showed. The first name that occurred to me when I was typing the post was Mega, but I couldn't confirm it anywhere + didn't want to stick my foot in my mouth.

Thanks Jon.

I'll jump in and say that the published measurements on any 'A' room may not actually equate to the the dimensions used for calculating room nodes. For example, the solid rear wall of the control room in Nashville's Tracking Room is at least 4 feet behind the fabric wall - much of that space is taken up by baffles, but you can see the rear wall. And it's much the same for the other walls in that facility, which is one of Tom Hidley's 20Hz designs.

The discussion of room nodes and ideal dimensions has a basis in fact. Acoustic treatments can mitigate less than ideal dimensions, but nonetheless, it's much better to start with something that's more or less int the ballpark.

Yes I understand what you are saying Dave - but as I remember it The Tracking Room is actually based on a 35' x 35' square, I've seen the plan. It's what Tom does inside that shell that really counts.

More like an ad for Christian I think jon

cheers
JOhn

I guess it might be easier to start with a room shape that will behave in a predictable manner regarding to all the modes and then use tuned treatment like membranes and Helmoltz resonators to take care of what you know will have to get taken care of. I'm not a designer but I can see this as a potential benefit...