In Mix’s February 2023 cowl story, three-time Oscar-winning movie re-recording mixer Paul Massey and acoustic designer Bruce Black focus on in-depth the creation of Massey’s dream 9.1.6. combine studio; the story concludes right here, adopted by a take a look at the precise building course of. Don’t miss Part 1!
BRING YOUR OWN GEAR
As when he constructed a mixture room in 2010, Paul Massey labored with Audio Intervisual Design of Los Angeles on system integration, this time for 9.1,.6 Dolby Atmos Cinema and seven.1.4 for Dolby Atmos Home from the identical playback system.
While the replace included new cable and wiring, a brand new Dolby RMU software program package deal, new HDX playing cards, software program updates, and reconfigured monitor management and setup, the majority of the tools package deal was introduced over from the Ojai studio, together with the JBL and BMS Screen screens, Meyer Sound subwoofers, outboard racks, Christie projector and a beloved Harrison MPC5 console.
“It’s my favourite console on the earth; I’d by no means eliminate it,” Massey says. “I do combine on totally different platforms, and I do understand I’m swimming towards the tide at this level as a result of the S6 is all over the place, and that’s fantastic. I’ve no downside with that. The Harrison is simply my private alternative. It’s the very best sounding console I’ve ever discovered.”
Massey has actually earned the precise to work the way in which he needs, together with touring with duplicate MPC5 setups in flight circumstances—one for when he travels south to L.A., the opposite which he retains in London. There’s no worksurface, however every does embody the whole Toys package deal of plug-ins, and he’s had no issues interacting with alternate workflows and platforms.
With greater than 200 movies to his credit score, together with 10 Oscar nominations for Best Sound Mixing and a win for Bohemian Rhapsody, Massey might be forgiven for kicking again a bit of and easing right into a slower-paced life in Ventura, with household. Yet, up to now 12 months alone, his work has been heard on movies as various as The Lost City, Morbius, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Moonage Daydream (on this 12 months’s Oscar shortlist) and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
In October, he and Gary Rydstrom completed engaged on the brand new Indiana Jones movie, to be launched in June, and in December, he wrapped up Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and he’s presently engaged on a musical model of The Color Purple. He doubts that he’ll ever really retire.
“I’ve performed three initiatives out of my new studio, and I’m simply actually proud of the way in which it’s translating and the general consequence—the dimensions of it, the texture of it,” he says. “And truthfully, it’s great to have the ability to stroll right into a room like this and know that mainly every part is strictly the way in which you left it. So sure, I’m comfortable.” Then he went again to work.
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SIDEBAR: ACOUSTIC NUTS & BOLTS
In mid-2022, through the completion of Paul Massey’s combine studio, acoustic designer Bruce Black wrote an eight-part weblog for mixonline. com detailing the design and building course of. Here are just a few alternative excerpts:
THE FLOATING FLOOR:
The undertaking’s structural engineer had dictated a construction, constructed by itself basis, exterior of the combination room itself, to supply help to the interior room. California is earthquake nation, in any case. This additionally offered the chance to make use of the gold commonplace of studio isolation: a floating room- within-a room design.
So blue chalk strains have been snapped onto the slab, marking the situation and width of the brand new basis, and the intrepid crew fired up the concrete noticed and commenced slicing two sq. slots within the slab, one inside the opposite, roughly 18 inches aside, and as near the unit’s partitions as potential. These kerfs marked the situation of the outer construction’s new basis. The jack hammer then broke up the concrete, and a Bobcat backhoe straddled the ditch and dug it out to roughly 4 ft deep. Then got here rebar, correctly bonded to the remaining slab, and threaded anchors to carry the outer wall’s framing in place. Finally, the ditch was stuffed with concrete, and voila! There was now a concrete slab the place as soon as there was solely…a concrete slab.
THE WALLS GO UP:
I wasn’t there to witness it, however one way or the other 4 burly laborers with a 3-ton flooring jack, and sure with some hefty pry bars as effectively, obtained the 2 aspect partitions (the longest and subsequently the heaviest) in place on the anchor bolts. Add a bunch of anchor plates and hefty nuts, and the partitions are in place and locked down. A giant job requiring lots of muscle energy….
The wall on the entrance, or speaker finish of the room, is far simpler to put in. The electrical panel and sprinkler tools are in that space, with constructing codes requiring not less than three ft of clear house round them for entry. Plenty of room for our fearless tradespeople on their scaffolds to put in the outer layers on this wall.
NOW THE CEILING:
Layering a ceiling is at all times tough work, defying gravity with heavy, unwieldy panels. It’s not only a bunch of layers of drywall, as we so usually see in frequent studio building. My design begins with a layer of three⁄4-inch plywood, adopted by a 1-3/8-inch layer of QuietRock 545. We then put in one other layer of three⁄4-inch plywood, ending off with a layer of 5/8-inch drywall, with building adhesive between every layer. And the key ingredient? The closing layer goes on with drywall screws each 4 inches. This might sound unconventional, it might appear extravagant, nevertheless it brings an uncanny rigidity to the partitions.