ARC
RECORDING
STUDIO
The team of trades for the build also
included James Rowell of Sound Service
Electronics, APJ Electric Ltd., Homeline
Painting, Traditional Hardwood Flooring
Ltd., Halma Stone Masonry, All Seasons
HVAC, and Shortwall Construction.
On the surface, though clearly a studio,
the finished space has a remarkably homey
and authentic cottage vibe. “That was our
goal,” Leslie reaffirms. And while it may look
and feel like a country retreat, under the
hood, it’s a professional recording space – a
product of careful design and material se-
lection, including, she adds, “Lots and lots
and lots of insulation. Julius and I, we insu-
lated – no joke – for months.”
As Butty has said, the 600-sq.-ft. live
room was purpose-built for tracking drums
and features a combination of wood-pan-
eled and stone-covered walls to achieve the
range of acoustic characteristics he desired.
“Mark came up with the shape of the
room,” he begins. “Again, I wanted one side
to be dead and tight and the other side to
be a little livelier, so anyone coming in here,
whatever the sound they’re looking for,
could place the drums accordingly.”
“Before we opened, we called on
[drummer] Roger Banks to test and track in
the room,” Leslie adds. Banks is known for
his work with the likes of Alanis Morissette,
Tony Levin, Billy Sheehan, and many others,
and subsequently knows his way around
the kit and the studio exceptionally well. “He
actually said that his raw drum tracks have
never sounded better,” she adds.
“For me, with the types of music
I’ve recorded in the past, getting the
foundation – the drums – is really
important. I wanted to get a big,
RUPERT NEVE DESIGNS
5088 SHELFORD CONSOLE
IN CONTROL ROOM
kicking, fat sounding room and it’s worked
out beautifully,” Butty offers. “You can get
quite a bit of versatility out of it, and the
more I tinker around, the better it keeps
sounding.”
Some treatments for the live room
were sourced, literally, from their own
backyard. During construction, Butty and
Leslie wanted to avoid encroaching on the
wooded area of the property as much as
possible, but three trees did have to come
down in order to accommodate the new
building. “They were hickory and maple
trees,” Leslie says. “Julius found a local
guy with a portable mill, so he brought his
mill over and cut the boards.” Initially they
thought a year would be enough time for
the boards to dry, she adds, laughing. “It
took almost two. When we were ready to
install it, my dad flew out from Winnipeg
and helped us clean, cut, sand, and stain all
that wood treatment.”
It’s a beautiful effect that’s deepened
by the stone and the live room’s large win-
dows, and all in lockstep with the cottage
atmosphere they originally envisioned. “The
stone looks really awesome and it’s reflec-
tive so there’s a little bit more of a live end,”
Butty says. “On the opposite side, where
the big window is, there’s actually a large
fabric wall that dampens sound, so with
the curtains over the
wall, you can really
tighten up that side
but still have a bit of
liveliness where the
stones are. So far I’ve
been using the win-
dow side of the room
for drums for a tight
focused sound and
then miking the far
end with room micro-
phones. But I’ve also
tried the kitchen – I
left the doors open
and put a micro-
phone in there – and
(L-R) JULIUS BUTTY, ANDREA LESLIE & MARCO BRESSETTE
IN CONTROL ROOM
28 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND
the garage, where I’ve been able to pipe in a
speaker, and that’s worked out as well.”
While there is no isolation booth per se,
tie lines throughout the building allow pretty
much any space to be used as an iso booth
or performance space. “Everything’s wired
digitally and with copper,” Butty says. “The
lounge, the kitchen, and garage have tie
lines running to them and there are network
cables running everywhere. I did drums on
one song in the lounge for a little more of a
campy feel and I even have tie lines to the
bathroom – so you can sing in the shower if
you want.”
MDF and fabric acoustic treatments
are also installed on the ceiling and the stu-
dio’s HVAC system is lined throughout with
acoustic insulation and decoupled from the
walls to eliminate vibration.
As mentioned, the control room is en-
tirely acoustically isolated, with five layers
of sustainably sourced flooring above the
Neoprene pucks and five layers of material
on the walls and ceiling. Beyond isolation,
sightlines between the live room and the
360-sq.-ft. control room were also a pre-
occupation. “I wanted the ability to record
a full band live off the floor, or to be able to
isolate instruments as well – to put a bass or
guitar cabinet in the garage or lounge and
still be able to have the players inside of the
live room.”
The cue system is a Digital Audio Labs
Livemix network-based system with four
stereo mixes and can be controlled by the
musicians themselves or remotely from the
control room. “It’s solid, sounds really good,
and the interface is user friendly. It’s brand
new. I wanted to have a digital system that
works over Cat-5. My friend Brian Hogue had
a Livemix system, so I did a little reading, he
brought it over, and I tried it out and thought
it was pretty awesome, so we went with it.”
The centerpiece of the control room
is ARC’s 36-channel Rupert Neve Designs
5088 Shelford analog console, with eight
auxiliaries and eight groups, plus 16 Shel-
ford 5052 mic pre/inductor EQs.