Designing great music studios is a bit of math, a bit of science, and a bit of art. Exactly like music is! Here’s a brief description of how all three come together at Royal City Studios, to make your rehearsal and recording experience awesome!

Math? For Music Studios?

Absolutely! The most important math concern is that the studios need to be odd sizes. What does this mean? It can’t be a square, and also can’t be a rectangle where the side lengths are even ratios with each other. You see, if a room is a 4-foot by 8-foot rectangle since 8 is twice the length of 4, the room ratio is 1:2. So if a sound wave is 4 feet long it will get louder in this room (or resonate). The sound bounces off the walls and comes back, strengthening many times every second.

You may have actually experienced this phenomenon in a stairwell or a bathroom. When you sing a certain note, it seems to be unusually loud while any other pitch is normal. That is the room’s resonant frequency and is something we avoid in music studios. As a result, music studios need walls with odd lengths and widths, to reduce resonance during rehearsal and recording. The image below shows one of our rooms as an example, with dimensions in the blue rectangles.

Dimensions of a studio

How Does Science Fit In?

First, sound vibrates through solid materials like wood and metal. You can feel the bass in a movie theater through the concrete floor. Second, sound also moves through liquids and gases by making waves. As a result, wherever air can go, so can sound. It can even pass through tiny cracks in doors and windows. Finally, the two interact. A sound wave passing through air can pass the wave into solid material, as a vibration. For example, ocean waves hitting a pier. You can also hear a drill because the motor casing vibrates at a frequency, making waves in the air. Through experiment and measurement, we learned which materials work best to suppress sound in rehearsal studios and recording studios.

Therefore, at Royal City Studios, we have carefully designed our music studios. The doors, windows, walls, ceilings, flooring, air vents, and any other things we could think of, reduce sound. For example, the wall structure between each music studio. Image 2 shows a diagram of the structure. We use a heavy-duty combination of drywall, rubber, wood, metal, and air.

Wall design between studios

How Is Art Relevant For Music Studios?

Because music varies so much, musicians have all different tastes. There are also all sorts of aspects where an artistic touch is important. This covers everything from the musicians lounge to the studios themselves. We pushed the envelope to create a place where musicians can get work done. In particular, we created a strong and fresh feeling for you. One that will help build powerful musical experiences. We won’t reveal the design yet, but hope it’s one you will enjoy! To experience it for yourself, book your rehearsal studio or recording studio now.

Let us know what you think by commenting on this post, or sending us an email. We’d love to hear your feedback.