Recording Studio - Design and Equipment

Design and Equipment

Recording studios generally consist of three rooms: the studio itself, where the sound for the recording is created (often referred to as the "live room"), the control room, where the sound from the studio is recorded and manipulated, and the machine room, where noisier equipment that may interfere with the recording process is kept. Recording studios are carefully designed around the principles of room acoustics to create a set of spaces with the acoustical properties required for recording sound with precision and accuracy. This will consist of both room treatment (through the use of absorption and diffusion materials on the surfaces of the room, and also consideration of the physical dimensions of the room itself in order to make the room respond to sound in a desired way) and soundproofing (to provide sonic isolation between the rooms). A recording studio may include additional rooms, such as a vocal booth - a small room designed for voice recording, as well as one or more extra control rooms.

Equipment found in a recording studio commonly includes:

• Mixing console
• Multitrack recorder
• Microphones
• Reference monitors, which are loudspeakers with a flat frequency response
• Keyboard
• Acoustic drum kit

Equipment may include:

• Digital audio workstation
• Music workstation
• On Air or Recording Light
• Outboard effects, such as compressors, reverbs, or equalizers