Product Description
Recording Studio Design is essential reading for anyone involved in building, renovating and maintaining recording studios. Good acoustics in a recording studio is crucial to the success of a project, and the financial implications of failure means getting things right first time is essential. In straightforward language Newell covers the key basic principles of acoustics, electro-acoustics and psychoacoustics and their application to studio design. Fully updated t… More >>
Recording Studio Design, Second Edition
Tags: Design, Edition, electro acoustics, failure, financial implications, newell, psychoacoustics, Recording, recording studio design, recording studios, right first time, Second, straightforward language, Studio
#1 by E. Jonatan on April 18, 2010 - 10:54 pm
I think this is the best book on studio design I have ever read. It covers basically everything that you need to know.
I have only two objections:
1: Remarkably many of the references and titles in the bibliography is written or co-written by the author him self!
I don’t know if this is some sort of hidden advertisement, or if there are not that many other books on the various subjects, but from a scientific point of view, I would hold the words of an author how read more of other peoples findings higher in regard, than one repeating his own past articles.
2: The theoretic part is a little bit thin. There are not many formulas for calculating absorber frequencies, room response, and other mathematical methods.
This makes the book easy to read, so it is not that hard to have it as bed time reading, without pen, paper and calculator. But I think this easy reading could still be achievable buy just adding the formulas in separate columns instead of putting them in the text.
Bottom line; I doubt that there is a more complete, well written, easy to read book on studio design out there!
But I do look forward to the next version, hopefully enhanced with the complete mathematical background…
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Michael Tiemann on April 19, 2010 - 1:51 am
Edward Tufte took a very dry and specialized subject–the presentation and interpretation of data–and made the subject accessible and even exciting. Not every one of us will be an astronaut, yet his explanations of precisely how NASA failed to understand their own data, once in the Challenger disaster and once in the Columbia tragedy, made us all much more aware of how cumulative institutional failure can compromise the mission of those charged to fly it and discourage the rest of us on earth who hope for a successful outcome.
Philip Newell takes on a different subject–the recording studio design–yet the effect its astonishingly similar. He deftly and unapologetically explains the inescapable conclusions that doom so many studio projects because of a growing institutional lack of fundamental acoustic knowledge, just like the bad launch decisions that doomed Challenger and Columbia. But he also teaches how disaster can be avoided by using the comprehensive knowledge he has collected over his lifetime and which he presents in this book.
What I like especially is that this book lacks the all-to-frequent hand-waving of other books on the subject. He is not afraid to take a stand, and he is not afraid to bring any amount of concrete data, algebraic analysis, geometric analysis, calculus, physics, or hard-won experience into the narrative to fully explain his point. And when his explanation is finished, one understands not only the point related to recording studio design, but one is able to apply that understanding to so many other contexts as well.
In this book I learned that the human ear is so sensitive that the faintest vibrations we can perceive are 1/100th the diameter of a hydrogen molecule. I learned that a reverb chamber with an 8 second RT60 means that a sound wave bounces around for 1.7 miles before finally diminishing to 1/1,000,000th of its original intensity. And he makes no bones about the fact that when studio control rooms fill up with computers and hard disk drives that push the noise floor up to 40-50 dBA vs. a typical monitoring volume of 85 dBA, it’s no fair to blame the lousy, lossy compression of MP3 files for a signal that never had more than 45 dB of dynamic range in the first place.
As others have said, this is a MUST READ for anybody considering building a recording studio, but it’s a great reference for anybody interested in sound at all.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by LMF on April 19, 2010 - 2:10 am
Outstanding condition. Excellent. Well written for a even an amature to underatnd all the workings of every aspect of a Recording Studio and
everything you would ever need to know
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by P. Rodriguez Garcia on April 19, 2010 - 5:05 am
It’s a great book, and second version includes interestings new sections. I received it with a little damage in one corner of the back cover. I think that I could be better packed in order to send it more safely…
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Nathan Van Dyk on April 19, 2010 - 5:29 am
Whether you’re going to spend thousands or millions of dollars getting into the recording game, I would seriously urge you to spend the $80 on this book and read it thoroughly before dropping serious cash!!
I’m a former studio owner. If I’d known then what I learned after reading this book, I could’ve saved countless headaches and untold amounts of money.
The practical information in this book will really help open your eyes to a critical subject that’s very much neglected in today’s recording studios.
Rating: 5 / 5