Timbaland Studios, Virginia Beach, VA
A series of coincidental collaborations have led Professional Audio Design founder Dave Malekpour and Walters-Storyk Design Group co-principal John Storyk to a new co-venture with interesting implications for the pro audio community.
“We’ve known each other for years, and frequently bumped into each other at various trade events, but working together on a series of recent projects inspired some interesting conversations,” Malekpour explains. “When PAD was retained by Platinum hip hop producer Tim Mosley and his engineer Jimmy Douglass to provide the gear for their new Virginia Beach-based Timbaland Studio, we found the facility was being designed and built by WSDG. Numerous meetings with John Storyk and other WSDG team members over the course of the installation proved illuminating on many levels.”
Not long after their unintentional Timbaland collaboration, PAD and WSDG found themselves working together on Studio Metronome, a showplace destination mixing studio on a mountaintop estate in Brookline, N.H. “Once again, our conversations about design, system integration and hardware not only aided the client’s decision-making process, they impacted on our thinking about many of the facility’s needs,” Storyk adds.
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When called in to equip a private studio for Boston-based supergroup
Aerosmith, Malekpour knew WSDG would relate to their needs. “People who
build recording studios are generally smart, high-profile and
opinionated,” he says. “They’re not walking into a haberdasher and
buying a jacket off a rack. They’ve got legitimate creative and
aesthetic issues that need serious consideration.”
Initial
meetings with the group soon led to an acoustically and technologically
outstanding room, which inspired Malekpour and Storyk to consider a
more formal strategic alliance. “Time and again we’ve seen the value in
brainstorming and sharing our insights with clients at the earliest
stages of a project,” Storyk says. “Decisions about infrastructure,
wiring, equipment packages, room design and acoustics are much easier
when they are explored in an integrated fashion during design
development. Since we were already working together in a casual way, we
felt a more formal relationship would be to everyone’s advantage.”
The
two firms have been working together on architectural, acoustic,
equipment and systems development for several interesting projects for
more than a year. These include: Talking House, a high-end, 9,000
square-foot music creation, development and production center in San
Francisco which will feature multiple control rooms surrounding a
common tracking room and a custom “hybrid” large format analogue mixing
console. Design and equipment selection has also begun on a facility
for New Orleans-based producer David Fortman of Evanescence fame, and a
private studio on Long Island, NY for R&B singer/songwriter Alicia
Keys.
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