Acoustic and studio design consultancy White Mark Ltd returned to the Cotswold town of Tetbury last month to help Modern World Studios create a variable acoustic environment in its renowned live room.

Established in 2007, Modern World Studios is a state of the art residential music recording facility that was originally designed by White Mark for its owner Nick Cowan. The facility boasts a large control room equipped with a 48-channel SSL Duality console, Exigy 5.1 monitoring and a DigiDesign Pro Tools HD3 7.3.1 with a range of plug-ins. This is complimented by a spacious live area with natural daylight, a separate drum room and a Pro Tools Pro Control Editing Suite.

Alongside its extensive microphone and outboard collection, the studio also has a collection of 45 guitars including Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, Taylor and Takemine.

Since its opening Modern World Studios has built a strong reputation for the quality of its equipment and its room acoustics. The facility’s expanding client base features many experienced producers and engineers including Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers), Clint Murphy (Opshop), Dan Austin (Doves) and Steve Osborne (Elbow).

Ben Muscat, Modern World’s studio manager and chief engineer, says: “Our main room has, from the outset, been an incredible place to play and record music. Aspects such as natural daylight, generous size and plentiful use of oak for the floor and diffusers have created many fans.

“Listening to feedback from every artist and producer we have had through the doors, we have found that tastes and needs differ from project to project. As it has always been our intention to provide for a range of studio needs, we decided to create a variable acoustic option for the room and we asked White Mark, our original studio design team, to assist us with this project.�

White Mark’s solution was to create a system of six free hanging, flutter reducing oak panels measuring 1.8m x 1m that can be hung or removed as desired.

“Having the option to tailor the acoustic response of a recording space is an invaluable asset to any studio,� Muscat adds. “As ever, White Mark has come up with a flexible and elegant solution that gives our clients more choice and control over their session. The panels immediately proved their worth by increasing the volume and clarity of the piano and giving us noticeably more energy from the drum kit. The fact that we can now offer a variable acoustic environment helps us to maintain our position as the top choice of recording studio for many industry professionals.�

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About White Mark

Established in 1997 by David Bell, John Dunnill, Derek Buckingham and Alan Cundell, White Mark Ltd specialises in production facilities for music recording and the film and television industries. Over the last decade it has designed and supervised the construction of over 170 audio production suites worldwide. The company’s impressive client list encompasses some of the world’s most famous music recording facilities including Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in the UK, Hit Factory in New York (for which the company won a coveted TEC Award for Best Acoustic Design), Hit Factory/Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, Strongroom in London and private studios for producers and musicians such as William Orbit and Damon Albarn. In the area of audio post production, White Mark has completed over 100 studios for more than 40 companies in Soho alone. The list includes Grand Central, Hackenbacker, Envy, Scramble, Lipsync, Molinare, Ascent Media, Wave and Boom. This impressive achievement means that a significant proportion of mainstream British television output passes through rooms designed by White Mark.