The wonderful folks at Sabbath Recording have been planning a new studio build for years. They finally found the perfect spot to set up shop in the Mt Airy neighborhood of Cincinnati, nestled deep on a tree-lined residential street. While the studio itself is rather straighforward and functional, it’s a part of a bigger concept to be a welcoming respite for musical artists that want to escape for a brief time to focus solely on the writing and recording process.
Architecturally, this project was filled with contraints. Partnering with the creative energy at Brewster Holiday Builders, we found a way to squeeze a live room, control room, and isolation booth inside of a 50-year-old detached garage building.
Since we were limited on sizes, orientation, ceiling heights, etc, a decent amount of the work was simply stabalizing the existing structure. (This included a new retaining wall, patching the floor, and lots of debate about the existing window openings and how to maintain lots of daylight in the spaces.
Due to the existing building contraints, we focused the design energy on the most important aspects we could control: the acoustic isolation between the rooms, electric and equipment service routing, and creating the double-height live room ceiling space.
