Studio
In 2021, we partnered with the internationally acclaimed studio design firm Haverstick Designs to design a one-of-a-kind recording studio in Bellingham, Washington, and Maple Recording was born. We set out to create an ideal space to record and film intimate chamber music, small ensemble, and piano recordings, and we think we accomplished our goal.
Along with Gavin Haverstick and his team, we created a room that was sonically free of any imperfections, while having a more “lively” sound than most other recording studios (which tend to sound dry). It was important to us that the room’s look be bright, airy, and understated - a place where we would feel comfortable creating music and that would visually translate well on camera. With Gavin, we spent countless hours designing our dream studio, and we couldn’t be happier with the result.
Gallery
We chose the space for its abundance of natural light and built the room around its many large windows, in a way that allowed us to fully isolate the room without sacrificing all the beautiful sunlight. The studio features a “room within a room” isolation design, with a decoupled floor, independent walls and ceiling, and windows and doors from Soundproof Windows. All of the custom-designed interior acoustical treatment was installed by Simplified Acoustics. This includes a stretched-fabric system with custom LED lighting. On one side of the room, the sloped and curved ceiling cloud above the mixing desk helps with first reflections and room modes while providing a unique visual element to the space. The other side of the room that is used for filming was designed to look more like a modern living room, which made the custom stretched-fabric system a perfect choice because it allowed us to disguise the acoustic treatment on the walls; the walls look just like regular drywall with no visible acoustic panels. Custom absorption/diffusion clouds were also installed above the performance area.
The studio was designed as a “one room studio”. It was important for us that the engineering take place in the same room as the tracking. For most of our own recordings, we’re often acting as both musicians and engineers, so it’s much more efficient to have everything be in the same space. And in situations with a separate sound engineer and/or producer, having everyone together in the same room allows for a more collaborative musical environment.
We retrofitted the studio with top-of-the-line signal chains, using Apogee Symphony conversion, Millenia, Phoenix and Vintech preamps, and an arsenal of some of the best and most transparent microphones available, primarily from Earthworks and Neumann.
Watch our Studio Tour Here:
