Sound Check Studios

Brian Farquhar, owner of Sound Check Studios in Richmond, recently completed the facility’s tracking, control, and practice rooms with acoustical treatment from Acoustical Solutions.

After working with Acoustical Solutions on soundproofing his own home, entrepreneur and musician Brian Farquhar returned to AS when opening Sound Check Studios. Brian calls his new business a “musician’s community center” where local artists can “practice, record, sell gear, buy gear, play shows, and just hang out.” Farquhar had a few acoustical issues that needed to be addressed at the facility including:

• Isolating sound between practice rooms, tracking, and control rooms
• Isolating sound from neighboring residences and businesses
• Improving sound in the practice rooms, tracking, and control rooms

Sound isolation was addressed first. To keep music from traveling between rooms and outside the building, Farquhar used insulation, additional drywall, and Green Glue Damping Compound. “You can be in one practice room, with a band in the next room playing at full volume and not interrupt each other,” says Farquhar, “and if you are standing outside the practice room window it might sound like someone’s car stereo is playing down the block. It’s amazing.” To improve sound in the practice rooms, Sonex® Valueline Acoustic Foam and AlphaSorb® Acoustic Foam Bass Traps were used. In the tracking and control rooms, Farquhar again used Sonex® Valueline Acoustic Foam, with more bass traps, absorptive panels, and a movable sound field walls in the tracking room. The control room used the same, but with diffusers as well to reduce echo and create a fuller sound.

“I think it looks great, and sounds great,” says Farquhar of the new acoustical upgrades, “every artist that’s played in here swears by it.”