Manifold Recording®

Manifold Recording is a high-end, full-scale, carbon-neutral recording studio and media production facility.

The Main Studio

At the center of the studio is the Music Room, an architectural tour de force and an acoustic masterpiece. Designed for performance and built as one would craft a fine instrument, the Music Room seems to anticipate and the respond to the sounds played within it. The 1380 sq ft area is large enough to comfortably seat 36 musicians, yet compact enough to reinforce, rather than overwhelm, a solo voice. The 24 foot ceiling is properly scaled for developing the full harmonic range of any musical instrument or ensemble, especially the studio's own Yamaha CF-9 concert grand piano. 23 adjustable acoustic panels can tune the room's RT60 (reverb decay time) from half a second to one full second of harmonically optimized reverberation. Additional gobos can be rolled in to cut reverb time even further without losing the acoustic benefits of its 32,000 cu ft volume. For those who want the sound of a real room, this is a real room!

Equally impressive is the Control Room, designed to be as accurate as the Music Room is fantastic. The Control Room is optimized for stereo mixing and surround formats including 2.1, 5.1, and 7.1. The RFZ (reflection free zone) design is enhanced by a dual symmetric QRD (quadratic residue diffusor) on the rear wall, extending the useful diffusion range (and thus acoustic accuracy) by an additional octave compared with conventional planar designs. The 22.6' room depth and 15' peak ceiling height ensure accurate frequency and impulse response for all supported mixing formats, again across the entire musical spectrum. Translation: accurate monitors are accurate, without fighting room modes or other artifacts.

The console is a new, custom-built 64-channel API Vision. With two 100mm moving faders on each input, 5 channel surround panning on each fader, simultaneous surround and stereo mixing, and API’s all discrete signal path, this console puts you in total control. Paired with Dynaudio M4s main monitors, the audio chain and acoustic environment perform together at a level few have ever experienced. Even if you did not track your project in the Music Room, you will want to discover what our Control Room can do for your mixing process.

Protecting each side of the Control Room are Sound Locks 1 and 2, both of which have excellent visual connectivity with the Music Room and especially the Control Room. A sizable 135 sq ft each, they are large enough for recording vocals, overdubs, re-amping applications, and even a drum kit. Their 7' ceiling height and tight acoustic characteristics also makes them good for broadcast or voiceover work that benefits from a more intimate environment. With multiple video connections to and from our central video hub, video producers can also use one or both Sound Locks for video monitoring without disturbing activities in the Control Room.


Extending from the North side of the Music Room are three multi-function booths: A, B, and C. Booths A and B have outstanding visual connection to the Music Room, the Control Room, and to each other. In fact, architecturally the two booths are built as if they are two halves of a larger (490 sq ft) LEDE (live-end/dead-end) room, with Booth A being the live end and Booth B being the dead end. By opening one or both doors of the STC 51 doors between them, a sonic continuum can be experienced (and recorded) at any point along the 33' major axis of the two booths. But the possibilities do not end there: each booth can be individually coupled to the Music Room, creating two additional sonic pallets, and by also opening the doors between the two booths a sonic color wheel can be experienced as one travels through the fully opened 1870 sq ft space.

Booth A also has a Nespresso coffee maker, and well-stocked cupboard made from Topperfo that also doubles as a large bass trap. Sweet!

Booth C is home to a 24-bay Buchla 200e modular analog synthesizer, as well as several esoteric input devices, filters, and other fun toys. It also hosts a media creation and edit suite for video editing, animation, and computer graphics. It is very well isolated and we made it very dead acoustically so it can be used for recording instrument amplifiers that are not compatible with uses of other rooms during the session. Booth C has signal and speaker passthroughs to both the Music Room and Booth B.

All of the Booths have large windows that face onto the North Patio and the 4000 sq ft North Terrace beyond. These beautiful views are visible all the way to the couch at the rear of the Control Room, providing additional natural light throughout the studio.


The Studio Annex and Lounge

Although the Studio Annex and Lounge are in an adjacent building and can be independently operated and secured, they can also, by arrangement, be treated as part of the Main Studio, providing additional technical capabilities and relaxing options. Have a look at this video walkthrough, which won an award in the Animation category of the Peak City Film Festival in 2009!


Virtual Studio Annex Walkthrough (HD 720p video, 02:35 mm:ss)