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| Apogee: Apogee Users: Ron Vermuelen |  |
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Apogee Users: Ron Vermuelen
An Apogee in every room Vancouver, British Columbia, has possibly the most beautiful setting of any city in North America. Approaching by car ferry from Vancouver Island into Horseshoe Bay, to the north of the city, the contrast of modern skyline against snow-capped mountains is stunning. The city itself is in some ways reminiscent of San Francisco, but in many other senses it's quite unique. Part of the inner city area, known as Gastown, is rapidly becoming the "in" place to be, with fashionable restaurants, shops and open-air cafes. Just on the edge of that area is Bryan Adams' Warehouse Studios, in, you guessed it, a converted warehouse in what used to be an industrial area. Behind the unassuming front door is an extensive facility with three main rooms plus associated amenities - the main rooms each have a complete lounge/kitchen area - all under the accomplished hands of Technical Director Ron Vermuelen. "It's the oldest brick structure in Vancouver," says Ron, "and a listed building, so we had to be sure to leave the outside untouched," he says. The studio complex was completed in 1997, and took about two years to build - with all the acoustical design work being done in-house, largely by Ron. For the visual design, Ron consulted closely with Bryan on what he wanted from the studio. A primary goal was to produce a set of rooms with character - not the soulless designs that sometimes result from ill-advised attempts to get a room completely flat, or completely free of coloration. Traditionally, you would choose a studio because its sound was appropriate for a particular project - and so it is at Warehouse: each room has a character and warmth about it - as well as natural light - that not only adds life to recordings, but also makes it a pleasure to work in. Add to that the fact that each room has a lounge area with replay equipment, TV and a full kitchen, where you can hang out, work on arrangements, listen to a playback or relax between takes, and it starts to become easy to see why Warehouse is the most popular facility in the area. The first thing you notice about Warehouse Studios is right there in the reception area: a floor-to-ceiling display cabinet (left) containing just a part of Bryan Adams' extensive classic microphone collection. Other display cabinets around the building contain some of the rest of the collection. Next to reception is Ron's office, and adjacent to that an off-line dubbing suite where digital editing and other basic work can be performed. A sync generator sends house sync throughout the building, and there are also tie-lines between the various rooms, so a project can be completed anywhere. There are two full-time technical staff members, making Warehouse one of only two studios in the Vancouver area that have in-house techs. The centerpiece of Studio One is an SSL SL4000 console with 72 inputs, and the room is completely acoustically decoupled from its surrounding environment. The main rooms all have a similar layout, and virtually identical equipment, which includes an Apogee PSX-100 in every room. A machine bay, again identical in all the rooms, allows for recorders to be wheeled in and out, including the facility's extensive Pro Tools rigs, which are mounted in mobile racks occupying the same space as a tape machine - which is very much the way they're used, with very few plugins.
On the third floor is Studio Three, a light, airy mix room, with the atmosphere of a penthouse suite. It's designed for mixing, and is occupied by the SSL SL9000 J-Series, 80-input console that Bryan purchased to mix his hit, "18 Till I Die" in St Tropez. The room is set up for both stereo and 5.1 surround mixing, and a wide selection of near-field monitors can be brought in as required - in fact this is the case with all the rooms. Once again, there's a PSX-100 in the familiar machine rack. "We have one PSX-100 per room," says Ron, "plus an AD-8000 Special Edition and a Trak2 which float from room to room, and particularly get used with the Pro Tools systems." Bryan very much relies on the Trak2's mic preamps, says Ron, and comments: "We use the PSX-100s extensively for mastering," he says, "using bit-splitting to Tascam recorders." The procedure is so popular that Ron has prepared a special data sheet that tells engineers - and staff at mastering facilities - how to get the best results with Apogee's bit-splitting technique. You can read Ron's bit-splitting guide here. "We have also been a very early advocate of mixing to 88.2 kHz, 24 bit," Ron concludes. "To the point that we almost never mix to 1/2-inch analog anymore!" Apart from Electronic Arts, recent clients at Warehouse have included top Canadian alternative band Nickleback, along with Metallica and the Cranberries, and the studio has recently completed a live surround mix of Bad Company for DVD release. |
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| © 2008, Apogee Electronics Corp. All Rights
Reserved. All trademarks herein are property of their respective holders. |
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