Mark ‘Sparky’ Paltridge isn’t someone fortunate enough to own his own home, but lucky enough to own his own studio. Mark managed this feat by building a complete recording studio within an old refrigerated 20-foot shipping container about four years ago, with the interior being designed by acoustics luminary, John Sayers.
He primarily built it within a container, not only because he needed a space that inspired musicians and allow him to capture great sounds to hard drive, but also so he could pick it up and land it at the next house he rented – priorities prevail! Mark now has a number of albums under his belt, primarily by Sunshine Coast artists, with nearly all clients recording their following albums and projects with him for the second time around.
Recently Mark enlisted Mr. Sayers to design a dedicated tracking room, again within a shipping container. Construction was completed a couple of months ago, with extremely encouraging results; one of the reasons behind the success being John’s slot resonator designs (basically Helmholtz resonators). These correct most of the low-mid problems one tends to find within a square room, or indeed most untreated rooms. The resonators are specifically designed for the room’s dimensions, and every resonator has been built and routed to particular specifications. Mark has now built another dedicated control room and tracking room, (again through John and within another hi-cube container), having sold his original container.
Mark reckons, maybe one day he may even get a house for himself, within which he might just build a permanent studio. Now there’s a concept!
Contact Mark via www.spark1studios.com or 0416 262 319
Comments
Well, after much debate, several rebuilds and just general pffaffing around, I have decided, (with the help of my good friend, Rory O’Donnell), to strap on the tool belt and start building these container studios as a business, (rather than just for myself).
We’ve just launched our website as http://www.containerstudios.com
At this point, we’re just concentrating on marketing here in Australia, as there’s a number of hurdles to overcome if the units are shipped overseas, (seaworthiness of a compromised shell, due to holes needed for aircon ducting, electrics etc…, plus power requirements of other nations), but hopefully I’ll overcome these soon.
Complete recording studio control rooms & tracking rooms, built within portable 20′ shipping containers. Are you looking for a complete recording studio that not only inspires you and your potential clients, but is completely portable and compact? Tired of renting studio space? Do you dream of working from home? Do you live in a remote location? Do you work with schools? Are you tired of your ‘garage studio’ and its poor sound? Does the cost and hassle of building a fully fledged studio on your own, fill you with dread?
Until now, most portable and compact recording studio set ups have been plagued with sound issues, such as controlling the low and low-mid frequency build ups and nulls that arise in such small spaces. Untreated sound issues like these can produce less than stellar sounds to hard drive/tape, as well as inaccurate mixes that don’t translate well into the real world.
Spark 1 Container Studios provides the solution; complete control and tracking rooms that offer professional acoustic standards within a compact and portable environment.
The 3D tour shows the current set up of my control room, with soffit mounted main speakers. The new design will NOT have this soffit design. It works fine, but I’m always looking to improve the design. This control room, and indeed my current tracking room, (both featured on ‘Better Homes and Gardens), are for sale, with the video system and multicore, but excluding the aircon unit. Our new control rooms and tracking rooms are $39,500.00 and $37,500 respectively, but my current control room is for sale at $37,000.00 and the tracking room at $34,500.00.
Despite what Peter from BH & Gs said on the video, you CANNOT just whack in a couple of sliders and you’re up and running! There’s a phenomenal amount of materials and designing that go into making these studios not only soundproofed, but function well as an accurate and reliable monitoring environment. This can only be achieved if all the acoustic treatment is specifically calculated to the rooms dimensions. This is a science in itself, and we’re always improving on our design with every studio we make. No room is ‘perfect’ acoustically, but we’re doing our best to get as close as possible! Some of the results of what I’ve managed to achieved can be heard on my site, http://www.spark1studios.com , where all the audio samples are recorded within my 2 studio containers.
We’re based in Maleny, QLD, (1 &1/2 hours North of Brisvegas). My studio containers are recording clients 4-5 days a week, so I guess I’m living proof that these studios not only work and work well, but are an inspirational place for prospective clients to record….and if you get ‘out of the game’ later in life, you can sell your studio, lock,stock and barrel, without having to tear down fittings from a leased property, or indeed your own home. I still rent, and thank God/Allah/Buddha/some manky dog up the street, that I was smart enough to build my studios within these containers, as it’s saved my family’s bacon twice now!! It’s seems to be $100.00 hour to shift these on a tray truck, (however, distances from here to any of the Capital cities would vary, depending on the carrier).
We can change some of the interior designs as required, though any structural changes would incur a redesign fee, as John Sayer’s expertise would have to be called on again.
Many of the questions you may have hopefully are explained on our site, but if you’d like anymore info, contact me at
sparky@containerstudios.com
or 0416 262 319
http://www.containerstudios.com