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PRO SOUND NEWS

San Francisco's Newest Content Machine

By Jeff Touzeau
December 2006

Outside, it's a non-descript, two-story warehouse building located in San Francisco's up and coming "South of Market District", hiding inconspicuously beside other similar-looking structures on the block. But inside, there's acoustic perfection, sonic flexibility and creative enablement. Talking House Productions is San Francisco's newest landmark recording facility and content engine, spearheaded by a collective of producers and songwriters that include Steve Luczo, Pete Krawiec, pc Munoz, John Paulsen, Paul Ruxton, Stephen Smith and Marc Weibel.

The owners, who have a spectacularly diverse set of backgrounds both as musicians and in other industries, intend to create a wide array of content at Talking House as well as utilize it as a platform to develop and promote the Bay area's most promising local talent. "[Talking House] is an extremely comprehensive company," says John Paulsen, co-owner/producer. "We score films and TV, write and produce original ad music, develop artists' music and help with their careers, maintain a record label, artist promotion, develop graphic art, the whole nine yards. Whether we're scoring or working with local artists to develop meaningful long-term career potential, everything we release has to meet the highest standard, no compromises. We need to be free to act on inspiration and creativity, without constraints."

Talking House celebrated its grand opening in style during the September AES show in San Francisco by hosting an elaborate artist showcase at nearby historic Warfield Theater, which featured Slash, Lars Ulrich, Joe Satriani and other special guests with roots in the Bay area. In addition to sponsoring the all-star jam, Talking House was also featured on the AES showcase tour, providing interested convention attendees a first-hand glimpse at its agile design, innovative acoustics and remarkable technical integration.

The 8,700 square foot facility, which also houses office space and a gallery that doubles as a live tracking room, has been under development for three years, with John Storyk and the Walters-Storyk Design Group spearheading the design and construction team. Dave Malekpour's Professional Audio Design handled the sourcing and installation of each of the facility's consoles, which included a like-new SSL 9000K from Hit Factory, NYC in control room A. Control rooms B and C feature Digidesign D-Command ICON consoles -- all three control rooms are outfitted with 72 channels of Pro Tools HD and feature 5.1 Genelec monitoring.

For the owners, technically and aesthetically, the fundamental requirement was about flexibility from the very beginning: "We wanted to have every potential tool that we might need for any type of scenario," says Paulsen. "That's why we called John [Storyk] when we bought this building. We told him how flexible the place needed to be, and he drew this arrangement that you see here on a napkin. [Employing the gallery as a tracking room] was almost an afterthought, but John has enabled us to use it as an interesting live, garage band kind of space."

The design is centered on a generously sized live room, which features a clearstory skylight and variable acoustics, surrounded by three control rooms and four isolation booths. Each of these rooms is within sight of one another – all rooms all inter-connected by a central machine room. John Storyk, principal of WSDG, elaborates: "Light, space and eye contact were meaningful to everyone at Talking House and communication is an integral element of this company. Obviously, having this amount of glass can present some challenging 'reflective sound issues'. We stipulated that all the rooms be constructed on split concrete slabs, and we used triple wall construction and sand filled concrete block partitions for between-room isolation." This exceptional degree of isolation was critical, since the studio partners wanted to retain the possibility of tracking a diverse range of artists simultaneously and without compromise.

The facility represents the ultimate in flexibility as well. Artists can access the facility's full array of mic preamps no matter which room they are working in. Options include a special preamp rack made by SSL to complement the K series. Dave Malekpour, president of Professional Audio Design, comments: "One of my ideas was to provide them with a very high-end mic pre system that SSL developed to go with the K series, which is even nicer than what is in the console. The cool thing about this is it fits into the way Talking House works - they might be tracking in either of the Ikon rooms and at the same time, mixing on the K, where they might not need those preamps. So it really expands the use of that preamp system to all three rooms, giving them this unique solution."

So far, the design concept appears to have hit its mark, says Paulsen: "You have three control rooms looking on a live room, and you're wondering, 'How is this going to work?' It has actually worked out really well. We've had several times where somebody was tracking a vocalist in studio A while I was working on a mix in studio B, then somebody else was on editing and production in studio C."

Malekpour summarizes the project from his perspective: "The overall team of professionals involved made a big difference – [Talking House] is a very unique client. They have very high expectations and to do things at a certain level -- this makes a project very exciting to be involved with. Pete Krawiec and John Paulson have some forward thinking ideas about production and where this company is going and I think that inspired us to take that added measure of care."

Moving forward, Paulsen emphasizes the kind of work the team at Talking House intends to seek: "We want to pursue projects that we as a group are passionate about. If we have a single vision, it's that we want to produce original content of the highest quality without limitations or compromises."

Vital Stats:

Studio Owners:
  • Pete Krawiec
  • Steve Luczo
  • pc muñoz
  • John Paulsen
  • Paul Ruxton
  • Stephen Smith
  • Marc Weibel
Consoles:
  • Control Room A - 80 input SSL XL 9000 K with Ultimation
  • Control Room B - ICON D-Control, 32 faders
  • Control Room C - ICON D-Control, 16 faders
Multitrack, tape and disc recorders
  • 3 x Protools HD3
  • 14 x 192 I/Os
  • 2 x Studer A827
  • Ampex/Mdi ATR 1" & 1/2"
Monitoring
  • Studio A mains - Genelec 1038
  • All studios surround - Genelec 8050
  • All studios subs - Genelec 7070
  • Stereo and 5.1 Surround monitoring
  • Dolby Lake Processors
  • Video link and monitoring for scoring to picture, overdubbing, voice- over, sound design
Microphones
  • Neumann, Brauner, Sony, Wagner U47w, Shure, Royer, B&K / DPA, Audio Technica, Sennheiser
Outboard
    Mic Preamps:
    1. Shep/Neve 31102
    2. 24 ch. SSL XL Remote Pre
    3. Millennia HV-3
    4. Millenia HV-3D
    5. Martech MSS-10
    6. 2 x Focusrite Red 1 Mic Pre
    7. Avalon M2 MKII Preamp
    8. GML 2 channel Mic Pre w/ PSU
    9. A Designs Reddi
    10. Hamptone HVTP2
    Compressors:
    1. 2 x Urei LA-2A
    2. 2 x UA 1176
    3. 2 x Neve 33609
    4. Focusrite 3
    5. DBX 165A
    6. ADL 1500
    7. 2 x DBX902 Dessers with Rack
    8. 2 x Drawmer DS201b
    EQs:
    1. GML 8200
    2. Focusrite Red 2 EQ
    3. 2 x Tube Tech PE1C
    4. Tube Tech ME1A
    Reverbs:
    1. EMT Plate/Martech Upgraded
    2. Lexicon 960L
    3. Lexicon 480L
    4. Sony S777
    5. AMS RMX16
    Processors:
    1. Lexicon PCM42
    2. Eventide DSP4000
    3. TC Electronic M5000
    4. TC Electronic TC1210
    5. TC Electronic Fireworks
    6. (2) Yamaha SPX 990
    7. Lexicon PCM 80
    8. Lexicon PCM 91
Instruments and Headphones
    Keyboards/Synths:
    1. Yamaha DC-7 MIDI grand piano
    2. Hammond B3 organ, w/ Leslie 122
    3. Rhodes suitcase electric piano
    4. Wurlitzer 200A electric piano
    5. 2 Muse Receptors
    6. 2 Korg Tritons
    7. Korg Trinity
    8. Korg Karma
    9. Korg DW-8000 (vintage)
    10. Roland Juno-6 (vintage)
    11. Roland JX-3P (vintage)
    12. Yamaha CS-15 (vintage)
    13. 2 Korg TR Racks
    14. 2 Roland 1080s
    15. 2 Roland 880s
    16. Studio Electronics SE1
    17. Speck XSum
    18. Signal Transport Synth Driver 2
    19. Baldwin Fun Machine
    Guitars:
    1. 2 Gibson 335s
    2. Fender Tele
    3. 2 Fender Strats
    4. Gibson L5
    5. Gibson Les Paul
    6. Lowden hand-crafted nylon string acoustic
    7. Lowden hand-crafted steel string acoustic
    8. Tom Anderson
    9. Alembic bass
    10. PK Custom bass
    Amps:
    1. Roland JC-120
    2. Vox AC-30
    3. Ampeg SVT bass rig
    4. 50-Watt Marshall Plexi vintage
    5. Marshall 2000
    6. Peavey 5150
    7. Peavey Classic 50
    8. Ampeg V2
    9. Fender Bassman
    10. Fender Deluxe
    11. Torres Boogie-Mite
    12. Trinity 18-Watt
    Drums:
      Full kits including:
    1. Yamaha recording custom
    2. D'Amico
    3. PK Custom
    4. Camco
    5. over 10 snare drums, all makers
    6. over 30 Zildjian and Paiste cymbals
    7. wide assortment of standard and exotic percussion incl. 5 congas, bongos, timbales, chinese drum, gongs, etc.