LOS ANGELES — Kaiser Comm Construction (http://kaisercommconstruction.com), a specialist in recording-studio construction, has partnered with UK-based Smart Studio to introduce a modular studio system to the United States, which is branded under the name Smart Studio USA. Smart Studio employs a modular design and off-site construction to significantly reduce the time and cost of building recording studios, while providing acoustic environments of high quality.
In their first joint project, Kaiser Comm Construction built three Smart Studios for Side, Los Angeles, a provider of voice production; recording, editing and mixing; localization; and performance capture services for video games. The company’s work includes contributions to Valorant (Riot Games), Cyberpunk (CD Projekt) and God Of War (Sony Interactive).
Photo (L-R): Side senior technical director Anthony Hales, Kaiser Comm Construction principal Kevin Kaiser and Side senior VP audio & speech technology Olivier Deslandes
Kaiser Comm Construction’s Kevin Kaiser was introduced to Smart Studio through a client in the UK, where Smart Studio has built more than a dozen modular studios for music recording, video-game sound and entertainment post production.
“I thought it was a brilliant idea,” recalls Kaiser. “Because the components of the studio are pre-manufactured, construction time is reduced by half and costs by half, or more. And yet, it’s a real studio, not a portable booth. Acoustically it is as sound as a custom-built studio and suitable for all types of professional use.”
The Smart Studio concept was developed over a period of more than a decade by acoustician Jim Dunne. Modular components for studio floors, ceilings and walls are precision manufactured offsite and incorporate state-of-the-art materials to optimize sound insulation, room acoustics and ultra-low background noise. Onsite assembly typically takes just days or weeks. Studios can be built in sizes up to 570 square feet and in a range of configurations, and acoustics can be adapted to support virtually any technical requirements, including Dolby Atmos sound production and mixing.
The three Smart Studios that Kaiser Comm Construction built for Side’s Los Angeles facility complement a trio of existing recording studios, custom built by Kaiser Comm Construction in 2016. Side senior VP audio & speech technology Olivier Deslandes says the company needed to add sound production capacity without sacrificing quality.
“Smart Studio allowed us to expand quickly and at a fraction of the cost of building studios from scratch,” Deslandes recalls. “The Smart Studios took much less time to build than we expected and eliminated the need for an architect.”