ELECTRIC CANYON STUDIOS
Chico, California

CLIENT

Electric Canyon Studio is located a few miles outside of Chico, California. The site is breath-taking, an expansive log chateau overlooking Butte Creek Canyon, with 270-degree views of the surrounding cliffs. The studio, owned and operated Dale Price, offers a wide range of professional services, including recording, mixing, mastering, CD duplication, and live sound work.

OBJECTIVE

Dale approached Wes Lachot Design soon after deciding to move his studio from its downtown location to a 40-acre ranch located about 20 minutes outside of town. The design project presented several interesting challenges.

First of all, Dale wanted to use the ground floor of his log home for the studio--even though the ceilings were only nine feet high. Just as challenging was the fact there were a number of support posts breaking up the 1100-square-foot interior space. Moreover, although the views of the canyon were stunning if you walked out on the terrace of the proposed studio, inside the building the views were mostly blocked. Dale made it clear that he wanted to open up these vistas to create an indoor-outdoor feel.

STRATEGY

Making sure there would be effective sound isolation between the studio and the floor immediately above became a key consideration.

The first step was to relocate a large number of pipes, wires, ductwork, and even framing that otherwise would prevent the studio from taking advantage of the room's entire nine feet of vertical height. Then a "room within a room" was created by suspending a new, massive ceiling. In the end, we gave up only several inches of ceiling height.

Most of the support posts became incorporated into the new walls, leaving only one exposed post in the live room. After completing a structural analysis, we opened up the views of the canyon by adding several windows, as well as a row of custom French doors from the live room onto the patio.

OUTCOME

After doing much of the construction of the new studio himself, over a period of a year, Price is very happy with the finished studio. Describing the vast improvement over his old studio in downtown Chico, he says, "This new design translates into better-sounding drums, guitars, vocals, and horns on every recording. The spacious control room is almost three times larger than our former space--plus, it provides accurate monitoring and a huge sweet spot." Dale also says the canyon views from the live room and control room are awesome!