Acoustic Optimisation: A Checklist to Run Through Before You Decide
Before you commission acoustic work on a live studio, these are the questions worth settling first: what the room does now, what you need it to do, and who will check the result.
Start with what the room does now
Before anyone talks about foam, bass traps or ceiling clouds, write down what the studio sounds like at the moment. Stand at the presenter's position and clap once. Listen to how long the sound lingers, whether there is a metallic flutter between parallel walls, and whether the clap sounds different at the guest chair. These informal checks will not replace measurement, but they tell you which complaints are real and which are habit. Next, list the noises that reach the microphones: air handling, lighting rig fans, monitor hum, footsteps on a hard floor, a lift or a road outside. Note whether each one is constant or intermittent. A constant hiss can usually be reduced at source, while an intermittent bang needs a different answer. Having this list ready makes any first conversation with an acoustics specialist far more useful, because the work is aimed at your actual problems rather than a generic template.
Walk the whole space with a notebook rather than only the set. The control room matters as much as the studio floor, since a gallery that cannot judge dialogue will pass problems on to air. Check whether talkback and monitoring speakers sit close to reflective surfaces, and whether the glass between gallery and floor creates reflections you can hear. Record the dates and times of any complaints from presenters or the sound crew, and what programme was running. Patterns often appear: a problem only on morning news, say, points to a heating cycle or a neighbouring tenant, not to the room's shape.
- Clap test at each presenter and guest position
- List every noise source and whether it is constant
- Check the gallery as well as the studio floor
- Log complaints with the programme and time
Decide what clear speech means for your format
A seated news desk, a standing interview and a panel show with an audience each ask something different of a room. A single presenter on a close microphone can tolerate more reverberation than two guests on lapel microphones sitting a metre apart. Before choosing any treatment, decide which formats the room must serve and rank them.
If one format dominates the schedule, the treatment should favour it, and the occasional exception can be handled with movable panels or a change of microphone technique. Also agree what you mean by acceptable. For some teams it is that every word is understood without effort on a laptop speaker. For others it is that the mix needs no heavy processing to sound natural. These are different targets and lead to different budgets.
Ask what will be measured, and when
A sound recommendation rests on measurement taken in the room as it is used. Ask any adviser which readings they will take, where in the room, and with what equipment, and whether they will measure background noise with the studio running as it normally does, lights on and ventilation active. Reverberation time at several frequencies, a background noise reading and a look at how the room responds at low frequencies are the usual starting points for a space of this kind.
Ask equally when the measurements will be repeated. A set of readings before treatment is only half the evidence. A second set afterwards, taken in the same positions under the same conditions, shows what changed and what did not. If that second visit is not part of the plan, you are left judging the outcome by ear alone. Check too that the figures come back to you in writing, in plain terms, so your own engineers can keep them for later comparison.
- Reverberation time across several frequencies
- Background noise with normal services running
- Repeat readings in the same positions afterwards
Separate treatment from noise control
Absorbing panels improve how a room sounds inside. They do very little to stop noise coming through a wall or floor, and they do nothing about a noisy fan. Mixing up the two is the commonest reason acoustic spending disappoints. When you review a proposal, check that each problem on your list has a matching remedy: reflections and reverberation to treatment, intrusive plant noise to servicing or relocation, and transmitted noise to construction changes or scheduling.
It also helps to ask which fixes are cheap and reversible. Rugs, heavy curtains, repositioned furniture and a moved desk cost little and can be tried before anything is fixed to a wall. Where permanent treatment is justified, ask how it will be mounted, whether it affects fire safety rules for the building, and whether it can be removed if the studio layout changes.
Plan for lights, cameras and the set itself
Acoustic panels live in the same space as lighting rigs, camera paths, backdrops and cable runs. Placing treatment without checking the shot list can mean a panel sits in the frame, or that a camera dolly now has a tight turn. Bring the lighting and camera plans to the discussion and mark where walls are visible on air. Treatment can be hidden behind set pieces or built into them, but only if that is agreed early. Consider heat and weight as well.
Lamps close to fabric-covered panels need a safe gap, and ceiling treatment must be hung from points rated for the load. Ask who will check these details and whether the person fitting the work has seen the rigging plan. A short joint walk-through with the lighting lead, the camera operator and the person advising on sound usually settles most conflicts in an hour and saves awkward changes once the work is already in place.
- Keep panels out of the shot and off camera paths
- Leave safe clearance around hot lamps
- Confirm ceiling fixings can carry the load
Agree how you will judge the result
Finish the checklist by settling how the work will be signed off. Decide who listens, in which positions, with what material. A useful method is to record the same short script at each presenter position before and after, then play both back on the gallery monitors and on a cheap pair of headphones. Differences that are obvious there will be obvious to viewers.
Agree the written outcome too: the measurements, the changes made, the position of every panel and a note of what was deliberately left alone. That record is valuable when a new presenter joins, when the room is rearranged, or when a fault appears months later and you need to know what the room was like at handover. If a proposal cannot tell you what you will receive at the end, keep asking until it can.
Deciding on acoustic work is mostly a matter of preparation. Know what the room does now, state what clear speech means for your formats, insist on measurement before and after, match each problem to the right kind of fix, coordinate with lighting and cameras, and agree how success will be judged. With those answers written down, any conversation with an adviser becomes shorter, more specific and much easier to compare.
Daniel Pryce
Studio Systems EngineerDaniel designs and tests equipment integrations, from cabling to intercom, and documents every build clearly.
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