What is ERS working on lately?
Check out what George Whittam
and the ERS team have been up to!
Michael McColl's voice-over recording studio build
More info coming soon...
Chris Fries voice-over recording studio build
The completed booth
With a new child in the family, Chris needed to regain the bedroom taken by his voice-over studio in his Yorba Linda, CA home. Chris decided it was time to retire his vocalbooth.com studio and take the step up to a completely custom booth and addition to his home. We're honored that Chris chose George Whittam to consult, design, and install his new studio.
The new space has wonderful high ceilings, a large window, silent air conditioning, comprehensive acoustical treatment, a wall mounted monitor for reading copy and control of Pro Tools, and fully isolated double wall/ceiling construction. Chris can now work at anytime day or night without concern of interruptions from outside noise, or his family.
Custom Builders & Design of Orange County handled the contracting duties and did a wonderful job with the fit and finish, really paying attention to the details that George provided. Recommended by Chris' neighbor and voice-over giant Scott Rummell, they made the process about as painless as we've experienced.
Photo album of the studio acoustics installation.
Take a listen to an audio testimonial recorded in the booth.
My client Chris Fries recorded this any many other spots for O.R. from his recently completed home studio, designed by George Whittam of ElDorado Recording Services. It's a testament to the quality of the sound Chris gets from his booth, as most national ad campaigns are not recorded at home.
Anna Lux Foldable Voice-over Booth installation
Anna approached us with an interesting request. She wanted a voice-over booth in the loft of her apartment that when not in use could be folded away. George went to work sketching some ideas and came up with, along with the assistance of our builder James Michael Nail, something that surprised all of us in appearance and effectiveness. Rather than go into a lengthy description, here are a few photos of the installation. Anna will provide a recording for us to post very soon so you can hear how great it sounds!
A clean slate 
Before
The finished product!
Howard Cogan Second Story Addition Studio
Starting in Febuary 2010, Howard Cogan's new home studio began construction. He's decided to say goodbye forever to his trusty Whisper Room and graduate to custom isolation booth in a second floor addition over his garage, previously the home of his studio. Along with his architect and contractor, George Whittam helped design Howard a true "room-in-a-room" booth large enough to comfortably work in all day with large windows to bring plenty of daylite in, something he's been deprived of for a long time!
The first step was to relocate his Whisper Room into another room in his home. We decided to displace his daughters to the guestroom and take over their bedroom (Daddy gets to do whatever he wants.) Just large enough to accomodate the Whisper Room and still have space to open the door and store his computers outside the booth, we managed to fit it all in there and still give his daughters access to their closet. In one day of disassembly, moving, reassembly, and rewiring of ISDN, data, phone, audio, and video cables, we got his studio back online in its temporary location. It works so well that Howard can work un-interrupted with construction in full swing just 25 feet away, and his three young children being... children.
Framing is in full swing on the second floor addtion over the garage. The concrete slab floor will be poured in the coming days, with in-floor radiant heating pipes embeded.
Here's a gallery of the progress photos.
Rick Robles Studio Build
As of September 2009, Rick's custom studio in his Hollywood Hills home has been completed. Rick decided it was time to upgrade from using the Whisper Room booth to converting his entire office into a recording studio. He is now able to sit comfortably at his desk and record his reads without being confined to a small booth.
The technology in Rick's studio has remained virtually unchanged since first assembled in 2005. Crucial was the ability for Rick to continue working from his studio during construction. We moved his trusty Whisper Room to another part of the home, and reconnected the equipment to make the process as seamless as possible for him. In just 6 hours, his studio was back up in temporary fashion, but nonetheless completely functional.
The room had an extra layer of drywall and Green Glue added to many surfaces to reduce noise from the HVAC system on the other side of one wall. The room's entryway, previously open, was framed in and a heavy door installed. A mini-split air-conditioning unit went in over the doorway, which was chosen for it's nearly silent operation and effective cooling. Construction services were provided by James Nail Construction.
After painting and carpeting, the acoustic paneling went up on the walls and ceiling. Combined with the large, custom sofa and drapery, the resulting acoustical properties compliment Rick's voice and mic combination nicely. Not dead sounding as a Whisper Room, but not too live to distract, the sound is even and natural.
This studio has a few unique features as requested by Rick. He can choose to work at a seated position mic, or at the press of a button, switch to a standing height position mic for different types of reads. To create a clean look to the studio, we relocated the telephone, ethernet, and power jacks to the floor below the equipment rack under the desk. The desk is set 2' feet from the window and one can walk completely around it without any cables crossing the walkway.
William Morris Endevour Agency
Installed ISDN service for one of the booths and completely redesigned the studio equipment. Also providing ongoing maintenance for all the booths currently being used by voice actors.
Joe Cipriano's Voice-Over Studio
In the Fall of 2008 George designed and built Joe's new "Clubhouse" recording studio in his new home in Bel Air, CA. This studio was built from the ground up in the existing pool house on the property. Once again, the technology in Joe's studio was mostly unchanged from his previous location, but we focused on the acoustic and sound isolating properties of the space. Special features include a custom designed standing height desk, spring mounted floating ceiling, and a large, double glass window with invisible corner. All walls and ceiling are double 5/8" drywall layers with Green Glue sound absorption compound sandwiched within, and walls are double studded construction.
Joe demonstrates the sound isolation capabilities of his studio with "The Three Helicopter Test" and the "Jackhammer Next Door Test". This is using a Neumann U87 microphone.
George Whittam built "Out Of Hear" for Steve Nafshun, renowned voiceover engineer with DG Entertainment in Studio City, CA. Steve came to George with an idea to provide affordable ISDN bridging to the voiceover community. George designed a system that allows outofhear.com to provide ISDN bridges to up to 5 users simultaneously, connecting through Source Connect or AudioTX Communicator.
Steve's unique service is available anytime and has helped voiceover actors break the chains of their home studio by allowing them to travel the world and still meet the needs of their ISDN clients. Out Of Hear also provides rental kits built by ERS dubbed "VO2GO", which contain everything one needs to travel and connect remotely to any ISDN studio.