Vancouver, BC – Jacquire King’s new studio ‘LBT’ offers the multi-award winning producer, what he calls ‘creative elbow room’ and immediate access to all the instruments he has collected over the years. Although you can still find Jacquire at Blackbird Studio tracking larger session in Studio D, he surrendered his personal space there (Studio G) when LBT became operational.
LBT is a ‘top secret’ acronym according to King and reflective of his vision for the studio. “I wanted a space that was truly personal to me and that in many ways you weren’t hanging out in a commercial studio but rather in a home environment.” On the more practical side, he sees this as an investment in real property directly benefitting his future well-being.
At this point in time, his well-being would appear to be well sorted. King’s career is now at the point where he is balancing working on some of the most well-known talent of the day with taking a more active approach in developing artists. Having had years of music put in front of him King found he would look for ways to become involved in projects that spoke to him creatively. “It’s a very mixed bag of situations and I don’t really have a method. Every situation is different. In the last couple of years, I’ve developed a young band that sought me out and I thought they had potential… now they have a major label deal and have been touring and we write songs together. A great artist that I mixed a record for ten years back left the business after not finding sustainable success but started writing songs again a couple years ago and sent them to me, so we made a record this summer and now I’m managing and shopping it around.” He’s even gone into a small publishing partnership, signing an artist he is currently working with to develop material. “I’m a fan of music and a record maker first but my interests are growing and now I can say that I’m a manager, publisher, writer, educator, executive producer, mentor, software developer, board member, studio owner, and whatever else may interest me in the future. I just love the creative conversation and experience of bringing recorded music out into the world.”
He describes LBT as a medium sized studio and he had his hand in the design from the ground up. “The ceilings are 10′ in height throughout all spaces. The walls are constructed of standard framing with double walls spaced with a minimum of 4″ air gap. Rigid Roxul insulation lines the interior of the air spaces. There is a layer of Mass Loaded Vinyl and then 3/8″ drywall to complete the finished walls.” Early on in the process, he engaged Jay Porter, Product Manager for Canadian based company Primacoustic, to come up with the acoustic treatment plan.
The control room is roughly 14’x15′ with the listening position treated with a Stratus Ceiling Cloud and a set of Razorblade diffusers installed on the back wall. It also features 6 MaxTraps (2 each in the rear corners and 1 each in front corner) and the walls are treated with Broadway panels. According to Jacquire: “The new control room is the best personal space I’ve ever had for listening and working. It’s very focused without a feeling of being constricted.”
The recording space consists of a main room that is 20′ by 16′ on one end and 14′ on the other. The longer wall is slanted across the space offering a desired non-parallel surface. The acoustic treatment includes Nimbus clouds, Broadway panels of 2″ & 3″ thicknesses, MaxTraps, Cumulus corner traps, and Radiator panels. A 6′ by 8′ vocal/isolation booth and small iso room have also been treated with Primacoustic. “The treatment has provided an excellent opportunity to have the space be sonically balanced and give it, based on the placements, a real variety of room tone. The room is punchy and focussed without feeling dead. The main room has a cohesive feel and has been impressive in the recorded results it has provided. The results have been nothing short of magical and I love working in my studio because of the sound I can get there.”
Jacquire rolled up his own sleeves to bring LBT to life handling all of the installations with the assistance of his engineering team. “The whole system we put in place is really amazing. Given that these products are manufactured for general needs across many types of installs it’s impressive that this quality of product can be delivered in such effective and complete solutions.”
