Studio and technical design consultancy White Mark Ltd has designed and installed two new audio suites at the Soho-based facility of Award-winning post production company Wave.
Established by sound designers Warren Hamilton and Johnnie Burn, Wave has a worldwide reputation for audio excellence and a client base that reads like a who’s who of advertising and film making.
Wave’s London-based facility already has seven dubbing studios, all running Soundtracs mixing consoles and 48 track Fairlight MFX3 digital workstations. However, demand for the company’s services had left these rooms at capacity and Wave needed to expand in order to meet client requirements.
Tari Singh, Wave’s General Manager, explains: “Fortunately we were able to acquire more space on the ground floor of our existing building and this gave us the opportunity to build two new audio suites, add some new offices and expand our production area. This has been a major building project but it has all come together very well and we are delighted with the work both White Mark and their builder Oakwood have carried out on Audio Suites 8 and 9. Both rooms are equipped with new Fairlight EVO workstations and Genelec monitoring and have Nuendo sound design capability. As with our existing suites, these new rooms are linked to a central server giving them instant access to a sound library with over 500,000 sound effects.”
Wave’s relationship with White Mark goes back many years – the company designed and installed Wave’s very first audio studios when the facility opened in 1999.
“Having White Mark design our new rooms was a great chance to work with the team again,” Singh adds. “Apart from the ongoing relationship with Wave, I have know the White Mark for a number of years. When it comes to designing audio facilities, they have the experience and the knowledge. They are incredibly easy to deal with and answer any questions that arise very quickly and competently. We wanted first-rate audio suites and that is what they have delivered.”
David Bell, Managing Director of White Mark, adds: “It bears testament to our long view of facility planning that so many clients return to us when they consider further development. It is easy for designers to offer quick or cheap solutions but it has always been our aim to have long term relationships with those who trust us with their projects and it is very satisfying to find, over the years, how many reciprocate that feeling. We are very pleased to have been asked to become involved with this latest chapter in the successful development of Wave’s facilities and have enjoyed working again with everyone there, all of whom we have long regarded as friends.”
Both Audio Suites are now up and running and attracting work from Wave’s extensive client base, which includes many of the UK’s top advertising agencies and film makers.
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About White Mark:
Established in 1997 by David Bell, John Dunnill, Derek Buckingham and Alan Cundell, White Mark Ltd specialises in production facilities for music recording and the film and television industries. Over the last decade it has designed and supervised the construction of over 170 audio production suites worldwide. The company’s impressive client list encompasses some of the world’s most famous music recording facilities including Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in the UK, Hit Factory in New York (for which the company won a coveted TEC Award for Best Acoustic Design), Hit Factory/Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, Strongroom in London and private studios for producers and musicians such as William Orbit and Damon Albarn. In the area of audio post production, White Mark has completed over 100 studios for more than 40 companies in Soho alone. The list includes Grand Central, Hackenbacker, Envy, Scramble, Lipsync, Molinare, Ascent Media, Wave and Boom. This impressive achievement means that a significant proportion of mainstream British television output passes through rooms designed by White Mark.
