BATON ROUGE, LA: Motivated by ongoing growth and committed to providing their expanding market with innovative new products, in August 2012, PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. commissioned an $8+ million, 44,000-sq. ft. complex to be built in their home town of Baton Rouge, LA. Following almost two years of design and construction, the leading manufacturer of professional digital and analog audio hardware and integrated software officially opened its new high-tech headquarters and research facility In April 2014. Located at 19151 Highland Road, this state of the art facility includes R&D, testing and engineering departments, executive offices and, in an atypical move for a manufacturer of professional audio technology, a state-of-the-art recording studio.
Developed by Walters-Storyk Design Group the cutting edge, 2500 sq. ft. Recording Studio in features a 313 sq. ft. control room, 500 sq. ft. live room, two iso rooms (127SF & 60SF), a 127 SF Video Production Suit and five 100+ SF Test Labs, and, an additional 1500 sq. ft. live performance area. Fully isolated from the surrounding marketing, sales, business/meeting rooms, company cafÄ and support areas within the recently completed PreSonus Technology Headquarters building, the studio serves as the hub for R&D activity. And, as a special perk for PreSonus employees. WSDG Project Manager Joshua Morris reports that in addition to serving its primary purpose as a real world testing lab for PreSonus technology, the studio is available to PreSonus employees as a tool for honing their personal recording, performing and mixing projects (subject to availability).
“It is extremely rare to find a manufacturer prepared to invest in a full blown in-house Recording studio on this scale,” remarked WSDG co-principal/architect/ acoustician John Storyk. The thinking was it was vital that new PreSonus technology developments be subject to real world recording studio conditions. Rather than depending upon the availability of pro studios, the PreSonus R&D team can now benefit from access to a studio of their own. It enables their engineers to focus their energies on experimenting with new ideas, and to accomplish extensive tweaking in a controlled environment without concern for usurping valuable and energy from studio-owner friends.
“We love everything about our new building but our WSGD-designed recording studio and live room are special,” says PreSonus CEO Jim Mack. “We now have first-class audio production, R&D, and testing facilities that sound great and, are acoustically isolated so everyone is happy. WSGD worked hard to make these rooms truly excellent, and we’re delighted!”
“Studio owners love the opportunity to field test new devices,” Storyk adds. “But there is a double-edged sword aspect to sending out gear that hasn’t been fully vetted in real world conditions. This studio provides the PreSonus R&D team with a tremendous advantage over traditional ‘bench-testing. Scrupulously assessing their new developments in their own pro studio should go a long way towards eliminating bugs and wrinkles prior to field-testing. It brings a level of security that will enable early users to totally focus on the positive applications of these new tools,” Storyk concludes.
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Photo 1 WSDG-Designed PreSonus Live Room
Photo 2 WSDG-Designed PreSonus Control Room
Walters-Storyk Design Group has designed over 3500 media facilities worldwide. Credits include Jimi Hendrix’s 1969’s Electric Lady Studios; NYC’s Jazz At Lincoln Center and Le Poisson Rouge; broadcast facilities for The Food Network, ESPN, and WNET; major education complexes for NYU and Berklee College of Music Boston and Valencia, Spain; media rooms for Hoffman La Roche, and other corporate clients. Recent projects include NYC’s TEC award winner Jungle City Studios and private studios for Green Day, Jay-Z, Timbaland’s Tim Mosley, film composer Carter Burwell, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen and Alicia Keys. WSDG principals John Storyk (an adjunct professor at Berklee College), Beth Walters, Sergio Molho, Renato Cipriano, Silvia Molho and Dirk Noy lecture frequently at universities and industry events, and contribute regularly to industry publications. WSDG is an eight-time winner of the NAMM TEC Award for outstanding achievement in Acoustics/Facility Design. The firm maintains offices in NY, SF, LA, Miami, Buenos Aires, Belo Horizonte, Basel, Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, St. Petersburg and Mumbai.
