Studio Focus: Black Pearl Studios
18 June 2013
Yury Kogan was a partner in Melbourne’s Salt Studios until about two years ago. He’d been hunting around for a factory to build a new studio, one big enough to achieve the acoustic he desired and hold what is probably Australia’s largest studio collection of microphones and instruments. And he found it, in Moorabbin.
Yury’s been an engineer for years, originally learning the trade from an American in Vienna before there were audio schools or any other means of educating yourself on the finer points of mic placement and mixing.
Black Pearl Studios hold two main studios, with separate control and live rooms. Studio A is based around a 5m-long SSL 4000 E series console with a G+ computer. The live space is about 110sqm, with 5m-ceilings. Studio B is slightly smaller at 97sqm, and is home to a hybrid Tonelux/API console. The size of the studios was the most critical factor for Yury.
Yury: “My philosophy is that you cannot get good sounds in a confined space. Led Zeppelin’s sound was based on large rooms, The Beatles were the same. You need the space and right acoustics to do most things. You can create micro-acoustics for particular instruments, but you cannot go the other way if you’re in a tiny room.”
He enlisted a handful of people to help him with the design, the most helpful being an acoustician from Belgium.
Yury: “There are no straight walls, no standing waves. The wood panelling on the walls sits on acoustic rubber that allows the panelling to move and absorb a little. Behind that is more standard construction with Fyrchek plaster, and insulation.
“We have absorption built into some of the walls up to 1.2m, though the opposite wall will typically be live. The rooms are pretty balanced, especially the smaller room, which is great for jazz and classical. And of course we have gobos with different backings, say tiles, to give different feels.”
Black Pearl’s incredible collection of gear follows the bigger is better mindset. Not just the beautiful and large collection of high-end outboard gear, of which there’s a lot, but the instruments and microphones. Here’s some numbers. 350 microphones, 120 guitars (all-upmarket and custom shop), 130 amplifiers, 450 guitar pedals, nine drum kits, 40 snares, two grand pianos including a Yamaha C7 Concert grand, over 30 synths, electric pianos and organs including a Hammond B3, a big collection of cymbals, oh and you can either use Radar, Lynx and Apogee converters synced by an Antelope clock or glorious 24-track analogue tape.
Best of all, it’s all-inclusive. You can use any mic, instrument, amp you want for the day rate of $550, no extra charges.
“We wanted to do something that no one in this country does,” said Yury. “We have the biggest inventory of instruments, one of the best in the world I would say, a huge collection of quality analogue tools, and the way we run the business is about giving everyone the full value for their money.
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