A new 1,000 m² post-production studio has been born in Rome, created in secret in the bustling industrial hub of the Italian capital. Florence-based Studio Sound Service was the company in charge of design and installation, while Andy Munro handled the acoustic consulting for the facility, and Genelec was the final choice for monitoring.
It wasn't the first time 3Cycle (the company that owns the studios) had used dubbing studios near Rome. However, driven by growing demand in recent years and by the support of its clients, the company decided to take the plunge and create its own space. Although dubbing would remain at the core of its business, the company decided to take advantage of this big change to base its activity on something much bigger: the post-production industry.
The new facility now has seven ADR dubbing rooms, two 5.1 quality control rooms, two home entertainment rooms equipped with Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and a theatrical room also featuring Dolby Atmos technology
The design was the work of the Studio Sound Service team, made up of Donato Masci, Cecilia Torracchi and Giulia Bondielli, who collaborated on Munro's acoustic considerations. "We've already designed many studios together and we can say we've created our own installation and design standard. We already have a lot of support from the industry," says Donato Masci of Studio Sound Service. "3Cycle wanted to have international reach, and that's why Andy is on our team."
"The 3Cycle studios have been designed and built with the latest acoustic technology in mind. We chose to give the recording rooms a neutral acoustic, reducing as much as possible the interference of any kind of sound or noise that could negatively affect the mix. The approach for the control and mixing rooms was slightly different, basically so we could adapt to Dolby working environments."
As part of an exquisite acoustic scheme, Genelec's Smart Active Monitors came into play. The seven ADR rooms feature 8330 monitors for left and right and an 8340 for the center channel. The quality control rooms, in turn, were fitted with 8340 monitors and a 7380 subwoofer for the 5.1 setup. Finally, the two Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment rooms feature several in-wall S360 monitors for left, center and right, 8340s for the surround and overhead sound, and a 7382 subwoofer for low-frequency reproduction.
"Choosing Genelec monitors for 3Cycle was easy given their prestige in the world of international post-production," says Masci, recalling the reasons they opted for the Finnish company. "In addition, the GLM loudspeaker management software is perfect for calibration, although the rooms already sound wonderful on their own
With Munro's help and advice, the team managed to create rooms that are fully floating and mechanically decoupled from the structure. "All the recording rooms have been acoustically isolated using floating structures, so that one room sits inside another, but always keeping vibrations and noise separate from each other. We have also made sure to isolate the rooms to prevent interference, as well as to improve control over the recordings."
All in all, Masci is very pleased with the final result. "The design of the new post-production studio in Rome has been the biggest project we've done to date. From the start, 3Cycle's partners, Marco Guadagno and Laura Ciafaloni, as well as its technology director, Simone Nobili, believed in us, so we committed ourselves to not letting them down. We had our critical moments during the installation and commissioning phase, mainly due to the tight deadlines, but 3Cycle always showed us their sincere empathy and satisfaction."
