Opened in March 2023 in Ashikaga City to the north of Tokyo, Tsukihana Sounds Studio is located in a former textile factory and features a 32-channel Solid State Logic Origin in-line analogue mixing console.
Against a setting in which high-quality textiles have been produced for more than 1,300 years, the facility design incorporates traditional Japanese construction materials, reflecting its location and ethos.
The city is one of the oldest in Japan, and is the hometown of studio owner Nozomi Kurihara, a businesswoman whose Jet Black Flowers company designs, builds and operates servers for the gaming industry. Kurihara studied composition theory and electronic music and is a multi-instrumentalist, and has established Tsukihana Sounds Studio to support her company’s growing music and sound production business.
Kurihara was introduced to the Origin console at Solid State Logic Japan by Kazuaki Yamada, manager of Cogre Musical Instruments, who handled her new studio’s system planning and equipment coordination. She did not originally intend to build a full-scale production facility but, struck by the sound quality and performance of the fully analogue console and by ORIGIN’s versatility and its ability to handle anything from recording to mixing, quickly began planning the studio.
The facility includes a 31 tatami mat (50sq-m) tracking room with two iso booths, for vocals and piano. In the 15 tatami mat (24sq-m) control room, the Origin is integrated into studio furniture custom-built by studio design and construction firm Acoustic Engineering, alongside by Genelec 1238A main monitors and PMC6-2 mid-field monitors.
Acoustic Engineering’s interior design makes extensive use of traditional Japanese materials chosen not only for their appearance but also for their acoustical properties. Oyaishi stone, which is mined in the region and was used in many Japanese buildings at the beginning of the 20th Century, has a signature acoustical quality that is both diffusive and absorptive and was used in the live room as well as the control room.
‘I’ve always liked Oya stone, and I've used it before, and it’s acoustically very distinctive,’ says Kenichiro Irimajiri from Acoustic Engineering. ‘I’ve used it on some of the walls in the control room and the recording room, but both have different surface treatments and thicknesses. In terms of acoustics, it has the effect of diffusing sound, but since it is a porous structure, it also has a certain level of sound absorption performance, and among stone materials, it has a soft sound.’
Overhead in the live room are seven beams and sound absorbing panels with mountain-shaped and valley-shaped slopes arranged alternately between them. This is Kurihara's desire to be able to record acoustic instruments such as strings and pipes. ‘Because we were concerned that the recording room would become too dead due to the extensive use of Japanese materials, we inserted a board into the ceiling fabric to create a reflective surface even after it was in operation,’ Irimajiri says.
Juaraku-Heki, a mud and straw wall material seen in old Japanese tearooms, is also used throughout the facility. Shoji screens made from a type of paper used in the interior doors of classical Japanese houses are another key design element.
A circular wall detail in the recording room resembles a moon floating in the sky, or a moon-viewing window in a temple. The inside of the window is lined with woven chair fabric and glass wool.
