Rue Boyer is the flagship recording studio of Mix with the Masters – a global leader in music production education. Built within a two-story building in the residential inner ring of Paris, the studio is a multi-purpose production hub designed to serve MTWM’s international community of award-winning producers, engineers, and artists as well as their workshop attendees.
Rue Boyer was designed by WSDG (Walters-Storyk Design Group) based on MWTM’s exacting specifications for acoustic excellence across the entire complex, and their need to establish technological and ergonomic flexibility between rooms to allow for multiple configurations for both educational and recording requirements.
Studio A
Studio A is 48m2 / 517 SF and serves as the primary teaching area and control room. In its control room configuration, the studio seats up to twenty attendees with excellent listening positions anywhere within the CR and is also set up for Dolby Atmos production and video projection. The main stereo monitoring for the control room is Symphonic Acoustics Dual 15V monitors with custom-designed 18” subwoofers. WSDG designed a modal system using three additional subwoofers at ceiling height to smoothen out the modal response of the room allowing for a high sonic uniformity to the entire control room.
Studio A more than meets the eye and ear, however, as it can be converted into a live room by way of a custom-designed motorized platform that can lower the studio’s vintage 48-channel E-Series SSL 4000 console into a vault beneath the floor.
Studio B
Studio B is 19.5m2 / 204 SF and is designed to serve as a video editing suite as well as an alternate control room for Studio A when in live room configuration. One of the challenges in Studio B was the limited ceiling height given by the existing levels above. To achieve a superb sonic quality, a combination of porous and membrane absorbers was used at the ceiling and the upper wall areas. Both studios share access to a 15m2 drum room, a pair of ISO booths, and Rue Boyer’s glass-lined lounge.
Industry Tested and Approved
“Got the honor to work at Rue Boyer just as it was opening. Wrote and recorded some of my favorite things of all time looking out that big window amongst all the wood and light. It’s a dream studio in what has become my favorite part of Paris.”
Jack Antonoff [Grammy-winning Artist, Engineer, Producer]
L to R – PK Pandey, WSDG Founder John Storyk, MWTM Maxime Le Guil, WSDG Partner Dirk Noy
“We’ve been extremely pleased with the way WSDG seamlessly integrated our ideas into our new studio. Their work moved swiftly, and our experience with WSDG has been positive from day one. We’re confident that our new facility and MwtM’s educational format will introduce many opportunities to exchange world-class production concepts and encourage collaborative experience-sharing.”
Maxime Le Guil & Victor Lévy-Lasne [MWTM]
Innovative Design Techniques and Tools
The console lift presents its own set of acoustical challenges that in fact ended up being an advantage. The vault – empty when the lift is in the ‘up’ position – hence serves as a Helmholtz resonator cavity, activated by the perforated lid where the mixing console sits upon. In the down position, the cavity is no longer empty as the mixing console fills it pretty much up, so it can no longer be activated as a low frequency absorber – which is no longer needed either as the room is now mainly a live room and performance space where it is desirable to have some more low frequency energy anyway which is exactly what happens.
Rue Boyer presented some unique design challenges in terms of acoustics and low frequency management due to being built within a pre-existing space. The WSDG design team collaborated with REDIacoustics and utilized their next-generation AI-driven NIRO™ (Non-Cuboid Iterative Room Optimizer) software to devise an innovative solution utilizing five strategically placed subwoofers to flatten the low frequency response and ensure pristine bass reproduction in all seating areas.
