Bold moves

Bold Dorjsuren displayed a prolific musical talent at a young age. In 1986, by the time he was eight years old, he was enrolled in the Mongolian Music and Dance College, studying violin and piano before graduating as a professional violinist in 1998. He’d already found fame three years earlier together with three classmates as Mongolian boy band, Camerton, who continued until 2004, releasing 10 albums and EPs. Bold launched his solo career the following year and in 2006 he founded the B Production record label. Alongside this he studied at the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture, produced the #Volume-1 and #Volume-2 projects to support new young artists, released 12 solo albums of new material and a compilation, The Best of Bold, been on eight tours of Asia and Europe and appeared as a judge on the Voice of Mongolia for three seasons. So it should come as no surprise to learn that Bold’s latest project has been to construct the first international-standard recording studio in Mongolia, 440Hz Records, completed in late 2022.

“I founded B Production to create the first comprehensive record label in Mongolia, discovering new artists and organising concerts, events and productions,” says Bold. “Then, as part of our 16th anniversary, we opened our first all-inclusive studio, hired some foreign talent to help us out and opened 440Hz Records to improve the musical quality of Mongolian rock and pop and give it world recognition.”

Bold goes on to explain that the goal of B Production has always been to educate young artists: “The most pressing issues are production, management and financial issues. The recording must start with quality from the very beginning. Having worked as a judge [on The Voice of Mongolia] for three seasons, I’m focused on bringing young people from our team into production and discovering new artists.”

Another angle that 440Hz Records is keen to exploit is the film industry, with Mongolia recently passing legislation to grant tax rebates to foreign filmmakers. “Mongolia is such a suitable environment for photography, with beautiful nature and vast plains,” he continues. “We can provide all postproduction services, including Dolby 5.1. People who want to shoot foreign and Mongolian films can carry out postproduction in accordance with international standards, Mongolian filmmakers can use our studio for their soundtracks and artists – both international and local – can come and record their music. We are a one-stop shop.”

This is the country’s first international-standard studio; previously, recording facilities have been unable to handle large-scale orchestras and choirs, surround sound work and larger productions. Aside from the major Studio A and two smaller studios, 440Hz offers facilities for composing, teaching and dance. As this is such a major undertaking, it’s no surprise to learn that it’s been in the pipeline for some time. “We were first contacted by Bold and 440Hz in May 2015,” recalls Wes Lachot, president and designer at US-based Wes Lachot Design Group (WLDG). “They were in the middle of building the studio, had completed the live room and were in the process of building the control room. However, they weren’t happy with the acoustics or noise isolation in the completed live room, and felt they wanted a fresh approach to the control room design, so I agreed to fly to Mongolia to check out the situation.”

On arrival, Lachot confirmed that the live room as it stood was problematic and advised that construction of the control room should be paused. All parties agreed that both rooms needed to be rebuilt from scratch to achieve optimum isolation and interior acoustics. The control room should be as acoustically accurate as possible and have surround mixing capability, while the live room needed the versatility to handle everything from traditional Mongolian instruments to modern pop, rock and hip-hop music.

“The studio was having issues with road noise infiltration due to its urban location,” Lachot explains. “In order to achieve adequate isolation, it was necessary to strip the building down to the bare steel skeleton and rebuild it, so that the ceiling and walls were floating from the rest of the building and the outer walls reinforced. It was quite a job to demolish the entire floor and start over but, to the 440Hz folks’ credit, they went ahead and did it, because they wanted it right.”

Studio A’s 90m² live room has 3.5m-high ceilings and adjustable absorptive and diffusive wall treatments. “We designed the live room so that all four walls can be changed from acoustically dead and absorptive to very live and diffusive,” explains Lachot. “This makes the room easily adaptable to different types of musical instruments and situations. It’s something we do in many of our high-end rooms, but this is the first live room where we’ve done all four walls this way, so the room is about as musically versatile as you can get.”

Overhead, an acoustic cloud acts as a diffuser, increasing the perceived height of the ceiling. The room has been designed to create the best possible acoustic conditions for drums as well as for the studio’s Kawai baby grand piano. Hear Back Octo eight-channel personal mixers provide monitoring for up to 40 musicians, while a range of instrumental and vocal microphones from DPA, Neumann, AKG, Shure, Sennheiser, Audix, Flea, Burdukov and Line Audio Design are also supplied. The traditional window from the control room has been replaced with bidirectional cameras and monitors which allow engineers to communicate with artists with no latency issues.

Lachot designed Studio A’s control room as a Reflection-Free Zone mixing environment, featuring pivoting diffusor panels with live and absorptive faces on all four walls, allowing control over the acoustic qualities of the room, combined with a hexagonal cloud and soffits overhead. These features work together to create a flexible and adaptable space for different artists and instruments. The control room has been designed with a wide, deep sweet spot extending back to the client couch. This has been achieved by means of the side wall diffsorber trapping which compliments the RPG Diffractal diffusor array on the rear wall. The acoustic treatments were designed by Lachot to create a neutral monitoring environment and natural ambiance.

Bold’s relationship with Quested also dates back to 2015, when two of his mix engineers visited the UK. Roger Quested and Ollie Shortland set up a system in the Devon factory based on room plans they’d been sent, and the engineers were satisfied that Questeds were the right choice for the new studio. Monitors for Studio A were shipped later that year, with further models for Studios B and C following in 2016. After the rebuild of Studio A had been completed, a new 5.1 setup was specified consisting of LCR Quested VH3208 passive three-way monitors with H108s as surrounds and two X18 18-inch subwoofers. Quested AP750-2 amplifiers are used in bridged mode on the VH3208 and another on the surrounds, with an SBC800 handling bass management.

Central to Studio A’s control room is an SSL Duality delta 48-channel hybrid mixing console alongside DAWs running Pro Tools Ultimate, Logic Pro X and PreSonus Studio One 6 Pro, with a Burl Audio B80 Mothership providing 32 channels of AD/DA convertors. Outboard equipment includes an API 2500+ stereo compressor, a Manley Massive Passive EQ, a Tegeler Audio Creme RC EQ/compressor, a TC Electronics M6000 processor and Universal Audio Apollo and Antelope Orion 32+ audio interfaces.

Studio B, a writing room, has a pair of Quested V3110 self-powered midfield monitors orientated in horizontal mode, while a further 5.1 system of V2108s and an X12 subwoofer has been deployed in Studio C.

In September 2022, Shortland flew to Mongolia to carry out tuning and attend the official opening ceremony. “I spent a day with Bold and [mix engineer] Nyam setting up the system and ensuring its performance was as it should be,” he says. “WLDG’s designs worked in perfect synergy with the Quested systems. As is often the case, when the room is right, the tuning process flows well and feels natural. My overall impressions of 440Hz Studios and B Production are of pride and amazement at the work they’ve put in to making the facility the top studio in Mongolia. Bold thinks big and that attitude is on show throughout his work.”

Underlining the significance of the studio to the country, dignitaries at the opening ceremony included the Mongolian minister of culture and the British Ambassador. As the VIPs were taken on tours of the studio, Lachot and Shortland conducted several interviews with the local press.

“Certificates were presented, speeches were made and much fun was had!” recalls Shortland.

Bold is expecting 2023 to be a busy year for film projects and sessions with local musicians at 440Hz. “We’ve all gone through the difficult times of the Covid pandemic and its curfews and restrictions, and we are delighted to be the first to open a studio in Mongolia that meets international standards,” he says. Doubtless, this is a sentiment that will be echoed by the country’s local music industry as well as filmmakers looking to set their next project in this film-friendly location.