White Mark Wins A Second TEC Award For Outstanding Creative Achievement

Acoustic and technical design company White Mark Ltd has won a Mix Foundation TEC Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement for its acoustic input into Red Bull Studios in California.
This is the second time the UK-based company has been honoured by the Mix Foundation - it won its first TEC Award in 2003 for Studio 6 at the Hit Factory New York.
What makes this achievement even more notable is that White Mark remains the only non-US acoustic design company to ever receive such an accolade in the 23-year history of these awards.
White Mark was one of three nominees honoured by the Mix Foundation. It shares the award with Red Bull and designer Troy Germano, who was responsible for creating the new studio facility.
Established in 1997 by David Bell, John Dunnill, Derek Buckingham and Alan Cundell, White Mark Ltd specialises in production facilities for music recording and the film and television industries. Over the last decade it has designed and supervised the construction of over 170 audio production suites worldwide, including over 100 audio post control rooms in London's Soho alone.
David Bell, White Mark's Managing Director, said: "We are naturally delighted to have been chosen for this award. Red Bull Studios was a very prestigious project to be involved with and the acoustic requirements were rigorous. In terms of design we needed to incorporate Red Bull's unique branding, which we did by picking up the brand's main colour scheme of blue and silver for the walls and using the logo colours of red and gold as accents. The recording console and producer's desk also reflected the branding by incorporating the Red Bull logo and colour scheme. The overall effect is really stunning - and it sounds as good as it looks."
Based in Santa Monica, Red Bull Studios is located within the 100,000-square foot US headquarters of Red Bull North America. Its construction was project-managed by Greg Hammer, a veteran label exec and now head of music at Red Bull. The physical design was carried out by former Hit Factory owner Troy Germano, who now runs the Studio Design Group, New York, in conjunction with David Bell and the White Mark team.
Germano said: "I have known David since 1987 when we set up Hit Factory London, which my father and I ran as a joint venture with CBS UK. David was heavily involved in that project and when he subsequently formed White Mark with partners Derek Buckingham and Alan Cundell, we worked together again on Studios 6 and 7 in New York, as well as the entire facility at the Hit Factory Criteria in Miami. Red Bull is very reminiscent of Studio 6, which also won a Tec award, in that it features a control room and three booths surrounding a live room, all of which sound fantastic thanks to the acoustic treatment David and his team installed."
Red Bull's studio is equipped with a 48-channel SSL K Series console in custom Red Bull colours; a Digidesign Icon D-Command, Exigy monitoring and a selection of outboard gear including some rare vintage pieces. The studio has already hosted 'The Cab', 'Forever The Sickest Kids', 'The Human Abstract', 'All Time Low', 'Bayside', 'Lovedrug', Thrice' 'Valencia' and 'Young Buck' for various tracking and or mixing sessions.
(KMcA)