Geo Hohn at Abbey Road Studios (Photo credit: Ben Ludik)
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Audio composition and production guru Geo Hohn shares his insights on what makes the perfect audio studio...
With a proven track record in post-production supervision, film-scorer Geo Hohn is very precise about the studios he executes his tasks in.
I came from a classical music background and my natural talent leans toward film scoring, which involves composition, arranging, orchestration and sound engineering, says Hohn.
It is very important to differentiate between a recording/mixing facility or a music production room/studio and a music mastering room/facility. They all have different specifications.
Exploring Various Production Set-Ups
According to Hohn, audio production studios vary according to the intention of the project and what it requires. They vary from recording and mixing facilities, to music production rooms, to music mastering facilities, as well as sound studios or dub stages (which are used by film scorers when producing for film).
He points out that although they may tend to look the same, technology plays a major role in separating one facility from the next.
These studios are usually designed according to specifications set out by technology leaders like Dolby or Auro3D. They include formats from stereo through the standard surround formats like 5.1 and 7.2, on to immersive surround formats which are gaining ground, enthuses Hohn.
The most common type of studio is for music production and recording. If the budget is not an issue, the ideal average-sized studio would include a facility built from the ground up specifically for this reason.
The building in which the recording facility is set up has a direct impact on the quality of the sound generated on the premises. Hohn believes that all facilities should be set up in rooms with independent foundations: To get the best sound balance for referencing or recording in the room, the room should be sound insulated so that sound from adjacent rooms does not bleed' sound into other rooms.
Technical Set Up
Hohn says that for fully textured sound it is advisable to employ a studio mixing console, preferably a SSL or Neve for analogue, and an Avid S6 for DAW control. Add a monitoring system, ideally a Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus Far/Mid field monitors and Sonodyne Nearfields.
AD/Converters are important: Prism Sound Orpheus and also an SSL alpha link via MADI should do the trick. For an external clock, the engineer can add an Antilope Audio Atomic Clock or Aardvark TimeSync II and Sync DALocks to LTC, VITC, MTC, video, word clock 256x and AES/EBU.
For great-quality cabling, Hohn prefers anything made by Mogami. For consistently-performing pre amps, he prefers Universal Audio 610 or the Neve 1073, and when it comes to recording software, Hohn relies on Pro-Tools Ultimate and Nuendo 10 for composing.
For great-quality vocals, I prefer condenser mics - such as a Neumann U87 & TL-102, or Sterling Audio ST55. For ribbon microphones, go with Royer R121 or Coles Electroacoustics 4038, says Hohn.
In the terms of what would constitute the ultimate recording room, that totally depends on the size and type of recordings. This can vary for a recording booth for simple voice-overs or ADR to a massive stage/hall for recording a full 140-piece orchestra.
Innovations in Music Production
Music often only constitutes five percent of a film, but it has an undeniable ability to mould the feel of the entire picture even at different points of the narrative.
Hohn points out that a lot of music that is produced in this current era is produced in a box': You can feel a distinct difference. Most people cannot tell you why, but I get comments like warmer, fuller, richer when talking about music recorded in days gone by.
In earlier days, especially the 90's, it was very difficult and expensive to build a recording studio. Most of the music that was created electronically was made on analogue synthesisers interlinked with studio hardware and drum machines like the Roland TR 808, he adds.
Hohn goes on to explain that in those days, recording was mostly done on a multi-track tape machine and the need to do the editing on a computer was very minimal. It was not surprising for writers who wrote for an orchestra to use the traditional paper and pen method with an added boost from a piano.
Although there are mixed reviews about the introduction of technologies such as artificial intelligence in music production, Hohn remains optimistic about this development.
The technology is not quite there yet. We also believe that artificial intelligence will assist us in the future to do better work. So we view it as something positive, not as a threat.
Top 10 tools in Geo Hohn's Audio Toolbox:
Avid Pro Tools
Arturia V Collection
Celemony Melodyne
Sonodyne SRP500 - Active Speakers
Roland A-88 - 88 keys fully weighted MIDI keyboard controller
Roland Electronic Drum Kit
Neve Genysis Console - 64 Channel
AVID 192 I/O - AD/DA Converter
UAD Satellite OCTO - DSP Accelerator
Tanoy Gold - Passive Speakers (Powered by 2x Mono Blocks)
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Pinterest
-- --
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...
20/11/2025
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. Streaming technology and services provider Kiswe has launched Kiswe Core, a next-generation cloud-based platform designed to simplify the s...
20/11/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Dolby Laboratories has signed on as an official signature partner of the Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC) for the 2026 Super Bowl and the we...
20/11/2025
STUTTGART, Germany 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) has announced that the Canadian multiservice operator Telus has launched its Telus TV+ entertainment platform on Sam...
20/11/2025
Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive rightsholder of MLB.TV, see regula...
20/11/2025
Berklee Presents Holiday Extravaganza: Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite and ...
20/11/2025
The How To Gael pocast gals, comedian Chris Kent and quizzer Darragh Ennis drop by for the fifth episode of The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In
In the penultimat...
20/11/2025
Tonight on RT Prime Time, Marie Crowe on how a Reading School changed her son&#...
20/11/2025
The NVIDIA Blackwell RTX upgrade is nearing the finish line, letting GeForce NOW Ultimate members across the globe experience true next-generation cloud gaming ...
20/11/2025
Tanya Berger-Wolf's first computational biology project started as a bet wit...
19/11/2025
Sphere Sound Kicks Up Its Heels at Radio City Music HallUltra-immersive system from the singular Las Vegas venue is also ready for sportsBy Dan Daley, Audio Edi...
19/11/2025
The Future of Stadium and Arena Video Control Rooms: Tech Leaders Talk 4K, IP, a...
19/11/2025
One Year at Intuit Dome: Walking Through the Stunning Arena's Advanced Video...
19/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: IMG's Francois Westcombe Goes Inside IMG's Annual Digital ...
19/11/2025
Inside Brighton & Hove Albion's fan-first media machine By George Bevir
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
Brighton & Hove Albion'...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 1: Kansas Athletics Brings New Production Power to Rebu...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 2: A Pro's Guide to Kansas Athletics' New Video...
19/11/2025
MLB Media Rights Shakeup: NBC Inks Three-Year Deal for Sunday Night Baseball, Pe...
19/11/2025
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade attends the premiere of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Pa...
19/11/2025
Awards season is heating up, and the International Documentary Association just ...
19/11/2025
Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by state and local officials to celebrate the groundbreaking o...
19/11/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
19/11/2025
Calrec gives Phoenix Broadcast Solutions its full support in strategic multi-year enterprise partnership New Singapore OB company invests in Calrec technology f...
19/11/2025
October brings a larger audience in front of TV screens. The cooler autumn weather and the continuation of new programming schedules brought increases in both t...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critic...
19/11/2025
NEVADA CITY, Calif. Telestream has introduced ARGUS Version 2.3, which introduces Live Look, a feature that lets operators inspect live and on-demand streams vi...
19/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter Communications, Inc. has announced a major deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that establishes AWS as one of Charters stra...
19/11/2025
TOKYO Atomos has announced a major firmware update that brings integrated camera control to the Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX its new CFexpress-based monitor-recor...
19/11/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Reimagines the Musical and Visual Artistry of Col...
19/11/2025
PlayBox Neo departed the NAB Show New York 2025 on a high note. The company's all-new PlayBox Neo Suite made a splash on the show floor, drawing strong inte...
19/11/2025
AAVBR (American Audio Visual Baton Rouge), a leading full-service event production company serving Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, has enhanced its product...
19/11/2025
In its mission to deliver live event services combining advanced engineering with a creative approach to captivating live sports and entertainment experiences, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Martin Freeman, Jessie Buckley, Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, Eddie the Eagle and ...
19/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz collaborates with Broadcom to enable testing and validation of n...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Innato, starring Imanol Arias and Elena Anaya, arrives on Netf...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Guillermo del Toro Sits Down With Troll 2 Director Roar Uthaug...
19/11/2025
Some projects feel monumental from the moment the first phone call comes in. When BCE, the host broadcaster appointed to coordinate the national coverage, asked...
Geo Hohn at Abbey Road Studios (Photo credit: Ben Ludik)
