Featured Projects and Industry Solutions

Creo Productions

Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Product Used: QuietRock 525

Creo Productions is a full-service video, audio, and creative production company that communicates positive messages to the world through new media. Their founders are passionate about combining new art forms—video, music, and motion design—to build a collaborative team of “new media storytellers for the 21st Century”. The company goes beyond traditional platforms like TV spots and DVDs to employ “malleable media” such as online video, podcasts, blogs, and social networks.

Location, location, location

When Creo Productions decided to expand their video production capabilities to include full audio services, they went looking for potential sound studio locations. “For businesses, location is pretty important. We found a great location on a busy street in the Heartside district of downtown Grand Rapids, an up-and-coming urban area that is experiencing an exciting renewal and revival, but it was in a basement and just around the corner from a fire station. When you were down there you could understand people’s conversations on the street and hear skateboarders going by. But we decided to go for it knowing if we could pull this off, it would be worth it for our business,” said Aaron Carriere, co-founder of Creo.

Carriere and Creo’s other founders researched the best noise reduction solution for their budget working with Hansen Marketing, the Serious Energy distributor for Michigan.“When we started trying to figure out the most cost effective way to reduce the noise, everyone seemed to have an opinion. We’re a small business and obviously there is going to be cost and an element of risk. Our experience with Hansen Marketing was really helpful. They visited our building twice and gave us really good advice,” said Carriere.

The Solution

Serious Energy's Quiet® products allow quiet in noisy, densely-populated urban areas, making it ideal for Creo’s location in Heartside. A single sheet of QuietRock sound damping drywall is equivalent, acoustically, to eight sheets of standard drywall. QuietRock-based assemblies provide the lowest total cost means of achieving noise reduction.

QuietRock has been the choice of top studio designers since 2003. In the recording studio business, the goal is to create near-perfect environments. A technically unsuccessful recording session can drive a studio out of business – from both an economic and reputation standpoint.

QuietRock 525 or 545 are ideal for professional recording studios and performance environments. Creo Productions installed QuietRock 525 on the interior walls and on the ceiling of their wood-stud basement studio, with QuietSeal and QuietPutty around the doors.

Results

According to Jerry Marquette, senior architectural representative from Hansen, “After the studio was in place, I went back to see and hear the finished product. The difference was amazing. In fact, they told me about a recording session where an emergency vehicle went by. The folks upstairs who heard it were worried that it impacted the session, but the people in studio were unaware. When they checked, it hadn’t been picked up in the recording.”

The benefits of Creo Productions’ sound studio with QuietRock include:

• Noise damping – When people enter the newly sound-damped room, they can hear the difference.
• Cost effective – Creo needed to transform the space in the most cost effective way possible. Because the product requires no special training and is easy to install, the founders could pitch in to keep labor costs down.
• Reduced construction time, and materials – Single-layer installation vs. multiple or other noise-reducing designs saved overall construction time and materials.
• Saved space – This was a renovation of a long, narrow, lean floor plan. Space is at a premium so they didn’t want to have a thicker wall.

Aaron Carriere, co-founder of Creo concluded, “We wanted an office with a lot of energy that helps the creative process thrive. With Serious Energy's Quiet products, the difference between rooms is easily recognized. Everybody who has come down to our space does a double take; especially those people who saw - and heard - it before.”

About Hansen Marketing Services

Hansen Marketing Services is a sales and marketing-driven distributor of wholesale building materials. Representing over 50 different specialty product lines, the company is centrally located in Walled Lake, Michigan to allow its fleet of trucks easy access to lumber dealers, home improvement retailers and commercial suppliers throughout Michigan and northwest Ohio.