Getting a Studio Ready for Winter: Room Sound in the Coming Months

Mid autumn is when most live teams return to a full schedule, and it is also when the room starts to behave differently. Windows stay shut, heating comes on, and the building settles into a different pattern of noise. A studio that sounded acceptable in August can suddenly show a hiss, a rumble or a ring that nobody noticed with the doors propped open.

I have walked into many rooms at this point of the year and heard the same thing: a faint tone from air handling, a dull thud from pipes warming up, and a brightness in the voices because the extra soft furnishings of summer have been packed away. None of these is dramatic on its own. Together they push presenters to raise their voices and make editors reach for noise reduction they would rather not use.

The advice below is for the coming months only: what to listen for, what to measure and what to fix first, while there is still time before the busiest weeks of the schedule.

Start with your ears, at the quietest time of day. Switch off the equipment you can, close the doors, and stand where the presenter sits. Count slowly for a minute and note every sound that is not you: ventilation, fridges, lighting transformers, traffic, footsteps in the corridor above. Then clap once, sharply, and listen to how long the sound hangs. A tail that lingers means the surfaces are reflecting too much.

Do this at the position of each microphone, not only in the middle of the floor. Corners and spots near hard walls often sound quite different from the desk. Write down what you hear against a simple plan of the room. That plan becomes the brief for any treatment, and it stops anyone from buying panels that do nothing for the real problem.

Repeat the exercise once the heating has been running for a week, because the building often changes character after it has warmed through.

• Check at the quietest time of day
• Clap once and note how long the tail hangs
• Listen at each microphone position
• Mark every noise source on a room plan

The most common winter complaint is steady low-level noise from air movement. Ducts that are fine at low speed can whistle when the heating pushes more air through, and a grille that was silent in summer may now carry a tone straight into the presenter's microphone. Before you consider panels, check whether the system can run slower, or be switched off during transmission with a sensible period of fresh air beforehand.

Pipes and radiators tick and knock as they warm, usually in the early part of the day, which is exactly when many news teams rehearse. Ask whoever looks after the building whether the heating can come on earlier so the noise is over before anyone is on air.

Where the noise cannot be stopped at source, it can often be reduced between source and microphone. A soft barrier, a sealed gap under a door or a repositioned microphone sometimes does more than any amount of wall treatment.

Once you have listened, put a number on it. A basic measurement of background level and of how long sound takes to fade gives you something to compare against after any change. Without it, every improvement is a matter of opinion, and opinions differ between the director, the presenter and the person in the gallery.

I measure at several positions and at two or three times of day, because a studio near a road behaves differently at rush hour. The results show whether the problem is steady noise, a ringing room or both, and that decides where the money should go. Steady noise needs sources dealt with. A ringing room needs absorption, placed where the reflections actually happen rather than spread evenly because it looks tidy.

Keep the readings with the room plan. When a new presenter arrives or the set changes, you can check quickly whether anything has drifted.

• Record background level at each position
• Measure how long sound takes to fade
• Take readings at different times of day
• Store results beside the room plan

Most studios do not need a rebuild. They need absorption in a few well-chosen places: the wall behind the camera, the surface opposite the presenter, and the corners where low sound gathers. Heavy curtains, thick panels and even a well-filled bookcase on the set can make a measurable difference when they are placed with a reason.

Be careful with thin foam. It soaks up the brightness of a voice but does little for the muddy lower range, and the result can sound dull and boxy rather than clean. Panels with real depth, or a gap behind them, work across more of the range and look better on camera if they are covered in a fabric that suits the set.

Treat in stages. Fit the most important surface first, measure again, and only then decide whether more is needed. It is cheaper and it avoids over-deadening a room that presenters then find lifeless to speak in.

If you only have time for a handful of jobs before the busy weeks arrive, choose the ones that cost little and reveal most. Listen at a quiet hour, mark the noise sources, check the heating and ventilation at working speed, and take one set of measurements to keep.

Then fix the cheapest problems first: a sealed door, a repositioned microphone, a rattling fitting, a rug on a hard floor. These are small jobs, but together they often remove the worst of what viewers and guests would otherwise notice.

Leave larger treatment for a planned period when the studio is free, so that panels are fitted properly and tested before the next live programme rather than during it.

• Listen and mark sources at a quiet hour
• Check ventilation at its winter speed
• Fix cheap leaks and rattles first
• Plan larger treatment for a free period