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Welcome to Catalyst Conversations, the podcast that brings you real world stories and solutions
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from a wide variety of acoustic experts.
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Each episode, we'll dive into a different topic from the world of acoustics, such as
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architectural and industrial noise control, seismic and vibration restraint, acoustical
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testing, or innovative design and engineering of sound control products.
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Our experts have decades of experience in this space and are eager to share their expertise
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with you.
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Join us in making the world a quieter place.
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Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Catalyst Conversations.
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Today's topic is focused on a music practice rooms project involving IAC Acoustics and
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QuietStar Industries at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
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The discussion will be led by Rodrigo Musquez from IAC and Steve Dutton from QuietStar.
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IAC Acoustics is a leader in noise control offering acoustic metal solutions for industrial,
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architectural, HVAC, and medical applications and is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary
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in business.
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QuietStar is the Northeast leading provider in turnkey noise control solutions in both
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industrial and architectural sectors and includes offerings with state-of-the-art noise reducing
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rooms, doors, windows, barriers, enclosures, and air moving attenuators.
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And now let's get started with today's conversation.
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My name is Rodrigo Musquez and I'm excited to introduce you to today's podcast where
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I am joined by Steve Dutton of QuietStar Industries.
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For a quick background, I'm starting on year four with the company.
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First couple of years I led the manufacturing facility in the North Aurora facility in Illinois.
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Since last year, I transitioned to the commercial side of the business.
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Currently I'm at the architectural enclosures sales manager at IAC which includes recording
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studios, music practice rooms, audiology booths, among others.
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And Steve, I'll pass it over to you to share a little information about yourself.
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Oh, great.
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Thank you, Rodrigo.
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Again, my name is Steve Dutton.
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In 2006, I started with a partner QuietStar Industries which was a rep firm specifically
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designed to represent the IAC products.
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Before then, all the way back to 1993, I've been in the industry more on the manufacturing
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end and working with the Berklee College of Music from both sides of the equation in terms
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of QuietStar Industries and even earlier when I was in manufacturing.
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So I know the Berklee College of Music folks very well and been doing this for a long time.
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Was a partner in the QuietStar Industries up until last year which I ended up going into
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a more consulting role and I've been doing that ever since.
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So thank you, Steve.
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Let's start with some details about this project specifically at Berklee College of Music.
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What was the issue that was presented to you or how was it presented?
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Well the Berklee College of Music is in, it's really downtown Boston which as an aside is
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where I grew up, my hometown.
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But it's a really old historic district.
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Fenway Park is right around the corner and that was built in 1912.
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The finish line for the Boston Marathon is right on Boylston Street right across from
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actually a church called the Old South Church that I'm actually grew up as a member of and
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that was established in 1669.
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So it's a very, very old part of the country.
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And so the Berklee College of Music is right in the center of this vibrant historic area
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and while that's all really well and good, it makes for some challenges in terms of having
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modern amenities especially if you're in this case a school of music and you expect certain
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things.
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You can't just have a hundred year old building and have it be kind of, it's cute that it's
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historic but it also has to be modern and it has to be efficient for the students.
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So they had a bunch of practice rooms that were over 40 years old and they were in the
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basement of several buildings and Berklee like many schools that are in metropolitan
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area kind of buys up buildings as they need them but they're old and this one old building
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was an old bank and it was in the basement and they had these practice rooms that were
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after 40 years of students being in and out of them, they were pretty decrepit.
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So they wanted to clean that area up and so they came to us and they were saying what
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can we do and what have you.
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And so we kind of put together kind of an idea of what was possible and then we just
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moved forward from there.
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Some of the challenges that we had on the project again and I kind of alluded to it
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was look it's not only a hundred year old building but access to it is having trouble
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as well.
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So thank you Steve, what were some of the unique challenges that were faced with this
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project and what were the expected timelines?
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I guess probably the biggest challenge and again I alluded to how old these buildings
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are and even the deepest darkest basement can be cleaned up but getting in to the building
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itself was probably the most difficult thing without elevators and stairways that were
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very limited in their size and their access.
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So we ended up doing a lot of small deliveries that were bite size and that was one of the
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challenges that we faced.
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Another challenge is trying to reconfigure a space and maximize the use without being
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able to see it empty and open.
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I mean they weren't going to tear down the practice center or the area before we could
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design our room.
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So we had to design with some flexibility in mind.
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And so getting access, going in bite size deliveries where the guys might spend two
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hours every morning bringing in the panels for rooms as opposed to trying to bring in
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all of them at once and having nowhere to put them.
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And then in order to meet the challenge of not really knowing what the space was going
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to be like we actually used some common size panels where the rooms could be shrunken or
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grown on site if an obstacle came in the way.
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Like again a hundred year old building doesn't have blueprints and if we get behind this
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area and oh my goodness there's a sewer pipe that we can't move or there's something like
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that.
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So we did a lot of work ahead of time to make sure that A. we had a good plan but B. that
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we had flexibility in that plan.
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And a lot of times most modular manufacturers they get a size, they want to use it and if
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it doesn't fit you're kind of out of luck.
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Well here we had an ability where our size had some flexibility and it worked out really
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well.
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It's interesting to hear all those challenges because most of the times are the things the
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projects that I've been involved with.
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It's typically an open space, first or second floor and there's not a lot of barriers to
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entry.
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It seems like in this one there was a lot of thought process put into place when designing
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and trying to determine how long are your timeline for the project itself.
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Yeah, no you're absolutely right Rodrigo and I mean there's all these little unforeseen
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things like our installers they put up cones on the sidewalk so that they could get in
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and out of the truck but the students have a reputation of not thinking that the cones
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apply to them and so they're walking across your path anyway.
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It's always an adventure but it's also really rewarding when you have a project work out
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as well as this one did.
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Yeah I think we take it for granted spending time on the construction side that everybody
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knows and follows the same rules and students not knowing exactly where to go through.
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So if we focus on the solution to address this problem how did this project come all
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together and what kind of products were utilized in the making of it?
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Well this was one of the projects where first of all we probably spent more time pre-order
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on site figuring out all these little details than we normally would but that's kind of
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our job and it's a secret to success.
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So we used the IEC Accutone II panel.
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It's a great panel for the music practice room.
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It has a good TL rating, it has an STC I believe of 53 and you have to check me on that Rodrigo
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but it also has an NRC of 0.8 so it's got some absorption and the resulting practice
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room with all Accutone II panels has a beautiful combination of being bright enough so that
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the music students can hear a reflection in their ear because no student wants to hear
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it be in a completely dead room because they want to hear what they're practicing but it
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also has enough absorption so that the overall NIC of the room the transmission from room
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to the corridor is a high one.
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So we used the Accutone II panel that was the obvious choice and the second thing that
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we did was we designed all the rooms that fit into common size panels so all our panels
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were interchangeable if you're working if there's 14 rooms and you're working on room
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one that it has a combination of panels that would also fit on room 14 and that was really
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key as far as the logistics because we've tried in the past to kind of have IC crate
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things alright crate number one should have these panels crate number two should have
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these panels but it's really hard to deliver those things and coordinate them so by having
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interchangeable panels you know we could say all right deliver 10 15 inch panels 5 30 inch
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panels and and what have you and it didn't matter where those you know those panels didn't
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could go to room 14 they could go to room 7 they could go to room 1 so making the panels
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likey likey sizes really helped both in the delivery and it gave the crew the opportunity
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to you know be flexible in their scheduling I mentioned I'm sorry with their assembly
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which I mentioned earlier and we did run into there was one particular case where we were
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trying to expand a room that they had existing to be a little deeper and but when they tore
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it down there was some pipes that were in our way and and we couldn't make it deeper
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so instead we just deleted the panels that would have extended it and they ended up having
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the same size room that they had before but had we built it to be this other size with
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no flexibility then then we would have had some do some field modifications and nobody
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likes to do that especially the the user who who feels that they pay for factory products
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so those were some of the challenges that that we faced I think that one of the things
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that really helped in this case was we had a customer who facilities manager for berkeley
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college of music who I worked with directly was also an architect and he you know he had
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the understanding of the needs for example the multiple deliveries because it's just
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like you can't do a lot there I think it's pretty smart on your end you know to kind
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of configure it that way because I'm assuming that the space for staging was not very big
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right so like you mentioned if we were to send room one then it would have to be a delivery
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for just one room or two and not have enough space to move things around at the site and
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then when you find situations where you started demoing stuff you would like in the in the
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case that you mentioned where you find the pipes then you had the flexibility to move
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things around and continue to move forward without you know putting the project at halt
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yeah exactly and you know I think a lot of that Rodrigo comes with experience I've you
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know I've been doing this for a long time and I think I've probably made every mistake
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out there and the installers are never afraid to let you know about your mistakes and so
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you know put a lot of thought into it one of the other things that I really need to
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mention is IEC when we were running this project and we have we designed with IEC Quietstar
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designed IEC built and then and then and then together we collaborated to kind of do the
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final design of a ventilation panel so that you can access and maintenance the ventilation
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fan from the inside of the room now this kind of came to our attention when we had done
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five rooms earlier the year before and they were so backed up that one of the installers
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saying like these guys are never going to be able to access the fans if they need to
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meet and some and they we did some tricks on site that you know they could access them
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if they had to but it was never going to be easy so when they ordered these 14 rooms to
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go into you know largely the same general area of the school I decided like you know
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we just need to get better at this and so we I Quietstar sketched out a concept for
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a panel that would have the fan in it but it would also have some some plates and integration
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so that we maintain the transmission loss of the IEC and they call it the blister pack
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it's a ventilation silencer attached to a panel but it had everything integrated but
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also had internal hatch available to access that fan from the inside and it really you
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know it made building the panel a lot more complicated and Quietstar designed it we sent
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the design over to IEC the IEC engineers laid it out and then I actually flew out to the
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plant and sat down with the guys on the shop and we you know sort of you know assembled
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the whole thing together and the first one we came out with we did one as a kind of a
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proof of concept it came out like 90 percent right but there was a couple little things
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and each room has two blister packs of ventilation for intake and and exhaust and so you know
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90 percent right of 14 rooms two panels a room 28 panels I'm going to hear about field
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modifications that needed to be done to access it from from the installers and so you know
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to IEC's credit they they shipped us the panel we we we made some notes on it they did some
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revisions and then they built all 28 of them they came out beautifully and I fully expect
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to use this panel again in these kind of situations but what I was very impressed with is the
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willingness of IEC to do this because everyone has a harebrained idea on how they can make
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things better but no one has to build it and IEC came in and said well you know we're willing
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to take a chance on this so I was very very proud of that aspect of this you know of this
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part of the project because now when they need to you know look the old rooms were 40
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years old these fans are electric they're going to have failures you know 10-15 years
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down the road someone's going to be very happy that they don't have to you know climb on
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the ceiling of a room that has no room to climb on to to try to change the fan or just
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what Berkeley College of Music did with the old rooms that we took down they just didn't
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replace the fans and they were just stuffing you know it's interesting that you mentioned
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that because you know pretty much all my career has been in manufacturing so building stuff
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and taking care of equipment and one of the biggest complaints I've always had is that
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when people design things they come in and then you know they they sign it they install
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it and it's up and running but they don't think you know about the people that are going
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to do it after they're going to provide the maintenance of it and you know this is a great
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example where you know that was well thought of in order to continue to provide service
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to the fans in this case.
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It's always good to hear that collaboration there is a willingness to provide you know
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the right solution and now I'm excited to hear that you know even though it was a 90%
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success on that first trial that you know it was a little bit more to fix and that need
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to be done but but at the end it provided the you know the product and the service that
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the customer was was looking for.
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Yeah absolutely.
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Another challenge we had on this room or I should say this project was the very low ceiling
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height and and we actually lowered the height of the rooms all of them by by one inch by
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lowering by one inch all the rooms had between an inch and a quarter and an inch and three
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quarters of clearance between the top of our rooms and the top of the ceiling.
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So all the electrical all the ventilation packs all the stuff a lot of stuff that normally
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you'd find on the ceiling on these rooms we had to put on the sides for access and then
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of course that kind of led into my idea of doing the ventilation with internal access
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because you know you just weren't going to get clean these rooms and you couldn't certainly
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get on the top of them.
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Looks like innovation at its best.
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You know the one thing that I think that you know with QuietStar we try to be Mr. Good Rep
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what we really we really think that we want to be the eyes and ears in the field.
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We spent a lot of time walking the path that the product has to come in.
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We spend time measuring the elevator if we need to for the elevator.
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We spend time making sure that customer gets what you know the customer needs and you know
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sometimes if I have 30 years experience doing this and the customer is buying their first
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set of practice rooms then you know I'm going to have some insights of stuff that they might
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not know about.
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We did spend a lot of time on this I think it's one of the reasons that again I'm particularly
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proud of this project and my relationship with the Berklee College of Music because
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in the end the manufacturer and ourselves and everyone wants to have a successful project
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that is successful not only to the day it's finished but successful 25-35 years from now
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where they're still using the rooms and they're well maintained.
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Yeah there's a lot of pride to take on that and like you mentioned you know we want to
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make sure that you know all our products are build up so they can last and they can perform
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guarantee that performance.
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What were the results after the project was completed and what kind of feedback did you
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hear from Berklee?
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Yeah well I mean again everything was really positive.
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Everyone's key point person on site was very very accommodating in terms of listening to
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you know what we had to say and following it and you know for example I remember at
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one point he was saying why do we need to do and I'm making up a number was like 20
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deliveries right for 14 rooms we did 20 deliveries and you know and you know when we were budgeting
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it I budgeted those you know the cost of those deliveries and and I was like why don't we
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just do two deliveries and it's like well let's not go down the same path that happens
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every time because that's what we tried to do in the last you know one and it was difficult
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and as a result no you know students were less happy in our midst so they were they
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were really good at listening and so I really have to applaud the owner's rep on this and
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then when we got done you know you imagine these these rooms are we used a color called
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first star which is my favorite standard IC color and not quite white it's not it's a
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little darker than white a little a very light light gray but it looks whitish especially
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when you have some good lighting on it so you can imagine that it went from this dim
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area with 40 year old rooms that were falling apart that weren't isolating very well we
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took all those down they finished off some of the ceilings that were crumbling they got
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a new carpet and they put in our rooms and then we put little closer plates between the
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rooms to smooth them out and then you take a look at it and here's a row of beautiful
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white well-lit practice rooms and you know you're like well this is a really nice a nice
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looking area and then you know and then you open the door you're like oh there's someone
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in here practicing so you know the real rewarding part and the success of it the customer's
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happy and and really the goal is hopefully they'll use this and build on it and do some
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more the students I think one of my favorite stories was with the 14 rooms we we had obviously
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some were done ahead of others still a construction site and the guys would come in and there'd
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be kids practicing in the rooms it's like oh you guys you got to go out this isn't ready
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yet we haven't even hooked up the electricity so the need for practice areas it's one of
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the things that schools of music are judged by I think that there's a certain ratio I
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think someone once told me that for every student they for every six or seven students
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that a school of music has they should have at least one practice area and so with the
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Berkeley College of Music they want to tout as many practice areas for the students as
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possible because the students you know they don't want to wait in line or reserve practice
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rooms at each one of you to go in there and grab them so we were able to get these 14
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in there we were able to use more space so some of the rooms were bigger than previous
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ones and the students always loved that and and so everyone was was was happy in that
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end and like I said hopefully they'll update some of the more areas because as far as I
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know the Berkeley College of Music has well over a hundred music practice spaces in their
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campus which comprises a lot of Boston downtown yeah for me I saw pictures of before during
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install and after and aesthetically it's just very pleasing to see the the results I'm yet
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to go and see it and experience because one of the things that like you had mentioned
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is you you walk in and you don't realize that somebody's already you know one of the rooms
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and practicing because you know the the level of sound attenuation is there right yeah years
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ago we had an installer and whenever he did a row of practice rooms let's just say there's
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six of them all in a row he would he'd bring the owner down and he'd call he'd play a game
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that he called hide the boombox and what he would do is he put a boombox in one of the
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rooms and then he would turn it up as high as he felt that he could he could without
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having it be heard outside and then when the owner came by or the owner's representative
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he'd say all right well here's this row of practice rooms we finished them all and he
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goes oh by the way which room has the boombox playing in it and you know and then of course
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he couldn't hear the boombox because he had it turned to exactly the the level of isolation
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that the room provided and then you know then he'd go down and he'd open up all the rooms
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and finally one of me to open up and he'd get this blast of music and it was always
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fun and in a way to impress the the customer of the the value of these rooms.
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That's that's amazing I'd love to hear that story.
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Yeah.
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Are there any other details or you know information you'd like to share about this project?
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Yeah I mean I think that it's always a challenge every one of the things I learned in this
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industry is that every project is unique and what we didn't learn at the Berkeley College
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of Music doesn't necessarily apply to other projects but you know you learn some methods
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and you apply those methods to other projects.
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I mean I think every every guy in my shoes has learned to be very careful of measuring
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an elevator I can't tell you how many times that we've had rooms laid out and it's like
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oh guess what it doesn't fit in the doorway or it doesn't fit in the elevator and then
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you know you're making you know you're making these you know concessions and and of course
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all that just costs the project time and money and obviously you don't want to do that so
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I think that regarding comments on this one I'm really hoping that that Berkeley will
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continue to sort of update all their other rooms.
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I think that we've proven to them that we're the we're the team to as far as the product
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and the services for them to go to and I will also say that we weren't the cheapest we were
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we were more expensive than the other company that they looked at and the other company
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that they looked at was the company that had put the rooms in 40 years ago and it was interesting
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because you know I had heard that we were high priced and I kind of thought well you
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know that might that that means you know this this project's probably not going to happen
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and then they decided to do just five the year prior and we did that and I alluded to
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that earlier and and I was asking them well okay I appreciate your business and now we're
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you know we're all talking and I was like why didn't you why didn't you go with the
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other manufacturer and they're like well you know the guy who came down to you know look
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at the space and give us the quote he didn't know anything you know he didn't he didn't
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bring up and he just you know he just obviously was you know just a warm body to go see a
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customer but didn't have the depth of knowledge and experience that that evidently and Rodrigo
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I apologize I have a reputation of being long-winded but you know we talked about this stuff and
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they were like you know we had a lot of faith in in in you being able to manage these challenges
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because we're not the only person who has or the type of vendor who has problems dealing
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with downtown historic Boston and and and getting you know getting stuff involved and
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I think they've had a lot of disasters in you know trying to service their buildings
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whether it's craning up an air conditioner onto the roof or upgrading some stuff where
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you know plumbers are like I can't you know they have a lot of issues with being 100 year
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old buildings and what have you not just us but for us to be able to recognize them and
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address them and say how we're going to address them and I think that gave us the confidence
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and in the end you know you want to provide value you don't want to just provide the cheapest
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price and I think that we provided a value here we were we were on time we were on budget
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and there were and look there's always a few you know things that that change but we didn't
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have to we didn't go back and ask for any change orders we didn't ask for any any any
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extra considerations and the truth be known is project was a delayed a little because the
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carpet folks and the other trades couldn't keep up with us and so it's always I always
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say that you know it's okay if a project runs a little late just never let it be our fault
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and this you know this one and it was I think they they ended up being a couple weeks late
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on their choice but it didn't impact anyone and and certainly it wasn't because of us
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well that's that's great to hear and yeah I agree with you I'm pretty sure their their
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experiences with other projects and knowing that down you know the area there in Boston
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being with the conditions that they're at if you go with the less expensive you know there
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might be a reason why you know that's you're gonna pay it after right whether it's with
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change orders or other you know things I appreciate that you know you guys were on budget and you
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showed me on the level of expertise that you did by doing the follow-up visits and understanding
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the site conditions you know all the things that you talked about earlier at the beginning of
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this session yeah that's uh there's a lot to say about the experience and knowledge that you guys
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bring to the table well thanks yeah no it and you know I guess this one was a tough one um but the
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ones you remember are the tough ones that you that you rose to the occasion and the easy ones you
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forget you forget I mean you're not nearly as proud of them and I'm very proud of this and like I said
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my uh you know the fact that this was done in my hometown uh where I grew up in the 60s um and uh
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it was uh so it was like it was my home stopping ground uh it was like uh I'm just very familiar
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with the area uh actually uh you know one one of the site visits uh you went down there and then
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we all just walked over to Fenway Park and caught a Red Sox game I mean all that stuff makes it uh
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memorable and and like I said my experience with IEC on this one was such a one of collaboration
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uh and sometimes the the the reps in the and the factory um you know kind of have different
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viewpoints not on this project and typically not with QuietStar we were on the same page and uh
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and like I said it was um it was very rewarding and um uh man I hope we do some more with them
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all right well I think that's a good place for us to end this thank you Steve for your time
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and sharing those wonderful details we thank you for taking the time to listen to today's episode
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if you would like to learn more about IAC Acoustics and QuietStar Industries you can visit the company
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websites at IACAcoustics.com or QuietStarIndustries.com additionally please be sure to subscribe to
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00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:47,680
Catalyst Conversations and if you've been enjoying these discussions we'd love it if you could leave
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us a rating or review to help others in the industry learn more about our podcast
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stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to explore noise and sound control advancements
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shaping the future of industries worldwide
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,200
Welcome to Catalyst Conversations, the podcast that brings you real world stories and solutions
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00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:12,720
from a wide variety of acoustic experts.
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00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:16,280
Each episode, we'll dive into a different topic from the world of acoustics, such as
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00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:21,200
architectural and industrial noise control, seismic and vibration restraint, acoustical
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00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,700
testing, or innovative design and engineering of sound control products.
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Our experts have decades of experience in this space and are eager to share their expertise
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with you.
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Join us in making the world a quieter place.
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00:00:37,160 --> 00:00:40,800
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Catalyst Conversations.
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Today's topic is focused on a music practice rooms project involving IAC Acoustics and
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QuietStar Industries at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
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The discussion will be led by Rodrigo Musquez from IAC and Steve Dutton from QuietStar.
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IAC Acoustics is a leader in noise control offering acoustic metal solutions for industrial,
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architectural, HVAC, and medical applications and is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary
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in business.
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QuietStar is the Northeast leading provider in turnkey noise control solutions in both
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industrial and architectural sectors and includes offerings with state-of-the-art noise reducing
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rooms, doors, windows, barriers, enclosures, and air moving attenuators.
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And now let's get started with today's conversation.
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My name is Rodrigo Musquez and I'm excited to introduce you to today's podcast where
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I am joined by Steve Dutton of QuietStar Industries.
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For a quick background, I'm starting on year four with the company.
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First couple of years I led the manufacturing facility in the North Aurora facility in Illinois.
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Since last year, I transitioned to the commercial side of the business.
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Currently I'm at the architectural enclosures sales manager at IAC which includes recording
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studios, music practice rooms, audiology booths, among others.
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And Steve, I'll pass it over to you to share a little information about yourself.
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Oh, great.
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Thank you, Rodrigo.
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Again, my name is Steve Dutton.
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In 2006, I started with a partner QuietStar Industries which was a rep firm specifically
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designed to represent the IAC products.
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Before then, all the way back to 1993, I've been in the industry more on the manufacturing
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end and working with the Berklee College of Music from both sides of the equation in terms
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of QuietStar Industries and even earlier when I was in manufacturing.
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So I know the Berklee College of Music folks very well and been doing this for a long time.
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Was a partner in the QuietStar Industries up until last year which I ended up going into
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a more consulting role and I've been doing that ever since.
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So thank you, Steve.
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Let's start with some details about this project specifically at Berklee College of Music.
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What was the issue that was presented to you or how was it presented?
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Well the Berklee College of Music is in, it's really downtown Boston which as an aside is
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where I grew up, my hometown.
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But it's a really old historic district.
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Fenway Park is right around the corner and that was built in 1912.
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The finish line for the Boston Marathon is right on Boylston Street right across from
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actually a church called the Old South Church that I'm actually grew up as a member of and
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that was established in 1669.
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So it's a very, very old part of the country.
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And so the Berklee College of Music is right in the center of this vibrant historic area
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and while that's all really well and good, it makes for some challenges in terms of having
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modern amenities especially if you're in this case a school of music and you expect certain
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things.
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You can't just have a hundred year old building and have it be kind of, it's cute that it's
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historic but it also has to be modern and it has to be efficient for the students.
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So they had a bunch of practice rooms that were over 40 years old and they were in the
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basement of several buildings and Berklee like many schools that are in metropolitan
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area kind of buys up buildings as they need them but they're old and this one old building
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was an old bank and it was in the basement and they had these practice rooms that were
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after 40 years of students being in and out of them, they were pretty decrepit.
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So they wanted to clean that area up and so they came to us and they were saying what
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can we do and what have you.
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And so we kind of put together kind of an idea of what was possible and then we just
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moved forward from there.
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Some of the challenges that we had on the project again and I kind of alluded to it
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was look it's not only a hundred year old building but access to it is having trouble
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as well.
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So thank you Steve, what were some of the unique challenges that were faced with this
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project and what were the expected timelines?
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I guess probably the biggest challenge and again I alluded to how old these buildings
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are and even the deepest darkest basement can be cleaned up but getting in to the building
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itself was probably the most difficult thing without elevators and stairways that were
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very limited in their size and their access.
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So we ended up doing a lot of small deliveries that were bite size and that was one of the
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challenges that we faced.
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Another challenge is trying to reconfigure a space and maximize the use without being
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able to see it empty and open.
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I mean they weren't going to tear down the practice center or the area before we could
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design our room.
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So we had to design with some flexibility in mind.
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And so getting access, going in bite size deliveries where the guys might spend two
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hours every morning bringing in the panels for rooms as opposed to trying to bring in
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all of them at once and having nowhere to put them.
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And then in order to meet the challenge of not really knowing what the space was going
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to be like we actually used some common size panels where the rooms could be shrunken or
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grown on site if an obstacle came in the way.
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Like again a hundred year old building doesn't have blueprints and if we get behind this
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area and oh my goodness there's a sewer pipe that we can't move or there's something like
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that.
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So we did a lot of work ahead of time to make sure that A. we had a good plan but B. that
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we had flexibility in that plan.
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And a lot of times most modular manufacturers they get a size, they want to use it and if
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it doesn't fit you're kind of out of luck.
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Well here we had an ability where our size had some flexibility and it worked out really
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well.
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It's interesting to hear all those challenges because most of the times are the things the
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projects that I've been involved with.
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It's typically an open space, first or second floor and there's not a lot of barriers to
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entry.
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It seems like in this one there was a lot of thought process put into place when designing
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and trying to determine how long are your timeline for the project itself.
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Yeah, no you're absolutely right Rodrigo and I mean there's all these little unforeseen
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things like our installers they put up cones on the sidewalk so that they could get in
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and out of the truck but the students have a reputation of not thinking that the cones
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apply to them and so they're walking across your path anyway.
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It's always an adventure but it's also really rewarding when you have a project work out
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as well as this one did.
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Yeah I think we take it for granted spending time on the construction side that everybody
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knows and follows the same rules and students not knowing exactly where to go through.
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So if we focus on the solution to address this problem how did this project come all
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together and what kind of products were utilized in the making of it?
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Well this was one of the projects where first of all we probably spent more time pre-order
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on site figuring out all these little details than we normally would but that's kind of
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our job and it's a secret to success.
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So we used the IEC Accutone II panel.
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It's a great panel for the music practice room.
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It has a good TL rating, it has an STC I believe of 53 and you have to check me on that Rodrigo
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but it also has an NRC of 0.8 so it's got some absorption and the resulting practice
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room with all Accutone II panels has a beautiful combination of being bright enough so that
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the music students can hear a reflection in their ear because no student wants to hear
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it be in a completely dead room because they want to hear what they're practicing but it
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also has enough absorption so that the overall NIC of the room the transmission from room
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to the corridor is a high one.
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So we used the Accutone II panel that was the obvious choice and the second thing that
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we did was we designed all the rooms that fit into common size panels so all our panels
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were interchangeable if you're working if there's 14 rooms and you're working on room
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one that it has a combination of panels that would also fit on room 14 and that was really
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key as far as the logistics because we've tried in the past to kind of have IC crate
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things alright crate number one should have these panels crate number two should have
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these panels but it's really hard to deliver those things and coordinate them so by having
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interchangeable panels you know we could say all right deliver 10 15 inch panels 5 30 inch
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panels and and what have you and it didn't matter where those you know those panels didn't
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could go to room 14 they could go to room 7 they could go to room 1 so making the panels
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likey likey sizes really helped both in the delivery and it gave the crew the opportunity
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to you know be flexible in their scheduling I mentioned I'm sorry with their assembly
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which I mentioned earlier and we did run into there was one particular case where we were
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trying to expand a room that they had existing to be a little deeper and but when they tore
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it down there was some pipes that were in our way and and we couldn't make it deeper
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so instead we just deleted the panels that would have extended it and they ended up having
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the same size room that they had before but had we built it to be this other size with
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no flexibility then then we would have had some do some field modifications and nobody
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likes to do that especially the the user who who feels that they pay for factory products
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so those were some of the challenges that that we faced I think that one of the things
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that really helped in this case was we had a customer who facilities manager for berkeley
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college of music who I worked with directly was also an architect and he you know he had
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the understanding of the needs for example the multiple deliveries because it's just
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like you can't do a lot there I think it's pretty smart on your end you know to kind
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of configure it that way because I'm assuming that the space for staging was not very big
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right so like you mentioned if we were to send room one then it would have to be a delivery
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for just one room or two and not have enough space to move things around at the site and
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then when you find situations where you started demoing stuff you would like in the in the
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case that you mentioned where you find the pipes then you had the flexibility to move
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things around and continue to move forward without you know putting the project at halt
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yeah exactly and you know I think a lot of that Rodrigo comes with experience I've you
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know I've been doing this for a long time and I think I've probably made every mistake
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out there and the installers are never afraid to let you know about your mistakes and so
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you know put a lot of thought into it one of the other things that I really need to
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mention is IEC when we were running this project and we have we designed with IEC Quietstar
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designed IEC built and then and then and then together we collaborated to kind of do the
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final design of a ventilation panel so that you can access and maintenance the ventilation
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fan from the inside of the room now this kind of came to our attention when we had done
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five rooms earlier the year before and they were so backed up that one of the installers
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saying like these guys are never going to be able to access the fans if they need to
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meet and some and they we did some tricks on site that you know they could access them
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if they had to but it was never going to be easy so when they ordered these 14 rooms to
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go into you know largely the same general area of the school I decided like you know
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we just need to get better at this and so we I Quietstar sketched out a concept for
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a panel that would have the fan in it but it would also have some some plates and integration
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so that we maintain the transmission loss of the IEC and they call it the blister pack
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it's a ventilation silencer attached to a panel but it had everything integrated but
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also had internal hatch available to access that fan from the inside and it really you
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know it made building the panel a lot more complicated and Quietstar designed it we sent
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the design over to IEC the IEC engineers laid it out and then I actually flew out to the
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plant and sat down with the guys on the shop and we you know sort of you know assembled
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the whole thing together and the first one we came out with we did one as a kind of a
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proof of concept it came out like 90 percent right but there was a couple little things
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and each room has two blister packs of ventilation for intake and and exhaust and so you know
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90 percent right of 14 rooms two panels a room 28 panels I'm going to hear about field
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modifications that needed to be done to access it from from the installers and so you know
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to IEC's credit they they shipped us the panel we we we made some notes on it they did some
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revisions and then they built all 28 of them they came out beautifully and I fully expect
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to use this panel again in these kind of situations but what I was very impressed with is the
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willingness of IEC to do this because everyone has a harebrained idea on how they can make
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things better but no one has to build it and IEC came in and said well you know we're willing
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to take a chance on this so I was very very proud of that aspect of this you know of this
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part of the project because now when they need to you know look the old rooms were 40
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years old these fans are electric they're going to have failures you know 10-15 years
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down the road someone's going to be very happy that they don't have to you know climb on
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the ceiling of a room that has no room to climb on to to try to change the fan or just
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what Berkeley College of Music did with the old rooms that we took down they just didn't
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replace the fans and they were just stuffing you know it's interesting that you mentioned
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that because you know pretty much all my career has been in manufacturing so building stuff
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and taking care of equipment and one of the biggest complaints I've always had is that
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when people design things they come in and then you know they they sign it they install
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it and it's up and running but they don't think you know about the people that are going
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to do it after they're going to provide the maintenance of it and you know this is a great
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example where you know that was well thought of in order to continue to provide service
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to the fans in this case.
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It's always good to hear that collaboration there is a willingness to provide you know
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the right solution and now I'm excited to hear that you know even though it was a 90%
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success on that first trial that you know it was a little bit more to fix and that need
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to be done but but at the end it provided the you know the product and the service that
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the customer was was looking for.
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Yeah absolutely.
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Another challenge we had on this room or I should say this project was the very low ceiling
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height and and we actually lowered the height of the rooms all of them by by one inch by
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lowering by one inch all the rooms had between an inch and a quarter and an inch and three
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quarters of clearance between the top of our rooms and the top of the ceiling.
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So all the electrical all the ventilation packs all the stuff a lot of stuff that normally
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you'd find on the ceiling on these rooms we had to put on the sides for access and then
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of course that kind of led into my idea of doing the ventilation with internal access
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because you know you just weren't going to get clean these rooms and you couldn't certainly
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get on the top of them.
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Looks like innovation at its best.
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You know the one thing that I think that you know with QuietStar we try to be Mr. Good Rep
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what we really we really think that we want to be the eyes and ears in the field.
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We spent a lot of time walking the path that the product has to come in.
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We spend time measuring the elevator if we need to for the elevator.
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We spend time making sure that customer gets what you know the customer needs and you know
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sometimes if I have 30 years experience doing this and the customer is buying their first
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set of practice rooms then you know I'm going to have some insights of stuff that they might
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not know about.
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We did spend a lot of time on this I think it's one of the reasons that again I'm particularly
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proud of this project and my relationship with the Berklee College of Music because
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in the end the manufacturer and ourselves and everyone wants to have a successful project
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that is successful not only to the day it's finished but successful 25-35 years from now
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where they're still using the rooms and they're well maintained.
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Yeah there's a lot of pride to take on that and like you mentioned you know we want to
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make sure that you know all our products are build up so they can last and they can perform
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guarantee that performance.
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What were the results after the project was completed and what kind of feedback did you
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hear from Berklee?
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Yeah well I mean again everything was really positive.
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Everyone's key point person on site was very very accommodating in terms of listening to
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you know what we had to say and following it and you know for example I remember at
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one point he was saying why do we need to do and I'm making up a number was like 20
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deliveries right for 14 rooms we did 20 deliveries and you know and you know when we were budgeting
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it I budgeted those you know the cost of those deliveries and and I was like why don't we
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just do two deliveries and it's like well let's not go down the same path that happens
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every time because that's what we tried to do in the last you know one and it was difficult
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and as a result no you know students were less happy in our midst so they were they
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were really good at listening and so I really have to applaud the owner's rep on this and
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then when we got done you know you imagine these these rooms are we used a color called
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first star which is my favorite standard IC color and not quite white it's not it's a
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little darker than white a little a very light light gray but it looks whitish especially
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when you have some good lighting on it so you can imagine that it went from this dim
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area with 40 year old rooms that were falling apart that weren't isolating very well we
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took all those down they finished off some of the ceilings that were crumbling they got
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a new carpet and they put in our rooms and then we put little closer plates between the
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rooms to smooth them out and then you take a look at it and here's a row of beautiful
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white well-lit practice rooms and you know you're like well this is a really nice a nice
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looking area and then you know and then you open the door you're like oh there's someone
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in here practicing so you know the real rewarding part and the success of it the customer's
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happy and and really the goal is hopefully they'll use this and build on it and do some
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more the students I think one of my favorite stories was with the 14 rooms we we had obviously
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some were done ahead of others still a construction site and the guys would come in and there'd
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be kids practicing in the rooms it's like oh you guys you got to go out this isn't ready
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yet we haven't even hooked up the electricity so the need for practice areas it's one of
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the things that schools of music are judged by I think that there's a certain ratio I
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think someone once told me that for every student they for every six or seven students
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that a school of music has they should have at least one practice area and so with the
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Berkeley College of Music they want to tout as many practice areas for the students as
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possible because the students you know they don't want to wait in line or reserve practice
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rooms at each one of you to go in there and grab them so we were able to get these 14
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in there we were able to use more space so some of the rooms were bigger than previous
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ones and the students always loved that and and so everyone was was was happy in that
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end and like I said hopefully they'll update some of the more areas because as far as I
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know the Berkeley College of Music has well over a hundred music practice spaces in their
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campus which comprises a lot of Boston downtown yeah for me I saw pictures of before during
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install and after and aesthetically it's just very pleasing to see the the results I'm yet
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to go and see it and experience because one of the things that like you had mentioned
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is you you walk in and you don't realize that somebody's already you know one of the rooms
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and practicing because you know the the level of sound attenuation is there right yeah years
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ago we had an installer and whenever he did a row of practice rooms let's just say there's
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six of them all in a row he would he'd bring the owner down and he'd call he'd play a game
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that he called hide the boombox and what he would do is he put a boombox in one of the
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rooms and then he would turn it up as high as he felt that he could he could without
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having it be heard outside and then when the owner came by or the owner's representative
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he'd say all right well here's this row of practice rooms we finished them all and he
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goes oh by the way which room has the boombox playing in it and you know and then of course
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he couldn't hear the boombox because he had it turned to exactly the the level of isolation
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that the room provided and then you know then he'd go down and he'd open up all the rooms
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and finally one of me to open up and he'd get this blast of music and it was always
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fun and in a way to impress the the customer of the the value of these rooms.
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That's that's amazing I'd love to hear that story.
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Yeah.
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Are there any other details or you know information you'd like to share about this project?
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Yeah I mean I think that it's always a challenge every one of the things I learned in this
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industry is that every project is unique and what we didn't learn at the Berkeley College
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of Music doesn't necessarily apply to other projects but you know you learn some methods
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and you apply those methods to other projects.
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I mean I think every every guy in my shoes has learned to be very careful of measuring
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an elevator I can't tell you how many times that we've had rooms laid out and it's like
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oh guess what it doesn't fit in the doorway or it doesn't fit in the elevator and then
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you know you're making you know you're making these you know concessions and and of course
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all that just costs the project time and money and obviously you don't want to do that so
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I think that regarding comments on this one I'm really hoping that that Berkeley will
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continue to sort of update all their other rooms.
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I think that we've proven to them that we're the we're the team to as far as the product
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and the services for them to go to and I will also say that we weren't the cheapest we were
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we were more expensive than the other company that they looked at and the other company
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that they looked at was the company that had put the rooms in 40 years ago and it was interesting
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because you know I had heard that we were high priced and I kind of thought well you
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know that might that that means you know this this project's probably not going to happen
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and then they decided to do just five the year prior and we did that and I alluded to
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that earlier and and I was asking them well okay I appreciate your business and now we're
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you know we're all talking and I was like why didn't you why didn't you go with the
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other manufacturer and they're like well you know the guy who came down to you know look
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at the space and give us the quote he didn't know anything you know he didn't he didn't
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bring up and he just you know he just obviously was you know just a warm body to go see a
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customer but didn't have the depth of knowledge and experience that that evidently and Rodrigo
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I apologize I have a reputation of being long-winded but you know we talked about this stuff and
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they were like you know we had a lot of faith in in in you being able to manage these challenges
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because we're not the only person who has or the type of vendor who has problems dealing
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with downtown historic Boston and and and getting you know getting stuff involved and
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I think they've had a lot of disasters in you know trying to service their buildings
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whether it's craning up an air conditioner onto the roof or upgrading some stuff where
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you know plumbers are like I can't you know they have a lot of issues with being 100 year
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old buildings and what have you not just us but for us to be able to recognize them and
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address them and say how we're going to address them and I think that gave us the confidence
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and in the end you know you want to provide value you don't want to just provide the cheapest
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price and I think that we provided a value here we were we were on time we were on budget
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and there were and look there's always a few you know things that that change but we didn't
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have to we didn't go back and ask for any change orders we didn't ask for any any any
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extra considerations and the truth be known is project was a delayed a little because the
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carpet folks and the other trades couldn't keep up with us and so it's always I always
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say that you know it's okay if a project runs a little late just never let it be our fault
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and this you know this one and it was I think they they ended up being a couple weeks late
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on their choice but it didn't impact anyone and and certainly it wasn't because of us
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well that's that's great to hear and yeah I agree with you I'm pretty sure their their
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experiences with other projects and knowing that down you know the area there in Boston
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being with the conditions that they're at if you go with the less expensive you know there
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might be a reason why you know that's you're gonna pay it after right whether it's with
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change orders or other you know things I appreciate that you know you guys were on budget and you
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showed me on the level of expertise that you did by doing the follow-up visits and understanding
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the site conditions you know all the things that you talked about earlier at the beginning of
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this session yeah that's uh there's a lot to say about the experience and knowledge that you guys
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bring to the table well thanks yeah no it and you know I guess this one was a tough one um but the
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ones you remember are the tough ones that you that you rose to the occasion and the easy ones you
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forget you forget I mean you're not nearly as proud of them and I'm very proud of this and like I said
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my uh you know the fact that this was done in my hometown uh where I grew up in the 60s um and uh
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it was uh so it was like it was my home stopping ground uh it was like uh I'm just very familiar
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with the area uh actually uh you know one one of the site visits uh you went down there and then
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we all just walked over to Fenway Park and caught a Red Sox game I mean all that stuff makes it uh
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memorable and and like I said my experience with IEC on this one was such a one of collaboration
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uh and sometimes the the the reps in the and the factory um you know kind of have different
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viewpoints not on this project and typically not with QuietStar we were on the same page and uh
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and like I said it was um it was very rewarding and um uh man I hope we do some more with them
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all right well I think that's a good place for us to end this thank you Steve for your time
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and sharing those wonderful details we thank you for taking the time to listen to today's episode
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if you would like to learn more about IAC Acoustics and QuietStar Industries you can visit the company
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websites at IACAcoustics.com or QuietStarIndustries.com additionally please be sure to subscribe to
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Catalyst Conversations and if you've been enjoying these discussions we'd love it if you could leave
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us a rating or review to help others in the industry learn more about our podcast
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stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to explore noise and sound control advancements
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shaping the future of industries worldwide
