What happens when you combine an 120-square-meter indoor swimming hall, a visionary producer, and high-precision acoustic treatment? You get one of the most unique mixing and mastering environments in Europe.
Located in Himmelried, Switzerland, this high-end studio serves as the creative homebase for acclaimed, award-winning engineer Daniel Dettwiler - owner of Idee und Klang Studio. The space sets new international standards by defying the cramped norms of traditional control rooms.
The studio features a unique dual-setup: a high-end monitoring station for mastering on one side, and a console workstation for mixing on the opposite side. However, the journey to achieving this level of precision required a bold vision and a massive architectural transformation.
A Vision of Comfort and Scale
For Daniel, the motivation to build this space stemmed from a desire to escape the limitations of standard studios, "most control rooms I’ve seen are not really large, and that usually means compromises - especially in the low end and in terms of how the room actually feels when you’re working in it," Daniel explains.
When he discovered a property for sale featuring a massive attached swimming hall, inspiration struck immediately. He saw the potential to create a space that offered the warmth and ease of a living room, without sacrificing technical accuracy.
"I wanted a space where musicians, producers, and I, as the engineer, all feel genuinely comfortable... A place that invites creativity, not intimidation. At the same time, the monitoring and acoustics had to be on a level of accuracy you rarely, if ever, encounter."
The Acoustic Challenge: Taming the Volume
To turn this vision into reality, Daniel collaborated with Markus Zehner, a specialist in critical listening environments. The existing architectural structure already provided a solid foundation, and with a ceiling height of up to 4 meters the space was already very good - but 4.6 meters would have been perfect. The solution: the floor was simply lowered by 60 cm (approx. 2 feet).
This volume allowed for innovative acoustic solutions. A significant portion of the low-frequency energy is guided below the floor for perfect absorption, keeping the visible space clean and elegant. The original ceiling angle proved to be acoustically ideal, allowing large sections to remain untreated, while black absorbers were used sparingly to maintain a "visually calm" aesthetic.
However, the sheer size of the room presented an unusual acoustic paradox. "Interestingly, one of the main challenges was having enough reflections from the back at the listening position," Daniel notes. "Normally you fight too many. But with the length and volume of this room, we had the opposite situation, too little was coming back."
The Vicoustic Solution: Bringing the Room to Life
To solve the issue of the room sounding "too dead" or lacking energy, the team turned to Vicoustic Multifuser Wood MKII.
Daniel recalls a moment of concern during the final stages of the build. "The Multifusers were installed at the very end... Before that, all the absorbers were already in place, and when I first listened to music in that state, I was honestly a bit worried. It didn’t sound good yet."
His acoustician reassured him that the Vicoustic diffusers were the missing piece of the puzzle. Installed along the railing of the back gallery, the Multifuser Wood MKII panels generated the necessary sound scattering to create a sense of envelopment.
"Once the diffusers went up, everything locked in," Daniel says. "The response, the imaging, the depth - suddenly it all worked."
Daniel specifically chose the Multifuser Wood MKII for its material properties. "I specifically wanted those because they’re made from real wood. They sound better than the cheap foam or lightweight alternatives... simply behave and sound right."
A Reference Listening Experience
Today, the studio is considered a reference listening room, satisfying both the technical demands of an engineer and the aesthetic needs of artists. The space hosts greats musicians like the London Symphony Orchestra, Chris Cheek and Jorge Rossy, delivering a sonic experience that Daniel describes as "precision and consistency I’ve always been chasing."
"If your concept calls for diffusion, I can fully recommend Vicoustic’s solutions. They deliver what matters most: they look refined, and more importantly, they perform on the highest sonic level."
Learn More About Daniel Dettwiler and his work
Daniel is not only a producer but also an educator. In November 2022, he released his first-ever Masterclass, Daniel’s Mixing Bible, and hosts a YouTube channel featuring in-depth tutorials for audio professionals.
Need an Acoustic Project?
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