John Storyk (born May 10, 1946) is a registered

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

acoustician Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

who, together with wife and business partner Beth Walters, co-founded Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG). Beginning in 1968 with

Electric Lady Studios Electric Lady Studios is a recording studio in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musician Jimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer by 1970. Hendrix spent only ten we ...

for Jimi Hendrix in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and founding partner (with wife and business partner Beth Walters) of Walters-Storyk Design Group. Soon to celebrate his 50th anniversary as an innovative

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enou ...

designer, he began his career in 1968 with

for Jimi Hendrix in

, Storyk and WSDG have produced the provided design, system integration, and construction supervision services for nearly 4000 professional audio recording and video production/post-production studios, performance venues, sports venues, houses of worship and educational facilities. His work includes private studios for

Jay-Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one o ...

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originato ...

Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "Honorific nicknames in popular music, The Voice", she is Whitney Houston albums discography, one of the bestselling music artists ...

Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements ...

Aerosmith Aerosmith is an American rock band formed in Boston in 1970. The group consists of Steven Tyler (lead vocals), Joe Perry (guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums) and Brad Whitford (guitar). Their style, which is rooted in blues ...

Green Day Green Day is an American rock band formed in the East Bay of California in 1987 by lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, together with bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt. For most of the band's career, they have been a ...

Goo Goo Dolls The Goo Goo Dolls are an American rock band formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, by guitarist/vocalist John Rzeznik, bassist/vocalist Robby Takac, and drummer George Tutuska. After starting off as a cover band and then developing a punk sou ...

and R. Kelly.

Career

John Storyk & Eddie Kramer John Storyk & Eddie Kramer at Electric Lady Studios

As an aspiring musician and architecture student at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

and

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

Universities, Storyk’s career has followed a natural pursuit of his two favorite subjects. After graduating from Princeton University in 1968, Storyk's first commission was for Jimi Hendrix's

in New York City's

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, a studio that continues to be utilized by notable acts ranging from

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a rec ...

Daft Punk Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in dance music history, they achieved popularity in the late 1990s as p ...

and

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran (; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently re ...

. John Storyk is a member of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...

(AIA) and the

Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...

(AES). He is a frequent contributor to AES Convention Panels and Papers. A recipient of the AES Fellowship Award, he lectures at schools around the U.S. and has established courses in acoustics at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, Ex’Pression College, San Francisco; Full Sail Center, Orlando; and

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

. Committed to the support of pro audio education, Storyk also serves as an adjunct professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Walters-Storyk Design Group

In 1987, Storyk and his wife Beth Walters co-founded Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG). WSDG has produced the design and construction of over 3500 world-class audio and video production facilities,

recording studios A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enou ...

radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

, corporate media and conference rooms, educational,

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

and entertainment facilities,

clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album '' kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

restaurants A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

and

theaters Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

. WSDG maintains a staff of fifty designers and engineers, and offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Buenos Aires, Belo Horizonte, Basel, Berlin, Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, Mumbai, and St. Petersburg. WSDG recording studio credits include Alicia Keys' and Ann Mincieli's

Jungle City Studios Jungle City Studios is a recording studio owned and operated by Ann Mincieli, Alicia Keys's longtime engineer and studio coordinator. Located in Chelsea, Manhattan, it was designed by John Storyk of Walters-Storyk Design Group. Recordings at J ...

a $6+ million New York City ‘Destination Studio’ completed in 2011, which was featured in the New York Times and

Vanity Fair Vanity Fair may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Literature * Vanity Fair, a location in '' The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678), by John Bunyan * ''Vanity Fair'' (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray * ''Vanity Fair'' (magazines), the ...

, and recognized with a

TEC Award The TEC Awards is an annual program recognizing the achievements of audio professionals. The awards are given to honor technically innovative products as well as companies and individuals who have excelled in sound for television, film, recordings, ...

. In 2013, multi-Grammy & Academy Award-winning producer

Paul Epworth Paul Richard Epworth (born 25 July 1974) is an English record producer, songwriter, musician, and remixer. He has worked with artists including Adele, Florence and the Machine, Rihanna, and Maxïmo Park, among many others. He is a member o ...

utilized WSDG for the renovation of

The Church Studios The Church Studios is a recording studio located in a former church in Crouch End, North London, England. It was rented and then owned by Dave Stewart in the 1980s and 1990s, and was used to record Eurythmics' second album '' Sweet Dreams''. ...

in London. WSDG-designed 55TEC Studios in Beijing opened in May 2017, producing nearly a dozen China Top-ten hits in its first ten months, including six #1’s. Storyk and WSDG's credits range from large recording facilities in Kuala Lumpur to New York City’s

Jazz at Lincoln Center Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center in New York City. The organization was founded in 1987 and opened at Time Warner Center in October 2004. Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director and the leader of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orches ...

performance complex,

Le Poisson Rouge (Le) Poisson Rouge (often referred to as LPR) is a music venue and multimedia art cabaret in New York City founded in 2008 by Justin Kantor and David Handler on the former site of the Village Gate at 158 Bleecker Street. The performance space w ...

and

Feinstein's/54 Below 54 Below is a cabaret and restaurant in the basement of Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Owned by Broadway producers Steve Baruch, Richard Frankel, Marc Routh and Tom Viertel, 54 Below has hosted shows by such performers as Patt ...

, to studios in Argentina, Brazil, Europe and China. WSDG broadcast facility design credits include architecture and/or audio-acoustic planning and design for CBS,

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

, and

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ( ...

in New York City, TSR Broadcasting in Geneva, UPC Broadcasting in Amsterdam, VGTRK All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company in Moscow, and, in partnership with ARTEC Consultants, the audio studios at Jazz at Lincoln Center, now operating as XM Broadcasting facilities. Storyk also designed MJH Studios in Cranbury, New Jersey. WSDG educational facility design credits include distance-learning facilities for

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admin ...

in New York City (2016), the Ross School in East Hampton, New York, the $6.8 million NYU Steinhardt James L. Dolan Recording/Teaching/Research Complex in New York City (2009), the

Berklee Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

Music Education/Production Complex at 160 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston (2014), Berklee Valencia in

Valencia, Spain Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

(2012),

Drexel University Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, ...

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2017),

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in Troy, New York (2018),

ICESI University Icesi University ( es, Universidad Icesi. Originally the initials of Instituto Colombiano de Estudios Superiores de Incolda, «Colombian Institute of Higher Studies of Incolda») is a private university located in Cali, Colombia Santiago de Ca ...

in Cali, Colombia (2020), and

Concordia University Irvine Concordia University Irvine is a private Lutheran university in Irvine, California, United States. It was established in 1976 to provide a Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod college to serve the Pacific Southwest and provide training for pastors, ...

in Irvine, California (2020).

Notable projects

- New York City, USA *

- New York City, USA * Synchrosound Studios - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia * Swiss Parliament - Bern, Switzerland *

- New York City, USA * Maracana Stadium - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Mineirao Stadium - Belo Horizonte, Brazil *

Diante do Trono Diante do Trono (; lit.: Before the Throne) is a Brazilian contemporary Christian music band formed in 1997 as a ministry of Lagoinha Church in Belo Horizonte. It is led by singer, songwriter and pastor Ana Paula Valadão. The group became popu ...

recording studio - Belo Horizonte, Brazil * Circo Beat studio - Buenos Aires, Argentina * Javeriana University - Bogota, Colombia * Berklee Valencia - Valencia, Spain *

Oven Studios Oven Studios is the personal recording studio of American singer-songwriter and record producer Alicia Keys, located in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, New York. Background Designed by the Walters-Storyk Design Group, the studio was ori ...

(

) - New York City, USA * Roc the Mic Studios (

Jay Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one o ...

) - New York City, USA *

Mad Oak Studios Mad Oak Studios is a recording studio located in Allston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Boston, United States. It was established in the year 2000 by Craig Riggs and Frank Pagliughi, who were later joined by PK Pandey and long-time head enginee ...

- Boston, USA *

- New York City, USA *

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

- Buenos Aires, Argentina *

TV Globo TV Globo (, "Globe TV", or simply Globo), formerly known as Rede Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air Television broadcasting, television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Gr ...

- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil *

Qatar Television Qatar Television, ( ar, تلفزيون قَطَر); abbreviated as Qatar TV or QTV), is a Qatar Government owned public service national television channel in Qatar which is owned and run by Qatar General Broadcasting and Television Corporation ...

- Doha, Qatar *

Zurich Airport Zürich Airport (), french: Aéroport de Zurich, it, Aeroporto di Zurigo, rm, Eroport da Turitg is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zürich, Switzerland's l ...

- Zurich, Switzerland * Faena Hotel+Universe - Buenos Aires, Argentina *

- New York City, USA * Art Institute - United States *

- New York City, USA * Murray Arts Center] - Atlanta, USA * Central Synagogue (Manhattan), Central Synagogue - New York City, USA * Iglesia Los Olivos - Buenos Aires, Argentina File:Jazz - Lincoln Center - Allen Room.jpeg, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room in New York, USA File:Central Synagogue WSDG.jpeg, Central Synagogue in New York, USA File:Circo Beat Studios.JPG, Circo Beat Studios in Buenos Aires, Argentina File:Diante Do Trono.jpeg, Diante Do Trono in Belo Horizonte, Brazil File:Faena Hotel.jpeg, Faena Hotel + Universe in Buenos Aires, Argentina File:Food Network Master Control Room.jpeg, Food Network Master Control Room in New York, USA File:Iglesia Los Olivos.jpeg, Iglesia Los Olivos in Buenos Aires, Argentina File:Javeriana University - Atico - Studio A.jpeg, Javeriana University - Atico - Studio A in Bogotá, Colombia File:Jungle City Studios.jpeg, Jungle City Studios in New York, USA File:Le Poisson Rouge.jpeg, Le Poisson Rouge in New York, USA File:Maracana Stadium 1.jpeg, Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil File:Mineirao Stadium.jpg, Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil File:MTV TV set.jpeg, MTV TV set in Buenos Aires, Argentina File:NYU Studios.jpeg, NYU Studios in New York, USA File:Oven Studios - Alicia Keys.jpeg, Oven Studios - Alicia Keys in New York, USA File:Swiss Parliament.JPG, Swiss Parliament in Basel, Switzerland File:Synchrosound - Studio A.jpeg, Synchrosound - Studio A in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia File:Zurich Airport - Exterior.jpeg, Zurich Airport - Exterior in Switzerland

Awards and recognition

WSDG is an eleven-time winner of the TEC Award for outstanding achievement in Acoustics/Facility Design, and since the debut of the TEC Awards in 1985, thirty WSDG studio design projects have been nominated (including four multiple-entry nominations). * 2015

, 160 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, United States * 2016

, London, England * 2017

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 18 ...

Control Room, Boston, United States

Marriage and children

Storyk is married to his business and life partner Beth Walters. The couple raised two sons in Highland, New York and now live in Highland and the Yucatán Coast in Mexico.

References

External links

John Storyk Interview - NAMM Oral History Library (2016)

WSDG-Walters-Storyk Design Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storyk, John Living people American acoustical engineers American architects Princeton University School of Architecture alumni 1946 births People from Highland, Ulster County, New York Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation alumni