Architecture
Recording studio interference
Our client, a company specialising in the design, build and installation of bespoke recording studios, have been leaders in innovation of in their sector since 2005.
One of their recent projects presented some unique challenges which required an innovative touch to tackle. A recording studio was to be built in the heart of London, and as the project was underway and testing began on the audio equipment, an unfortunate problem occurred. During playback of the recordings an unusual interference was noticeably present, rendering any recordings unusable. Our client were tasked with investigating this problem and developing a solution to overcome it.
The studio was located above an active underground railway line, and during the build of the studio, a key design focus was ensuring the studio was completely soundproof so as to not affect the artists. This is standard practice. However, a much more unique problem was also present. The high voltage electricity distribution lines used by the mainline railway were inducing an electromagnetic field, caused by the rapid acceleration of electrical particles through the lines. This invisible force was the source of the interference with the sensitive audio equipment in the studio above.
To overcome this our client devised a plan to build a Faraday cage, around the entire 18-room facility containing the studio. A Faraday cage is an enclosure made of conductive metal that is used to block electromagnetic fields, invented back in 1836 by renowned scientist Michael Faraday. The cage built by our client represented the first use of one this size and in this setting in the UK, pushing the boundaries of what has been done before.
We were able to work with the client to identify the baseline of knowledge in both the sector and within their own company on a project by project basis to assess the levels of R&D on each project. This led to a successful claim based on the new and innovative solutions our client developed.
Ben Thompson
Ben is one of our senior sector specialists leading the Engineering team. He conducts the technical interviews with product developers, software developers and manufacturing clients to ensure the details of their work is understood and all areas that have potential to claim a tax credit through the R&D scheme are identified. During his career at Wilby Jones, Ben has been involved in over 250 R&D claims and helped businesses claim across a range of industries. Over the course of the last year, his engineering team claimed over £6 million for our clients and aim to always deliver high quality tax advice. Before starting work at Wilby Jones, Ben gained a first-class honours degree from the University of Lincoln, with his dissertation focusing on computational traffic flow analysis. Having joined our graduate scheme in 2020, he is now an ATT qualified tax advisor and aims to complete the ATT/CTA pathway to become a full chartered tax advisor within the next year. He enjoys the variety of the work undertaken by each of his clients, and learning about new concepts directly from the professionals researching them and innovating within their industry every day. Whether talking to aerospace professionals or nuclear engineers, there is always something new to learn and it is exciting to see the trends across all industries appear during conversations with clients. A keen guitarist, Ben teaches in the Norfolk area and has played for the last 18 years – Look out for him playing in several local bands around the city.