The Soundbath Center has been offering professional sound baths in Los Angeles since 2015. What began as a small, ten-person venue has grown into a full-service sound bath practice available throughout Southern California and beyond. Jamie Bechtold and Robert Lee bring professional multi-gong and crystal bowl sound baths directly to corporate offices, private homes, retreat centers, and wellness events across Los Angeles and the surrounding region, and offer online programming for clients and communities anywhere in the world. Their sound baths are about creating conditions for people to relax deeply, release accumulated stress, and go somewhere quieter inside themselves.

 

How It Started

Jamie Bechtold began offering private sound sessions in 2003, combining massage therapy with Himalayan singing bowls, drumming, and tuning forks. In 2004, she purchased her first crystal singing bowl and gong and began playing sound baths for individuals and small private groups. Sound baths were not yet a familiar concept. The word itself was new, and the few practitioners offering them as a service in Southern California were spread apart with no shared standard for what a sound bath should deliver.

Jamie held her first public group sound bath in September 2006 at Crystal Matrix in Atwater Village, Los Angeles, California. Over the years that followed, she brought sound baths into many yoga studios, wellness centers, dance studios, and private spaces across the city. By 2009, she was partnering with yoga teachers to offer restorative yoga and sound bath events at Yoga Blend in Burbank, a relationship that continued through 2019. From 2011 through the end of 2019 she led regular events at a wide variety of studios including Yoga Blend, Chakra 5, Yogala, Yoga House, Exhale, Wanderlust, Liberation Yoga, One Down Dog, and Yoga NoHo, among others. She also began teaching yoga and sound classes that year, blending vinyasa flow with gongs and crystal singing bowls. Those classes ran at many Los Angeles studios through 2018.

What Jamie was building through those years was not a business model. It was a method. Playing thousands of public events, along with private sound baths and yoga and sound classes, taught her what worked and what did not, what helped people actually relax and go deep within, and what kept them at the surface. Jamie’s goal was always to take people deep, to help them reach the hypnagogic state, the state between being awake and asleep, where the body is at rest but awareness remains open. In that state deep relaxation occurs, insights arise, and the nervous system resets in ways that ordinary rest does not always reach. That understanding became the foundation of The Soundbath Center offerings.

Opening the First Dedicated Sound Bath Venue in Los Angeles

In March 2015, Jamie opened The Sound Space in Los Angeles, the first public venue in the city dedicated exclusively to gong and crystal bowl sound baths. The space held only ten people per event. That was a deliberate choice. A small room with a small group meant a different quality of attention than a large studio event. Every event was intimate, and every person in the room could feel the instruments fully.

Shortly after opening, Jamie met Robert Lee. Robert had been working in fitness and wellness since 1998 as a personal trainer specializing in strength training, gyrotonics, yoga, and pilates, and had been leading breathwork sessions for individuals and groups since 2010, developing a signature rhythmic breathing method. Their first joint event, Breathwork SoundLab™, was held in June 2015. The combination of Jamie’s playing experience and Robert’s breathwork practice produced something neither had offered alone: a session that moved people through an active breathing practice and then carried them into a deep, extended sound bath. Participants responded immediately.

In January 2017, The Sound Space was renamed The Soundbath Center. The venue continued to offer 4 to 8 public sound bath events weekly through March 2026, eleven years in total, before transitioning to private and mobile bookings and a broader online brand. Over that time, the space became known as one of the most respected sound bath venues in the city. It was featured in the LA Times, the New York Times, LA Magazine’s Best of LA issue, and many other publications. Local artist Palmer Schallon designed and built a custom interior completed in April 2020, anchored by a custom gong wall that presented the instruments as both tools and art.

What The Soundbath Center Offered

Jamie and Robert developed a suite of signature sound bath experiences over the course of eleven years in Los Angeles, using The Soundbath Center as the home for each of them. Each one reflected a specific combination of instruments, techniques, and intention.

GongPlay® Soundbath is the original Soundbath Center experience: a therapeutic-style sound bath using multiple gongs and crystal singing bowls, played live from start to finish with no backing tracks. Breathwork SoundLab™ pairs guided rhythmic breathwork with a full sound bath using multiple gongs and crystal singing bowls. GongFusion™ Soundbath is a multi-gong sound bath blended with crystal singing bowls and a custom ambient track. DrumFlow® Soundbath incorporates drumming and breathing techniques alongside a gong-focused sound bath. DrumBath® Ceremony is a participatory event that includes group drumming, breathwork, and a gong sound bath.

All events were facilitated by Jamie and Robert themselves. The Soundbath Center did not outsource its programming to guest facilitators, with rare exceptions. Every person who came through the door experienced the same practitioners, the same instruments, and the same method.

The First Soundbath Practitioner Training

In January 2017, Jamie and Robert coined the term Soundbath Practitioner and launched the first Soundbath Practitioner Training, held January 28 and 29, 2017, under The Soundbath Center brand. It was the first course of its kind: a structured program focused specifically on teaching people how to lead group sound baths with gongs and crystal singing bowls professionally. Before this, sound-based trainings taught students how to offer one-to-one sound healing or sound therapy sessions. Jamie and Robert created an entirely new category: practitioner training specifically for leading group sound bath events. The term Soundbath Practitioner has since been adopted widely across the field, and their original two-level, two-weekend training structure has been widely replicated by others in the sound bath world.

The training ran under The Soundbath Center brand from 2017 through the end of 2020, then continued to evolve under the SoundbathPlayer name. It is now offered as the Group Soundbath Player Certification Course, a fully online professional certification program. The course carries the same philosophy that began in that original Los Angeles training room, but is more comprehensive, refined over eight years of teaching, and built into a format designed for how students actually learn. Students earn certification after completing the course, 40 hours of assignments, and passing an exam. Upon completion they earn the title “Certified SoundbathPlayer,” recognizing their proficiency in playing therapeutic-style gong and crystal bowl sound baths using the method Jamie and Robert developed and teach.

Where The Soundbath Center Is Now

After eleven years as a public venue in Los Angeles, The Soundbath Center transitioned in 2026 to focus on private, mobile, and corporate sound bath experiences. Jamie and Robert now bring professional sound baths directly to clients across Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties, including Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and throughout Southern California. Select engagements are available nationally.

The Soundbath Center remains one of the most established sound bath practices in Los Angeles. For companies, retreat centers, wellness programs, and private clients looking for a professional, experienced team, the same practitioners, the same instruments, and the same method that built The Soundbath Center’s reputation over eleven years are available to bring to your space.

In 2025, Jamie and Robert co-founded The Gong Room near Joshua Tree, California, a dedicated space for public and private sound bath events, workshops, and in-person instrument consultations. Public sound bath events are available at The Gong Room on an ongoing basis.

The Soundbath Center is also growing its online presence. A new website, online community, and expanded programming are in development, with the goal of building a comprehensive sound bath resource for practitioners, participants, and corporate clients alike. What began in a single room in Los Angeles is expanding into something that reaches well beyond it.

Jamie Bechtold

Jamie Bechtold has been playing sound baths with gongs and crystal singing bowls professionally since 2004. With more than 4,000 public group events across Los Angeles and Southern California, she is among the most experienced sound bath practitioners in the United States. Her background includes a BS in Biology, training in acupuncture and massage therapy, yoga teacher training, and additional study in music theory, physics related to sound, Reiki, and energy work.

She has been featured in numerous U.S. and international publications, served as a Paiste Gong Artist from 2011 to 2015, and appeared in Meinl Sonic Energy and Sweetwater promotional videos, as well as the Meinl Sonic Energy and Schlagwerk catalogues. In 2018, she and Robert established GongPlay® as a registered trademark. Jamie co-founded The Soundbath Center in Los Angeles and The Gong Room near Joshua Tree, California, making her one of the few practitioners in the world to have founded and operated two dedicated sound bath venues. Learn more about Jamie.

 

Robert Lee

Robert Lee has worked in fitness and wellness since 1997, with specializations in strength training, gyrotonics, yoga, and pilates. He began leading breathwork sessions in 2010 and developed a signature rhythmic breathing method offered as both private and group experiences. He incorporated sound baths into his breathwork practice in 2015 and has co-facilitated every Soundbath Center event and training since. He and Jamie co-founded The Soundbath Center in Los Angeles and The Gong Room near Joshua Tree, California. Learn more about Robert.

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Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is The Soundbath Center?

The Soundbath Center is a professional sound bath business founded in Los Angeles in 2015 by Jamie Bechtold and Robert Lee. It operated as a dedicated sound bath venue in Los Angeles, offering public and private events along with Soundbath Practitioner Trainings for eleven years, and now offers mobile, private, corporate, and online sound bath experiences across Southern California and beyond. Public in-person events are available at The Gong Room near Joshua Tree, California.

When did The Soundbath Center open?

The Soundbath Center venue opened in March 2015, originally under the name The Sound Space. It was the first public venue in Los Angeles dedicated exclusively to gong and crystal bowl sound baths. The name was changed to The Soundbath Center in January 2017. Public sound bath events were offered 4 to 8 times a week through March 2026.

Who founded The Soundbath Center?

The Soundbath Center was co-founded by Jamie Bechtold and Robert Lee. Jamie opened the original venue in March 2015 and has been playing sound baths professionally since 2004, with more than 4,000 public group events. Robert joined that same year, bringing his background in breathwork and wellness program design. Together they co-facilitated nearly every event and developed all programming, including the first Soundbath Practitioner Training, held January 28 and 29, 2017.

Does The Soundbath Center still offer sound baths in Los Angeles?

Yes. The Soundbath Center continues to offer private and mobile sound bath bookings in Los Angeles and across Southern California, including Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. Corporate sound bath events, private sessions, retreat programming, and select national engagements are available. Public sound baths are offered regularly at The Gong Room near Joshua Tree, California.

What types of sound baths does The Soundbath Center offer?

The Soundbath Center offers several signature sound bath experiences: GongPlay® Soundbath, a therapeutic-style sound bath using multiple gongs and crystal singing bowls; Breathwork SoundLab™, which combines guided rhythmic breathwork with a full sound bath; GongFusion™ Soundbath, which adds a custom ambient track to the live playing; DrumFlow® Soundbath, incorporating drumming and breathing alongside a gong sound bath; and DrumBath® Ceremony, a participatory event combining group drumming, breathwork, and a gong sound bath. All experiences are facilitated by Jamie Bechtold and Robert Lee.

Where can I attend a public sound bath event?

Public sound bath events are available at The Gong Room, the studio Jamie Bechtold and Robert Lee co-founded near Joshua Tree, California in 2025. Online sound bath events and community programming are also available through The Soundbath Center. For private or mobile bookings in Southern California, contact The Soundbath Center directly.