On Purpose Productions detached garage studio

lilith_envy wrote:

Does it matter if the band gets a glimse of the back of your monitors?

Oh....I meant computer monitors (screens). Two of them side-by-side on the center of the desk would make a wall right in front of the window. I actually did lower the window 4" over the weekend (pic). I think I'll have to look at using swivel mounts for the screens that would allow them to extend forward over the desk and lower than the bridge. And maybe just stick with one screen...?

John Sayers wrote:

the typical window is 3ft from the floor and 3ft high - to 6ft.

This new height puts me at 3' 10" to 5' 10". I'd like to lower it more, and perhaps I will, but I definitely need to have a plan for positioning the screen(s) such that it makes sense. The problem is I don't actually have the argosy desk and Control24 yet. Thanks for the thoughts Lilith/John! The framing gets inspected today at 3pm! Hopefully no unpleasant surprises....

I passed the framing inspection! :yahoo: I wasn't really worried but its nice to hear him say he couldn't find anything even slightly under ideal in the framing. Well that's not true - he would like to see some blocking between the 2x6s in the CR ceiling. My order from Redco is on its way....$300 later. And I just ordered 30 7"x7" putty pads from http://www.soundproofingcompany.com for $3.65US per unit plus $27.75 for USPS across the border - nice! If anyone else is looking talk to John there. Electrical Issues: One of the prospective electricians was by again today before finalizing his quote - he said that the electrical powers that be in Ontario are encouraging electricians to run separate 2 conductor wires for each outlet when isolated grounding is desired (rather than simply running a separate copper wire for the isolated ground). He explained that (and I hope I'm getting this right) it is because in some cases where separate ground wires were run there was an issue of heat build up on the neutral bar at the panel when equipment with switchable/switched mode power supplies were plugged into the outlets. But more of a concern was that he didn't think they would let him run the outlet grounds to a separate grounding bar at the panel (which would terminate at the new separate rod in the ground) while lights and HVAC grounded back to the house main panel and the original rod in the ground there. :shock: He was going to check with ESA though. I know codes here can be a little more strict than elsewhere - anyone in Ontario know whether this is the case or not? That would obviously be pretty major! He was also suggesting a grounding plate rather than a rod, which only goes a couple feet below the surface. I haven't read anything on those on the forum - thoughts? Its crazy that I can talk to multiple electricians and have each of them say something different. I had Mr. Electric in to give a quote and the guy said a 30 amp run (in addition to the existing 30 amp run which will go to HVAC) wouldn't be enough for the outlets I proposed to put in (4 20 amp and 6 15 amp). He said a 60 amp run would be required but quoted me both ways (a very high quote I might add).

He was also suggesting a grounding plate rather than a rod,

yes - that's worth considering - some recommend a bunch of rods soldered together as an alternative.

John Sayers wrote:

He was also suggesting a grounding plate rather than a rod,

yes - that's worth considering - some recommend a bunch of rods soldered together as an alternative.

Thanks John, I appreciate it - I can check that one off my worry list. But I've got another now..... I priced out 1x12x8 FJ/EG boards at Lowe's for my door and window jams. These have the tongue & groove joints for extra strength and true-ness. But holy crap - they're $24.02 each and I would need 12! Actually they could do $21.62 for me, but that is a lot more money than I budgeted for jams, and that doesn't even include stops! They also sell knotty pine boards of the same sizing - rough on one side and smooth on the other - for only $8-something each (just under $9, I think). I'm concerned about the fact that the jam needs to extend 1 1/4" beyond the stud (to flush up to the two layers of drywall) and the solid 1 3/4" doors will be mounted primarily on this extended portion of the jam. If it doesn't stay true I could constantly have problems with my door spacing. Am I worrying too much? Should the $9 boards be okay as long as I don't pick duds?

Door/window jams and thresholds are in for the most part. I did end up going with the cheaper pine boards and I think they'll be plenty fine. I'll get some pics up later today but I wanted to tackle something else first; My Redco order came yesterday :D I got the Neutrik NP3X TRS connectors and I can't tell which contact point correlates to TIP and which correlates to RING. SLEEVE (#1 in my pic) is pretty obvious since its visibly connected via the chassis. Does someone know how Neutrik has the other two points set up on this connector? Today - I solder! :D

2=tip use a volt-meter or alike, I'd say ;)

Thanks Ro! I just don't have a voltmeter yet - guess I should probably go buy another piece of gear! :roll: :wink:

So as soon as I got my Redco order I started excitedly loading the face plates :) and then got them soldered yesterday and this morning. And yes I did make more than one solder connection BEFORE threading the casing onto the wire :roll: I tapconed the subfloor down in places where it was 'clacking' due to being raised a bit from the concrete - feels really solid now! The door/window jams and thresholds are in for the most part. I went with solid oak for the two entry thresholds (not pictured) but just pine for the interior thresholds. I had to rent a table saw to rip all the boards to size but didn't get all the window stop pieces cut. I'll be ripping them on a friends saw. The pictures show how I decided to do the jams - with a small gap between the outer and inner leaf. The second pic shows how the stop pieces will be installed. For the glass, I think I'll be going with a pane of 12mm and a pane of 15mm (laminated) in each window. I'll be putting in that order this afternoon along with the order for my sliding glass door. Electrical will go in over the next few days. My putty pads came from Soundproofing Company (I highly recommend them). I've been spending a lot of time getting quotes, making decisions and placing orders so I'm looking forward to working on the actual installation again.

few more pics. I had to shim the two interior thresholds to get them level and used cedar underlay shakes (man that cedar smells good!) to ensure a good solid threshold. On the first pic I've already cut off the excess of the shims while the second pic shows them still in place.

Yikes - I am really far behind on ordering my glass for the windows and my sliding glass door. Getting quotes has been a really time consuming and frustrating experience for me. Because everything I need is so uncommon it takes people days to get back with a quote. I've been trying to get things established for many weeks now! For the slider I've focused my efforts on a local window and door place and Home Depot. Home Depot got me a quote after about a week for somewhere around $3400. That was for a solid wood, vinyl-clad frame, double glaze door (one pane 5mm the other 8.5mm 'hurricane' rated, both laminated). The local window and door place got back a quote for $1354. That door was also double glazed with each pane being 6mm laminated. BUT, they forgot to request it with a solid wood frame as I specified. So after another 3 day wait I just got back a quote for $2300 for the same door but with the solid wood vinyl-clad frame. $1000 for a solid frame! :shock: :x My wife's asking the reasonable question of whether I really need a sliding glass door or not. I'm really not sure what to do at the moment..... :cry:

The cheapest system is a window and door that you build yourself.

My door ended up pretty good. $1400 aussie. 10.38mm glass, solid timber. But then I got a quote for the 2nd door, but went down to 8.38mm glass and they quoted me $1500! WHAT THE!?!

cos you are a girl :mrgreen:

He he, i think the 1st guy gave my trade discount cos I'm a girl and the chick that did the 2nd quote didn't!

:mrgreen: that sounds right !

Well the sliding glass door issue worked itself out! :D When I told the guy that $2300 was really stretching my budget and I'd have to figure out what I'd like to do he called me back and said he'd run a quote through another supplier who he expected to be far less expensive. He came back with a quote for $1412 plus tax for a solid wood vinyl-clad frame, double glazed thermal unit with each pane being 6mm laminated. Seems slightly suspicious. Whether they just thought they could get more money out of me or this other supplier is truly that much more affordable I don't know, but the specs are right and the door is ordered. :wink: I also finally ordered the glass for all my windows. Each window gets a pane of 15mm and a pane of 12mm laminated glass with about 6 inches between them. The guy actually said he could drop it off at my house for no extra charge because I'm actually right between where he lives and his shop. Nice! :wink: Should be ready in 1-2 weeks. I finished up the window jams and stained the portions that will be between the two panes. And also stained the new thresholds - oak for the two entry doors and pine for the interior thresholds. I'm not sure how the interior thresholds will look next to the flooring I've chosen - we'll see. For electrical I ran all the cables and installed the boxes and I'm currently waiting for the electrician to get out and connect everything up. We ended up running a 3 conductor Romex wire for each outlet to achieve the isolated grounding. Apparently the local authority prefers this method over using standard 2 conductor wire plus a separate insulated ground cable when going for an isolated ground.

I wasn't going to install my audio runs until after the electrical was inspected but since I'm waiting on my electrician I've decided to move ahead. I was going to run conduit up the wall at the front of the CR and then through the 2x6 ceiling joists to my equipment room. I needed to put in at least 1 1/2" conduit in order to fit a DigiLink connector through (the largest connector going through). So I bought all the stuff and then found that the 90s were just too big to go in like I had planned :oops: I could use plumbing piping instead with the small hard-turn 90s (I don't think the electrical inspector is going to be at all concerned with that) but then I may not be able to fish cables through in the future - and that's really the only reason I want to use conduit at all. I might just run all of my expected cabling through the ceiling joists without any conduit and then put in an empty plumbing conduit run with those hard 90s for the possibility of future runs. But in order to actually be able to fish cables through I might not be able to run them to the ideal locations - I might have to have the conduit exit at the ceiling and then have any cables run down the wall (exposed) to my desk.

lol, "another supplier". So you will be grounding the 3rd conductor to the outlet and the bare ground to the box?

petrovinksy wrote:

So you will be grounding the 3rd conductor to the outlet and the bare ground to the box?

Exactly.

An update is much overdue. I passed the electrical inspection without issue and got straight to work installing all remaining cable runs and putty pads. Pics 1&2 show the pads installed. I left the front portion of the boxes unputtied in order to have a surface to tape the vapor barrier to when it goes in. Hopefully the drywall will but right up against the putty. Pic 3 shows a 500' roll of 14-gauge in-wall rated twisted pair to be used for 5.1 speakers in CR as well as 2 speakers in the LR for talent listen-back. Pics 4&5 show the cable runs in the equipment closet - speaker cables come out the box on the far right, all other connectivity in the middle and a CAT5e ethernet port that will connect to a port in the CR on the far left (to network my iMac with my G5). Pic 6 shows the CR side of the cable runs (except ethernet)

More; Pics 1&2 show the cable runs from the equipment closet to the CR. I couldn't get conduit to make the 90 degree turn up into the ceiling that was large enough to fit the connectors through so I did without. Its worth noting that I'm REALLY glad that I used 2x6s for the CR ceiling joists - everything that I've run in the ceiling is above the lower 3" of the joist which means my insulation can sit nicely below everything. :wink: Pics 3-6 show the empty 'future-proofing' conduit run. It comes out in the ceiling of the CR which means if I need to run anything in the future I'll have to run the cable down the wall exposed for all to see! :shock: I couldn't see any way round this.

BTW - the cable boxes in the previous pics will also get putty pads (in case you were worried :wink: ) Pic 1 shows the XLR main monitor feeds - haven't settled yet on what my mains will be - quite possible JBL LSR4328p but we'll see. Pic 2 shows the back of the two LR mic panels with putty Pic 3 shows the two CR 20 amp boxes for everything that will go in my desk racks. 3 of my 10 electrical outlets were 20 amp runs - the other went in the equipment closet along with a standard 15 amp. Pic 4 shows the mic panel in the booth Pic 5 shows one of the 5.1 speaker boxes. These are going to be Totem Dreamcatcher speakers (I've got 11 of them and two matching subs!) Pic 6 shows the front of one of the two LR mic panels. The other has 4 XLR and 4 TRS. You can see the first layer of drywall in the background - 44 sheets ready to go!

and a couple more...I took the pics so why not post them.... Pic 1 shows the final conduit run from the outside soffit - the cable company came and ran a coaxial cable as well as a phone cable through here from their box on the side of the house. I had hoped to set up a second wireless network in the studio but as it turns out I'd have to pay for a second account to do that - not cool. So they ran these lines and I'll have to bring my modem and router out to the studio to set up wireless out there (moving it back and forth from the house). That's obviously not cool either so I also ran my own 100' ethernet cable from the wireless router in the house through this conduit which will terminate in a wall outlet so I can connect at least one computer - this will probably be sufficient. Pic two shows the internet and phone boxes. Top left box will be an ethernet port. Bottom box will be phone port and coaxial cable port. Right box is an ethernet port connecting to the port in the equipment room - so I can network the two computers. Hopefully there's also enough room left inside that conduit if I every need to run another cable from outside the studio.

I just realized I made a fairly significant oversight. I've made no accommodation for getting power to my main monitors! I've never been completely sure what my mains would be so it's been something only in the back of my mind, but I have always assumed they'd be powered - hence the XLR connector. As it stands I'd have to run their power cords directly down the wall!! :x I think this is my first major blunder :oops:, at least that I know about. CRAP! There's still time of course to figure it out but the electrical has already been inspected so adding a couple outlets would mean paying for another inspection....

That's not too bad; I'm sure you can add a few extra outlets without doing another inspection. XLR doen't carry any mains so.. gheh. Thanx for the update, looking good (except for that MAJOR blunder haha, just kidding)