zenmans mobile trailer

First of all I want to thank everyone who takes the time to mentor share their experience. Sure can save a lot of time and money during construction. I am called zenman and this is my first post. Please let me know if I am not following your posting guidelines. I live in Wakefield Quebec Canada. I have been in the music industry for about 35 years and had my own project studio running a PT HD rig with a vintage GHOST front end and some of the usual toys you would find in a project studio. I am building a mobile recording unit. (please see attached drawing presented as a .jpg file for now). I am comfortable using Visio. I will learn sketch for my next offering. Some recent background to date is that I have purchased a heavy duty 5th wheel which I will haul around with my pick-up truck. The 5th wheel is 18' on the flat bed and 7' on top of the hitch deck. I have purchased a potato chip truck box that is 20'LX8'HX8'W with two rear swing doors. It is made of aluminum frame with white aluminum sheeting outside and 1/4" plywood skin inside. There is about 2" of sprayed insulation on the walls and ceilings under the 1/4" skin. This box will be dropped onto the flat bed. I intend to build a room on top of the hitch deck with a sleeper and cut out a section of the front of the main box with a step up into this room. You will notice the ceiling height is higher than the box. This gives me headroom and much needed storage over the top of the box. This room will be approximately 8'WX7'Hx7'W. I will also incorporate a sleeper extending over the truck cab. I have attached a conceptual drawing roughly to scale to demonstrate my intentions. My next step will be to produce a detailed building plan but before I go any further I would be grateful if I could get some feed back on the current layout...potential problem areas that will need to be addressed or possible deal breakers...resonator and bass trap locations...etc. Please be brutal, you can't hurt my feelings. Last but certainly not lease...I have invested 1500. in the box, 6,000 in my truck, 2000. for the flatbed. I would like to try and keep the balance of my investment to around 5000. I have been running my own studio for about 10 years and have a pretty good understanding of what I have read here in this forum so far. Thank you in advance for any input or comments. gm zenman

Good to see ya zenman, this should be fun!

Thanks for looking. An idea I have been kicking around is demonstrated in the last floor plan. I have 2 4X8 1/2 thick bullet proof glass panels that were the doors of the old post office here in Ottawa. (a piece of history...great conversation piece) I used them as wall panels between rooms and they don't allow any sound to leak through but are rather bright. (I like a crispy room) If I use them in the mobile I could have a division to create a recording room on the fly. Most of the time they would be open expanding the depth of the control room but give me the option to record in the mobile as well. What do you think? Greater depth helps with the bass but is the brightness somewhat controllable? z

It will be most difficult to frame such a heavy piece of glass to stay mounted and stay where you put it. That is what I think. The acoustic design of Outside Broadcast vehicles: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1984-03.pdf Just something to read on, Brien edit: You said "I have attached a conceptual drawing roughly to scale to demonstrate my intentions. " I say "I don't see it".

Thanks for your comments. I will be re-posting a new concept drawing shortly with incorporated suggestions so far. z

Heck I haven't seen the old concept!

The Zen Mobile consists of 3 separate buildings anchored to a 5th wheel trailer. My goal is to have a remote unit I can lease out on a day rate or of course to DO recordings myself…but keep this thing making money at a very un-beatable rate…better than asking a lot and having it sit in my yard. The unit has air and heat, air scrubber, small kitchenette and toilet facility as well as running water. If overnight is required 2 queen sized blowups can be taken out of storage and put on the floor. Video monitored surveillance keeps it safe. Currently I will use a 48 ch. Soundcraft Ghost as the input console. This is a PT rig with a small Command 8 on sliders on top of the console as the CS for PT. There are the usual pre’s, mics etc. 150’ disconnect and 150’ split audio snake with a couple of video channels for monitoring video. I really want to keep it simple. The Highway law restricts me to 8’WX13’H. The other major consideration I have is the weight on the hitch. For this reason I put the Recording Room on the deck which is basically an empty room during transportation. The majority of weight is behind the wheel wells. I moved the wheel center point (balance) closer to the front from the traditional 2/3rds front and 1/3rd rear. This uses the majority of weight to cantilever and counter-balance the hitch weight. There is quite a bit of weight in the Utility room with the HVAC, Amp rack, all the wire, toilet and 8 car battery UPC, (1500 lbs),. I figure close to 3000 lbs. If the hitch weight is still too high then I can put counter weights under the rear of the Utility Room. I can add another 1000 lbs. if needed. The room sizes before interior walls are built are … from rear to front-… Utility Room – 5’DX8’WX10’H Space – 1’ Control Room – 15’6”DX8’WX10’H Tapered Air Lock – 3’DX8’to6’WX11’4”H Step up 39” to Recording Room – 7’DX6’WX8’H Please let me know if anything here is quirky and I will make the appropriate modifications. In the meantime the interior walls, not shown yet, will be on cushions on a cushion floor. The interior walls and ceiling will be secured by foam in place to reduce any inside to outside wall contact. Tin straps will keep the walls from moving...no screws to the outside shell. The console will have foam padding underneath it to absorb as much motion shock and vibration as possible. The audio wiring is all within a small area on the rear wall facing the utility room. HVAC will be in the ceiling with the wall space used as the return with reflectors on the register openings. All the ducts will be dual pipe. By this I mean there will be the outer duct, 1” of insulation and then a smaller duct inserted into the larger duct. All duct runs will have at least I S bend to further confuse any sound waves. All AC wiring will be in the wall space and on the floor…far away from any audio. No AC wires will cross any audio wires…AC or DC. As well as the huge APC unit there will be an AC generator for separate power if needed. For budget I have spent 6K on a pick-up and 5th wheel hitch…2500 on the trailer frame. I have most of the “recording” equipment but must put together the Split snake and AC cable run on dollies. The material for the construction will hit about 6K. So lets say 15K with some wiggle room. I am an experienced contractor in another life and am equipped and comfortable taking on this project. So for now this is a basic introduction to the zen mobile. I look forward to any comments. I will post more drawings and details as I push forward. The project starts early April. Thanks all. z