Studio Furniture; Console and Producer Desks w/Racks

Looks like I gotta build one of each after all. The budget is wearing thin, and I can't justify another $12k-$15k on furniture. First question is whether to use aluminum, steel or wood to build the frame. I'm looking at the dyna-frame and the MacFrame. systems. They both seem pretty stout. I'm contemplating a little dorm fridge on the producer's side of the producer's desk. To do that, I'd have to vent it into the rack space, which is doable, but I'm thinkin' it would be a PITA. The only reason I'd do it is because I'd already be building it pseudo "iso" and vented for the racks. I'm thinking 3/4" birch or oak ply (cherry is STOOPID money), 5/8" gypsum, 1/2" Hardie Backer and lined with fabric wrapped 703 or mineral wool. I'd vent with 4 - 6" 110 Whisperfans and push that out to the side, while the intake would be through the other side. I've got some walnut I'm using for the trim in the control room. I can use the same for the trim on the desks and racks. By using either the Dyna Frame or the MacFrame, there appears to be a nice connection system to attach the rails through the material and into the frame.... as well as attaching all the other materials to the frames. Any thoughts? - or - Has anyone built studio furniture based on a steel or aluminum extrusion frame system?

No taker's huh? OK, lemme ask this... Is anyone even interested in discussing studio furniture? I'm just curious...

I looked at the prices. A bit pricey for me.... The concept is nice. a Tech look with good support. I'd like to see the skilled labourers. As I am no carpenter, great ideas are always nice to find.

What's too pricey? The extrusions or pre-built studio furniture in general? or both? :shock:

The extrusions... Pre-built furniture is what it is. Expensive because of marketing and advertising.

Tell me... $15-$30k for studio furniture??? That's a bit ridiculous.

I totally agree. For that Price I'll start constructing a Euphonix System 5-MC mix desk. LOL. I am taking 2 desk designs and hybriding them. All wood with 1x2 cleats for frame support. Will come out a LOT cheaper. Even going Hardwood vs plywood. The extrusions looked tasty till I check the price. I was bummed. LOL.

giles117 wrote:

I totally agree. For that Price I'll start constructing a Euphonix System 5-MC mix desk. LOL.

Make mine an 8088 while yer' in there... I'll scrounge the components... :wink:

I am taking 2 desk designs and hybriding them. All wood with 1x2 cleats for frame support. Will come out a LOT cheaper. Even going Hardwood vs plywood. The extrusions looked tasty till I check the price. I was bummed. LOL.

I just wonder how well wood cleat is gonna stand up to draggin' 100 lbs worth of pre's in and out of the console, 2-3 times a month, over the years. The 1073's are serious iron, and when someone wants em' on a remote, they'll go with me... for a nominal fee, anyway. :D The only other option is to make a secondary stand for them and a coupla' other pieces. Then loom those back to the patch bay. About your combined design, are you going to damp the top at all? e.g. multiple densities to minimize resonant harmonics.

My last deal was a 2x4 frame with rails connected. Worked fine for a # of years. the 1x2 is to support the face (cosmetic) panels, not the gear. I am borrowing from the argosy V90 series design school. They seem pretty sturdy. I have a few buddies with them and years later they still look and work good.. That combined with some common PROPER build sense. Good wood choices, etc.. will make a nice long lasting product. Like making the upper surfaces out of hardwood and not plywood. (Like proper cabinet making) I hope you don't think I was walking about screwing gear into a cleat and not using rails??? Thats fools play.

HA! I'd hardly think that Bryan... you do a lot better work than that.... sorry to have mis-represented my comment/out of context reply... (I'm a drummer...) I was referring to the cleat bars, in general, having a tendency to loosen up from the lateral stresses of shifting heavy gear around. I've seen all to often the carcass of shelving and desks just disintegrate the holes from lateral stress. That's what I'm trying so much to avoid. Since I'm running the D-Command w/expansion pack, I'm thinkin of something of a hybrid from these.... http://www.audiolot.com/proaudio/sales/products?id=119 http://www.custom-consoles.com/images/dcommand/P7150298.jpg http://www.sterlingmodular.com/index.cfm?event=showConsole7 http://www.argosyconsole.com/html_internal/argosy_studiofurniture_digidesigndcommand_DC24.html I like the space and the angled recess rack spaces of the Audiolot CRC, and was gonna get one, but the money just ain't there. Really well built. Custom Console's stuff just is a bit too boxy with their add-on's above the surface, but their stuff looks nice otherwise. I'll probably use Sterling's monitor arms... good stuff! The only problem I have with Sterling is that their bays are mesh and all that fan noise is free to the room. (GOTTA have iso boxes for much of the gear) I wish I could get the legs from Argosy's Mirage... kinda' like the look, but the pan assy is just... I dunno... not very sexy.

xaMdaM wrote:

HA! I'd hardly think that Bryan... you do a lot better work than that.... sorry to have mis-represented my comment/out of context reply... (I'm a drummer...) I was referring to the cleat bars, in general, having a tendency to loosen up from the lateral stresses of shifting heavy gear around. I've seen all to often the carcass of shelving and desks just disintegrate the holes from lateral stress. That's what I'm trying so much to avoid. I wish I could get the legs from Argosy's Mirage... kinda' like the look, but the pan assy is just... I dunno... not very sexy.

Just use hard wood, like Mahogany (very hard.) I think most people use Plywood MDF or (ugh!!!) Particle board. And those cant handle that weight and repeated stress long term. Or Use a 1x4 Pine cleat attached to the carcass shells. Even a 2x4 cut down from 1.5" thick to 1" thick would do the trick. That gives you an extra 1/4" of thickness over a std 1x I am learning to get better skilled with my router and will probably route down 2x4's to make the feet for my desk. Those mirage feet are sweet. Find a Local sheet metal shop. LOL. Have them roll of a few pieces of 1/4" Plate Steel for you. LOL. Easier to have a LOCAL weld shop do it than to buy prefabbed. Plus we can support a Local worker vs some mexican imported aluminum. Nothing wrong with NON virgin steel. LOL. Then Powder coat it. (You got me thinking. LOL.) I think I'll do a drive by and chat with these guys and see what they would charge to weld my feet and frame for my desk.

utoh... I've created a monster!! Seriously, I hear you on the local shop stuff. I try to do that every time I can. If we don't put what money we can back into our local economies..... Actually, that's a great idea about taking stuff to a local shop. There's one less than 1/2 mile from here. Between them and the sawmill less than a mile away, is why I ended up doing my clean power as a 15KVA isolation transformer. But seeing as I'm still slap in the middle of getting my acoustical treatment up in the tracking room, it'll probably be a week or so before I can actually hammer out a design to the point that I'll have a foot design to take to the shop. As I start to get the console design done, I'll try to post the morphology here. So, you think oak would be strong enough for the frame?

What size will the frame be that the Panels will hang off of?

giles117 wrote:

What size will the frame be that the Panels will hang off of?

My gut tells me to make the iso boxes the guide depth. So, ~12 spaces high x 24"- 30" deep. The iso boxes will hold 2 computers, converters, sync I/O and the X-Mon. Tight I know, but I might be able to pull it off. The counter tops would all be the same thickness; 3/4" birch ply, 1/2" hardie backer and 1/2" ply. As far as length of the console desk... I'm thinkin' that with the iso boxes tucked in square at an angled point (at about a 15 degree back sweep), I can still get 2x 10 rack spaces on both sides of the D-Command for the rest of the mic pre's. (like the CRC) So, console length would be just over 11 feet. If I trim out 2 of the 10 space bays, I could get it down to about 9 feet. That way, I'd actually have room to put a 12 space rack on each side, that would angle back at the top, under the swept back wing. If I make the one on the left pretty much a shelf, I could put the 1073's in that space, then put the patch bay, cables and misc on the right. Swinging around to the producer's desk behind me, I can put all my external comps, gates, FX and 2 track. If I pseudo seal the racks, I could mount fans for ventilation to keep the gear cooler. I think the producer's desk should be 50% of the console width and centered to the console. Any comments or thoughts? (Other than I'm an idiot :D )

xaMdaM wrote:

giles117 wrote:

What size will the frame be that the Panels will hang off of?

My gut tells me to make the iso boxes the guide depth. So, ~12 spaces high x 24"- 30" deep. The iso boxes will hold 2 computers, converters, sync I/O and the X-Mon. Tight I know, but I might be able to pull it off. The counter tops would all be the same thickness; 3/4" birch ply, 1/2" hardie backer and 1/2" ply. As far as length of the console desk... I'm thinkin' that with the iso boxes tucked in square at an angled point (at about a 15 degree back sweep), I can still get 2x 10 rack spaces on both sides of the D-Command for the rest of the mic pre's. (like the CRC) So, console length would be just over 11 feet. If I trim out 2 of the 10 space bays, I could get it down to about 9 feet. That way, I'd actually have room to put a 12 space rack on each side, that would angle back at the top, under the swept back wing. If I make the one on the left pretty much a shelf, I could put the 1073's in that space, then put the patch bay, cables and misc on the right. Swinging around to the producer's desk behind me, I can put all my external comps, gates, FX and 2 track. If I pseudo seal the racks, I could mount fans for ventilation to keep the gear cooler. I think the producer's desk should be 50% of the console width and centered to the console. Any comments or thoughts? (Other than I'm an idiot :D )

Didn't know convertors made that much noise. LOL. I'd just put the CPU in the box. I always kept my misc racks away from the mix desk and just kept the IMPORTANT gear at hand. Anything with meters, patch bays and Mic Pre's I like my mix area to be pretty free and clear. No big deal to roll around the studio in my Lazy Man's chair. LOL. I mean, how often do you stare at a sync box. LOL. I think thats overkill on the counter tops. You planning on baking bread in the studio as well?? Do your shell with 1/2" Ply then the covers with 3/4" Oak. Thats about it. The Backerboard is unnecessary and just you spending money for fun.

Actually, the 192's are noisy.... most of the Digi stuff is actually. At least they annoy the heck out of me anyway. Besides, stuck in a nice cool iso box ain't gonna hurt, and it clears the worksurface of non-essential stuff. With a slab of flat surface that big, you don't think the surface will vibrate? I've got my monitors set up downstairs, and when I get em' cranked a bit, I can feel the solid oak table vibrate, that the console is sitting on. It's not like it's loud enough to go skootin' across the floor or anything... it's just that I don't want to sink all this time into a console desk, only to have the thing adding some wonk harmonic half the time. Hardie Backer is cheap mass... like $6/board, and I've still got some left over that I was gonna make gobo's out of, after I make the Iso Boxes. I'm thinkin that adding the mass wouldn't hurt. That'd be 3 different masses, and would def kill any harmonics. The thing is, that's theory and provable in a lot of ways, but is it necessary? I dunno. Possibly not, and I'm sure for a lot of folks, they could give a crap. I've seen some pretty significant desks introduce a lot of splash into the mix position, and have heard of a couple of rooms where the console tub even resonated at certain frequencies. So I am taking it from a worry wart perspective that mass is your friend... especially cheap mass. Guess I'm just being anal...

xaMdaM wrote:

Actually, the 192's are noisy.... most of the Digi stuff is actually. At least they annoy the heck out of me anyway. Besides, stuck in a nice cool iso box ain't gonna hurt, and it clears the worksurface of non-essential stuff. With a slab of flat surface that big, you don't think the surface will vibrate? I've got my monitors set up downstairs, and when I get em' cranked a bit, I can feel the solid oak table vibrate, that the console is sitting on. It's not like it's loud enough to go skootin' across the floor or anything... it's just that I don't want to sink all this time into a console desk, only to have the thing adding some wonk harmonic half the time. Hardie Backer is cheap mass... like $6/board, and I've still got some left over that I was gonna make gobo's out of, after I make the Iso Boxes. I'm thinkin that adding the mass wouldn't hurt. That'd be 3 different masses, and would def kill any harmonics. The thing is, that's theory and provable in a lot of ways, but is it necessary? I dunno. Possibly not, and I'm sure for a lot of folks, they could give a crap. I've seen some pretty significant desks introduce a lot of splash into the mix position, and have heard of a couple of rooms where the console tub even resonated at certain frequencies. So I am taking it from a worry wart perspective that mass is your friend... especially cheap mass. Guess I'm just being anal...

Cheap is SOOOO relative. I have never had an issue with what you speak. Mixes come out great. Paranoia can rain. Thats why certain people make so much off the sheeple. Using their fears to make bank. The splash was probably introduced by angles of reflection, etc... I mean 250Hz (a nice wood frequency) is gonna bounce regardless of mass. What I found is by having those clouds above your head, that eliminates the effects of the "spill/splash" in your mixes. I remember the difference between no Rockwool/insulation and when I added my ceiling treatments.

giles117 wrote:

Cheap is SOOOO relative. I have never had an issue with what you speak. Mixes come out great. Paranoia can rain. Thats why certain people make so much off the sheeple. Using their fears to make bank. The splash was probably introduced by angles of reflection, etc... I mean 250Hz (a nice wood frequency) is gonna bounce regardless of mass. What I found is by having those clouds above your head, that eliminates the effects of the "spill/splash" in your mixes. I remember the difference between no Rockwool/insulation and when I added my ceiling treatments.

I hear ya. I'm not usually one to go too "deep end" about some of this stuff, but at this stage of the game, and with as much as I have invested in this thing, it's a bit too scary to just blow it over something like a desk... on either side of the equation. Conversation to clarify a thought process is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than under building, or over building. Usually, Rod will step in and tell me where I'm screwing up. (and get me back on the right track) But, I think he's been pretty busy, and hasn't had much time to keep an eye on my latest foray of winding myself into a tizzy over trying to figure out this console "dilemma"... :horse: Again, I'm not doubting you. Just the opposite... I'll sweat as many details as I need to... often more, including the ones that sometimes aren't worth it... and not cause I'm sheeple, (I can guarantee you that!) but because I'll over think the problem and verge on OCD'ing down in the molecular theory, and forget that there actually another forest out there that has more effect. So, work surface is 3/4" finish grade over 1/2" ply. Done... that was relatively painful, huh? :) If I can find some decent birch or kiln dried maple billets for the carcass, I'll bet they'll be cheaper than tubular steel or angle bracket... and a damn site cheaper than the extrusion.

Not as painful as one might think. I checked out another page you were posting on and jumped over to Paul Woodblocks build in 2004. Loved his work. He is a Master Craftsman. I am not even NEAR his league. LOL. BUT!! I grabbed a couple of ideas. Like moving all my amps to the front lower panels for quick adjustments and tweaking. Like Rack mounting my CPU and moving it from the mix position to that front Middle soffit along with the AMP I will use to drive my MidField 10" 3 ways.... I Like the approach he took with the build. Generally I do the master frame and build the small stuff into it. He went Inch by inch. A bit overkill for me, but if you have the patience. But back to the desk. I am coming up with my final design. I am not the sketchup king. I work faster with pen and paper. I use sketchup to detail my paper ideas with exact measurements. I'll check my local steel guy tomorrwo to see if he will build my LITTLE legs for my desk.

giles117 wrote:

Not as painful as one might think. I checked out another page you were posting on and jumped over to Paul Woodblocks build in 2004. Loved his work. He is a Master Craftsman. I am not even NEAR his league. LOL. BUT!! I grabbed a couple of ideas. Like moving all my amps to the front lower panels for quick adjustments and tweaking. Like Rack mounting my CPU and moving it from the mix position to that front Middle soffit along with the AMP I will use to drive my MidField 10" 3 ways.... I Like the approach he took with the build. Generally I do the master frame and build the small stuff into it. He went Inch by inch. A bit overkill for me, but if you have the patience. But back to the desk. I am coming up with my final design. I am not the sketchup king. I work faster with pen and paper. I use sketchup to detail my paper ideas with exact measurements. I'll check my local steel guy tomorrwo to see if he will build my LITTLE legs for my desk.

Oh jeeeze, yeah... Paul's "bomb shelter" was amazing to watch come together as it happened. That guy is def a Master Craftsman... and a lunatic! He was one of my inspirations on my build. Granted, his whole place is about 1/2 the size of my tracking room, but his end result from paying attention to some of the smallest details paid off big time... so maybe that helps explain some of my quirkiness to detail, I dunno. I ain't all that with sketckup either :D (I prefer TurboCAD) But as I get closer to the end of the treatment to my control room, I'll try to put up some pdf's of the drawings. With the way that Rod and I designed my place, we opted not to use soffits in favor of midfields and nearfields. As such, I really don't have room in my walls to stick things... besides, that would put them a good 16 feet away from the console... which is just a tad too far for the monitor cables once you come out of the computer, go into the wall, under the floor, up in the console area and make it to the monitor arms. So... kinda' stuck with the boxes needing to be in iso boxes at the console... :cen: oh well........

I almost feel your pain. I worked in a Neve Capricorn room with the CPU in the "vault" LOL. It was every bit of 30' from the CPU to the LCD's BTW just use HDMI cables and HDMI to DVI Adapters. :)

Me being the cheap bastard I can be... LOL. I chose to build my desk with 2x4's, 2x2's and 3/4" plywood for the sides and 4/4 hardwood for the top(s) I did check with my steel guy. It would run about 2-300 for the frame. All L bracket, 1/4" Cold Rolled Steel with all the #10 holes (none tapped) The foot frame base = 3" x 28" x 1/4" Steel with the feet = 1/2" U-shaped steel . Not a bad price at all for the entire frame. Still with hardwoods for racks and surface, plywood for sides.