Studio Build in Central Portugal

A basic roof is on now..... Should more or less get completed this week... Exciting...

this studio porn is rated XOXOXOXO!!!

May 14th I was surprised how fast it went yesterday. They got all the main beams up, supported them from underneath and put in the bricks for 85% of the roof! Wow.. They have to the beams in the front where there will be a 1m overhang in a different way but they put them more or less where they need to be, it was amazing to go inside the building now and you can an idea of what it will be like. Great work guys… May 17-18th The guys worked to rebuild the ruin wall on the side of the building closest to the house. It will go in several steps down. In the gaps about the stones they will make the caputo system of insulation and water protection May 19th Paul moved the huge pile of dirt with his digger and it looks quite good. They did the last bit of cement on the ruin wall closest to the house and started to tie the building into the other ruin wall. It is going to look great. Gil and José started to put up the supports inside the building for pouring the cement for the front roof beams. May 20th I am off to Denmark so I am not sure what they are doing but probably finishing up the supports and then they can put in the bricks and then pour the cement on the roof. They are going to leave a couple of gaps so that they can pour the cement for the final floor though those. Perhap Paul will start to move the rest of the stones in place to create a sort of walled area in front of the studio. There is still quite a bit of water inside the building. It is supposed to be 26C today so perhaps a lot of it will dry up. They should probably sweep it from the back to the front to help this process. May 26th They did not work on the 24th and I have been away for some days to Denmark to play a concert and visit my daughter. Anyway, today they are pouring the cement for the roof. They had cemented in the concrete beams for the 1m overhang last Friday and all the steel for the roof was put in place yesterday. 13 and they are half way done. The two guys are mixing all the cement and Paul is spreading it out. IT is good that the crane is still here as it would be a lot more work. I guess this will cure for a day or two and then they can put the blue insulation on the roof and then the tiles. It is only the insulation and copouto. on the outside to be done after that and paint the building. The windows and door will be some of the last stuff done. I think Paul will even start to frame the walls inside before they are put in. Need to reach Joules. May 28th They just let the concrete settle for another day so did not come yesterday. I watered the roof in the evening and again in the morning on the 27th. It was quite hazy and not that hot so that was good. A nice slow cure.. No cracks. The crane is still hear and Paul is not sure when they come to get it so they used it a lot to day to move all the support pillars out of the inside as well as the clamps, wood, etc.. there is only the building materials inside and some scaffold now. I will shoot a new video soon. Looks great. They will take most of the next week off.

June 4th I messaged with Joules and he is going to come next Weds for a meeting about the studio. This is great news as I have a lot of questions for him and I will make sure I get answers this time!! I hope they will come in July at the latest. We will see… Exciting. Thanks Joules… June 8th The guys showed up and pretty much just built the wall and steps yesterday in front of the studio. Great work. June 9th Guys are starting to work on the copouto on the front of the studio now and Paul has started to frame the interior walls. There are quite some questions about the windows though.. hot today… Joules and Susan showed up at about 15:15 or so. Since Joe is still in England, Joules has a new partner for now. We discussed a lot of stuff and they were very impressed with the building and location and views. We agree for three of the walls of the studio we will have the following: 12 XLR sends, 2 XLR returns 6 LRS plug lines (shielded) USB plugs that can also send midi HDMI
CAT6-7-8 cable 6 electricity plugs 4 headphone inputs (Consider combining headphones with the XLR returns instead, maybe keep 6 returns, but 2 xlr and 4 jack for headphones.  Paul will put two electrical outlet ports on each wall running 25mm tubes for the electricity cables in the walls and put all the rock wool and plaster board up. They will just cut holes where they need to for the custom printed boxes for the XLR cables, etc.. As for the control room, we will for sure flush mount all the speakers, including the rear speakers. Only the subwoofer will be on the floor in front of the mixing desk. They will build a custom mixing desk with the patch bay and all the rack gear. IT will sit low with out having anything obscuring the hearing line from the front speakers. We talked about the HVAC system and this will be ducted with like 30cm ducts so we can have a flow rate of 10L/sec exchange. This should be plenty of fresh air and can maintain the temperature well. This will all be in the ceiling about the entrance and control room. Entrance room will have a ceiling of about 2.6m and the control room 3m. They will put a like control hatch so you can have access to the HVAC and cables if there is ever a problem. Smart. Suspended ceiling will be 30cm. Filled with rock wool. We will pretty much only run the electricity for the lighting and the one microphone that I want to hang from the centre of the room. We agreed to put the main electrical box inside the storage room in the live room. The other electrical box (HVAC, fridge, etc.. can be in the main entrance. Both Joules and Suse thought that it would be an excellent live room and would not require a lot of acoustic treatment since we have a lot of non-parallel walls and a high ceiling. We will do all the proper measurements and see though. They will make some adjustable gobo’s as well so that we can adjust the acoustics of the room if we want to. Smart! As for the time line, it appears Joules and Suse will not work for 5-6 weeks straight (estimated time it will take) but will come for 7 days at a time, perhaps 2 weeks max and then go back and forth between this big job they have in Lisboa. That will work for us. Paul will have all the walls framed in about 2 weeks. Very excited now.. June 10th Holiday June 11th Guys are working more on the copouto. Paul is working on the framing of the walls. Some progress was made but they did not show up until 11 and Paul not until about 15. Progress is super slow the last few weeks. June 14th Only Paul and he showed up around 9:30 and worked until about 15, working on framing the walls. We spoke about how it was very important that this get done as soon as possible so that if and when Joules shows up there are no delays. He agreed. I hope they can get it all done and the floor poured next week. June 15th Almost finished the framing of the walls and put some of the tubes in yesterday. Wow.. It was really hot, over 30C in the shade so they were glad to be working inside. June 16th The guys finished the first layer of the outside of the building with the white insulation. Next is a sort of mesh and then plaster and then 2 layers of paint. They will finish the perimeter framing today and putting in the tubes for the wires (25mm) and 20mm for data and electricity. Then they can start to fill the walls with rock wool. They will have to cut them to fit the 38cm gaps. Plan is to put in the first layer of plasterboard and the internal walls and then they can pour the final concrete floor. June 17th Paul did the plasterboard around the windows and this looks great. They will only be here half day tomorrow.

very nice! also really good to include the CAT 6/7/8 cable because if you need to expand your IO you can use digital wiring in analog mode as well as digital patch units.

OSC, Look for your posts daily to see what you have done this week. Please take a picture of your view. Very curious :) Love what you've done to the place :wink: I echo Glenn on the CAT 6e. I just rewired one of my studios and have to say Dante is the way to go all day, every day. Obviously you need Dante equipment. The other item I noticed was your amount of AC plugins. Every build I do now has an AC plug every 4-5 feet down each wall. You will thank me later. And even then a power strip is needed from time to time. I do surface mount with gray PVC conduit and gray surface mount receptacles. Something to think about. I look forward to more progress. Peace T

Thanks Tom.. We are putting two outlets for power on each of the walls in the live room. Each will have 3-4 outlets, so we can avoid extension bars on the floor. We will for sure install CAT cable as well. There are two data cables running in each wall as well. It was hard to see in the pictures.. Exciting.. Dr Space or Scott or Ricardo...

June 17th-18th They made a huge progress on putting the rock wool into the walls and Paul got the main windows in the live room part all plasterboarded and it looks great. Good progress despite no one showing up on until 12 on Friday and paul only working part of the day Thursday. Looking good though. June 20th FUCK….. We had a lot of rain the last couple of days and there is a lot of water inside the studio and one place where it is running down the back wall and onto the floor in a section they already put the rock wool up. Also at the front, water has been dripping through the roof and splashing all over the plasterboard in 2 places. It is quite wet. I have now covered almost half the roof with a black tarp weighted down with bricks. It overhangs the back wall so no water should be getting into that gap between the bricks and cement. I also put a bucket where the water was splashing and some blue insulation for what does come through to splash on and not get the plasterboard any wetter. I also found out that Jose and Gil did not secure the rock wool on Friday (I actually think they totally forgot to go back and cover it) and most of it was uncovered and now soaking wet. Fuck…. June 22nd Paul and the guys arrived about 9 today… Paul was only here for 30mins but the guys managed to get all the rock wool in on the perimeter walls and plasterboard on the bottom 2/3rds of one of the side walls. Paul said they would finish all the plasterboard on the perimeter walls tomorrow and they plan to pour the cement for the final floor on Thursday. After that they can finish the roof (just needs the insulation and tiles) and finish the wall at the top of the roof. They will also need to add an overhang on the side since Paul missed in the plans that the roof was to cover the side wall on the house side. I asked about the windows but he did not have a delivery date… June 23rd Gil and José were here at 8:40, the earliest I have ever seen them before. They are only working inside on the walls so it is cool even though we will get up to 23-24C today. Feels hotter after a week of cold crap summer weather.. The first layer of plasterboard is nearly done all around the perimeter. Paul showed up 10:30 or so and has been working on the internal walls. It is great to see just where those walls will be now. Wow… Not sure if he will only get the frames up today or also the plasterboard. IT will be a lot slower to do the last 1-2 meters of plasterboard for the top. They can get a lot done when all 3 of them are here. I got a bill for 1000€ from Paul but no details except that it was for labour and additional costs for doing the inside of the studio. I am asking for a breakdown, so I know what I am paying for.. June 24th Gil and José showed up about 10 til 9 and seem set on pouring the entrance way floor straight away. Gil is making the cement (it is hot today, going to be 28C in the shade) and José is spreading it out to make the smooth floor. Still having the crane is making this job much easier. It is still probably 20 loads of cement as you only get 2 full wheelbarrows per batch that can be brought down with the crane. It is pretty smooth but there are still some semi-circular lines that stick up. I hope you won’t feel these through the linoleum floor. Not sure yet what the floor will be in the entrance way yet. I guess they will leave today when they are finished with this as they can’t get in the building to do much after this unless they crawl through one of the smaller window slots but these are partially covered up with the outside insulation. We will see… Wrote to Joules today about a simple contract and what materials he might want ordered soon but got no reply. Busy man… June 25th Gil and José should up at 1215 today.. Cement in the entrance way was hard and pretty smooth but some semi-circular lines. I guess this can not be avoided. Hope you don’t feel them through the linoleum. Anyway, thought they would pour cement today but it is too late so they are starting to put the 2nd layer of plaster board up now in the front of the building. I wish we had some windows now as this is the final wall and vulnerable if we do get some wet weather. Lets see how far they get with the 2nd layer of plasterboard. June 29th Paul arrived first at 8:40 and we discussed the new bill 680€ (for the labour for the inside wall building) and what will happen this week. They will not pour the floor until tomorrow in the live room and will focus on the 2nd layer of plaster board for the walls. They will not do the roof this week so if it still looks like possible rain on Saturday, we will have to cover the roof with plastic again. Progress is slow.. Anyway, the guys got almost the entire perimeter done with the 2nd layer of plasterboard now. Probably 2hrs work in the morning with Paul and they will be ready to do the floor, I guess. The internal walls still do not have the rock wool and 1st layer of plasterboard on yet. June 30th Guys were here about 8:45 and Paul showed up about 11. They finished the other side wall with the 2nd layer of plasterboard, so only the front of the live room is left and the middle walls between the control room, live room and entrance room. They are pouring the live room floor at the moment. Paul estimates it is about 2m3 of cement, about 20 mixer loads. Gil is making the cement and Paul and José are spreading it out to 5 cm and making it very even and hopefully smooth. It is very dry cement. Seems it was too wet when they did the entrance way and that is why we have all the ridges. Shot some pics and videos of them pouring the cement through the roof. They will get back here on Friday by Lunch.. I confirmed with Paul and Joules now about the ceiling and Paul will make the flat entrance way ceiling with a hatch and then the suspended ceiling only for the live room and not the rest of the building. Paul figures it is maybe 2 weeks to finish all the inside, which includes the taping, filling and painting of the walls inside as well as the ceiling. July 1st
 No one here. July 2nd Guys showed up about 13 today. Only managed to get the front (windows) wall and part of the entrance room wall finished with the 2nd layer of plasterboard. Turns out one of the dogs walked in their on the wet cement so there are a few paw prints! Damn… Anyway, the entire live room is boarded now so I can get the final dimensions for the printed vinyl floor and send these to dave! It is going to look pretty amazing.. I covered the roof with plastic with the guys today as there is like 40% chance for rain tomorrow and it could just ruin the walls if all that water comes in through the roof cement ceiling since we still have no roof. I think they will do the roof next week. July 6th Gil and José showed up a bit before 9 and are focusing in finishing the interior walls, it seems. We had some rain last night and there was a small leak in the ceiling where the pole meets the roof but no walls there so not a big deal at all. Hardly any water. Phew… Paul showed up today for a brief bit and we talked about the money squeeze he is in as he can not get the VAT money back that he has paid (but I have not) until mid August, at least. Got a few invoices that I have to pay for the labor on the wall in the front of the building. 400€.. Anyway, the materials for the roof will arrive on Thursday, so they plan to focus on that once the stuff is here. The interior walls will be double boarded and filled with rock wool by the end of the day. They will also extend the interior wall above the control room to the ceiling. All that will be left on the inside for them to do is patch, tape and paint the inside walls white. Paul said the places where the dog walked on the wet cement will be filled with latex when we lay the linoleum floor. July 7th Gil and José were here about 8:50. They worked only on the internal walls. Almost all the walls have rock wool and at least the first layer of drywall now. They only have two small areas left to put rock wool. Then the 2nd layer of the plasterboard. Materials for the roof should come tomorrow. Mario’s is often not delivering when they say they do though. At least they fixed our road today!! Finally after 26 months of waiting. Good progress though.. I they can probably finish the 2nd layer on all the remaining walls in one more day. Then they have to tape, fill and paint but I guess they don’t do this until they finish the suspended ceiling in the live room. July 8th Guys made great progress on the walls. Almost totally done with the 2nd layer all the way around. July 9th Measured the final floor for the live room 5 x 6.27 x 6.2 x 4.08. About 30m2. I can order the final floor at some point now. Just need to get David Graham to resize the image!! José is working by himself today. One wall left to finish in the control room and then we can move all the plasterboard out into the live room so it will be clear for Joules.. Exciting. Spoke to Joules and looks like they will not start before end of August. Bummer… He said for the walls, to just put the primer coat of paint after they will all the holes and joints with filler. July 13th The guys worked more on the taping, plastering and filling and a bit of sanding on the internal walls. July 14th They finally started on the roof. They start with putting the 6cm thermal layer first and these are all interlocked so nothing much can get through to the roof. They are all cut to size. Then they attach the tile rails and then the tiles. They finished about 1/2 the roof. It was over 30C today so hot for those guys.. Phew July 15th They finished the major part of the roof and just have to cement the top tiles into the wall and do the sides and it will be complete. Looks great… July 16th They only did the cementing today and cleaning up all the plasterboard pieces, rock wool, and different plastic and stuff that has littered the place. They also moved the scaffolding and other stuff from in front of the building so we can do the tiling when ever we want to. They started like 11 today. I measured the final dimensions for the live room now that both layers of plasterboard are up: 5m x 3.8.

July 20th Paul and José showed up a bit before 9.. Gil had a car accident so is out of work for a bit. Cleaned up some stuff on the roundabout and are moving the plasterboard out of the control room so that it will be totally ready for Joules when he arrives. They still need to tape and plaster that room though. After that they are off to the other job they are doing and only Paul will maybe be back. He will check on the windows today.. They were here about 1.5hrs.. Paul did not come back. July 21st Paul showed up in the afternoon and worked until a bit after 17 on the roof sides to get the overhangs sorted out. Looks really good what he is doing. Looks like he will be back tomorrow as well. July 22nd Paul showed up at 13 or so and left around 16. He managed to finish the front left corner overhang tiles and it looks great. He cut all the steel for the other side now and thinks he can bang it all out in one day. I finally got the license to build (when we are almost done now) from the local council sorted out. Seems they sent me a letter on June 16th but I never got it. Anyway, I paid the final 67€ but it turned out they charged me 241.14? We can officially build now. Paul said this is very common that you don’t get the license until you are done or nearly done. Strange.. July 28th Paul showed up in the late morning and has been working on the rest of the roof overhang and looks to finish more than half of it today. They guys showed up with a tractor around 14:30 and are loading up all the huge steel frames that were used to build the retaining wall as they will take the crane away tomorrow morning. Finally…. Not sure what else work will get done this week though. Seems the windows are not arriving until September now. Fuck… July 29th They removed the crane today and Paul moved some stuff around but that was all that was done today. Aug 4th They are finally back today to put in the concrete vegas and close the gap between the land and huge retaining wall. They will then back fill it with dirt and build the brick wall up three layers. They also tried to straighten the roof tiles today. Looks better but not perfect. Not that hot today which is good for them. Mostly cloudy…. They plan to return next week and do the suspended ceiling in the live room. I hope they will finish the outside soon as well. They are pretty close to done with everything. Spoke to Joules today and they might still start at the end of the month, so that is good news but we have to get materials from him and I still have not drawings or plans or cost estimates yet. Aug 5th Paul showed up this afternoon and cleaned up a lot of the mess and flattened out the lands around the top of the building, dug a ditch to bring the electricity cable from the house to the studio. I forgot yesterday they also replaced a drainage pipe that was crushed by one of the cement truck loads. This was important as without it we had problems with too much water after heavy rains dirt washing out into our driveway. They take a week at another job and will be back on the 16th.. What is left to do: Finish the roof sides Build the wall at the top and close the gap between the rear wall and the studio wall at the back Finish the final rendering of the outside Window sills and windows (September) Suspended ceiling inside the live room Ceiling in the entrance room (also suspended) Tape and plaster the rest of the walls, smooth out. One coat of paint (might do this myself) Aug 19th We have been away to the coast for a few days and I was very interested to see what they got done. Turns out virtually nothing has been done. This is becoming very frustrating that they just never seem to work here anymore. Paul was here when we arrived today and you could see that he had worked a few hrs on the roof on one side but that was it this week. Fuck… He promises they will be working again starting on Tuesday afternoon til Friday.. 2.5 days…. I wrote Paul a email that we are quite disappointed that the job just feels like it could never end. Doubt it makes any difference…. Aug 24th They finally showed up to work again at about 14 and worked until about 17. They started on the rendering for the outside of the building on the right side (Facing building). They apply a sort of concrete like plaster to the 8cm white insulation and then put a mesh over that and then more of the plaster stuff. This has to have a couple of layers and then the next step. Messaged with Joules assistant and they were discussing my project and she said Joules was waiting for some of the distributors to return from vacation so he could start to order some of the things so this was good news they are at least putting some effort into my project now.. Aug 25th Going to be very hot again today so the guys showed up at 7:15 this morning. They are going to finish the wall at the top of the roof and work more on the rendering. It is only 3 layers of bricks. they had 1.5 layers done by coffee break at 10 or so… They filled the top with cement. They finished the last part of the roof overhang as well. They are not back before Tuesday. The architect finally came to see the building and he was pretty satisfied. He did say they should do the capouto soon on the front of the building as the insulation is turning yellow and getting soft. He also said that with the way the roof overhangs were done with metal, that this needs to be well protected inside the capouto otherwise the metal will rust and drip through and discolour the building. The roof overhang at the front also needs to have capouto all the way up to the blue insulation. He said this was very important. Aug 27th Paul showed up and poured the concrete pillars in the gaps in the wall at the top. That was all the work that was done. Not sure if they work next week or not?? Hope so… Aug 31st Paul showed up about 1030 and removed the framing for the pillars and started to work on the rendering of the front of the building. He managed to get the entire front rendered with the first coat, which is good as we are expecting some rain the next days. We closed up most of the open front of the building now so should not be a problem if it rains a lot.. We will see… Looks like no more work will happen this week or maybe next week. Quite frustrating.. Sept 8th Nothing going on. Seems they are making the door and windows now and they could have them next week. Paul is taking most of Sept off but said the guys might start working here on Sept 13th.. Who knows…. This is very frustrating. Still nothing from Joules either.. Just feels like the studio is never going to get finished.. This is Portugal for you!!!! Sept 13th I got a message from Suse saying that they will finish the job in Lisboa in 4-5 weeks and then they are coming here and I will hear from Joules in the next weeks about supplies, etc.. Finally a bit of good news.. Now I can inform Paul and they can pull it together and finish their part, I hope.

very nice. looking forward to the opening party :-)

Thanks for that view. What a beautiful place to track bands.

Sorry if I missed this in your thread, but, when you refer to Joules is it Joules Newell by any chance?

Yes.. Joules Newell....

OSC46 wrote:

Yes.. Joules Newell....

You're in excellent hands, I'm gonna get myself strapped in for this thread :D

Yes.. I think so as well. We have had many good discussions and it is disappointing that everything has taken so long but looks like they will finally be here to make me the world class studio that I have been dreaming of. According to Joules contract, he will have to approve everything that I post on the forum. He has some secrets, I am guessing of how he does things differently but still achieves world class acoustics. We will see... Should be here in a month or so.. Wow.. :mrgreen:

OSC46 wrote:

Yes.. I think so as well. We have had many good discussions and it is disappointing that everything has taken so long but looks like they will finally be here to make me the world class studio that I have been dreaming of. According to Joules contract, he will have to approve everything that I post on the forum. He has some secrets, I am guessing of how he does things differently but still achieves world class acoustics. We will see... Should be here in a month or so.. Wow.. :mrgreen:

If I were you, I would let him re-design your control room entirely. It will be a much better design...

He is.. Joules is redesigning everything on the inside. We only have done the building to the specifications that we applied to do... I have not seen the design yet though... He is working on all that and the materials list right now so we can get what we need ordered...

It has been awhile since I posted or was on the forum. Been a bit crazy, slow, frustrating, as always but we are almost there. The building is finished except for one small part and materials have been ordered and Joules Newell is expected to show up in about 2 weeks to start to build the inside and this is contracted for 30-35 days. I suspect all to be finished by end of January. Phew....

you really need to do something about that horrible view ;-) maybe see if you can get some mall builders to come in and cover the hills with shopping centers and parking, maybe a few high rise apartment buildings lol

Joules has started now and all the framing of the control room and the ceiling is in. He will return in a few days to start constructing the rear bass traps for the room. Slow progress but at least it is going now... Here are a few pictures.. He is busy with other projects so only working 5hrs a day and 3-4 days a week so it will not be done before mid-March most likely.. all the best scott

We have tiled the front of the building now which looks really nice. Joules has built the speaker encasements and will finish filling the front wall with sand today.. All the cables (except USB and HDMI) have been pulled from the corners and into the tubes in the control room. Here is what will go into each wall. The Dr Who one is going to be an additional CAT cable. SPK is to connect a speaker. Video is HDMI.

Some good progress was made last week and the rear bass traps were put in, the floor in the control room was laid, the front wall was tiled and all the fabric frames for the control room were measured and put in place. The fabric arrived as well and the HVAV people came and put some of the pipes in.... See some new pictures.. They are away for the next 10 days though... At least we progress a bit... scott

I've been away from the forum for ages, but I've started considering looking for an outside space to work in. I'm in Portugal now and I'm very excited to see someone doing a big build here. Materials are so, so different to the US and I've been very curious how you'd even go about building for soundproofing and the level of dry I'd want in a proper studio space. I'm curious how close you've kept to your original budget of €70,000. That seems very reasonable for the level of fit and finish I'm seeing. Is that down to being in central PT and not in Lisbon or Porto or just tight planning? Anyway, thanks for sharing your work. This forum never ceases to inspire me.

infiniteposse wrote:

I've been away from the forum for ages, but I've started considering looking for an outside space to work in. I'm in Portugal now and I'm very excited to see someone doing a big build here. Materials are so, so different to the US and I've been very curious how you'd even go about building for soundproofing and the level of dry I'd want in a proper studio space. If you can afford it Joules, is the man to do it and he sources a lot of the materials from Spain and all the wood, celinet boards were from Portugal. Wood has doubled in the last couple of years though.. I had to spend 2x what we had originally budgeted on the wood. <I'm curious how close you've kept to your original budget of €70,000. That seems very reasonable for the level of fit and finish I'm seeing. Is that <down to being in central PT and not in Lisbon or Porto or just tight planning? Not too far off the budget actually since the building was cheaper than my original quote and Joules and I have done some things to save some money like not put a window from the control room into the live room... Anyway, thanks for sharing your work. This forum never ceases to inspire me.

Very inspiring and a lot of knowledge here.. They should be back to work here next week. I hope. scott