Len Morgan's Studio Build Diary

Hey Len, Interested to hear what your isolation turned out to be like between rooms and to the outside world. JohnG

John, I'd be interested too! I wish I knew. There are two reasons I don't: 1) I don't have bottom seals or mechanical closers on the doors yet so while there is "a lot" of isolation (based on unscientific listening tests) I wouldn't say it's total. I think I felt like you did (if I remember your thread correctly) and was a little disappointed with my apparent lack of isolation. I'm going to reserve my judgement until I get the doors properly sealed. I did everything "right" (separate walls, calked all joints and layers, etc.). However, I think what it's going to show is that even a small crack (i.e., under the door) can really damage your isolation. Stay tuned.... :-) 2) My only measurement tool is a Radio Shack SPL meter which will only work down to 50 dB. I'm not sure I can get the signal up high enough in a room to get any meaningful reading of isolation outside the room. I'm going to try it though. Real Soon Now. One thing I was very happy with was how quiet my A/C system turned out to be. Even though I used flex duct (it seems it went out of vogue about 1/2 way through my project), the giant ductboard plenums really slow dow and quiet the air. My biggest problem right now is the little thermostat relay that clicks on in the big room when the A/C is turned on. A friend of mine brought his guitar over yesterday afternoon and we went all around the big room with him playing and me listening to how the sound changed. Wow!!! It sounded great everywhere but very different in different parts of the room. A real nice discovery was with the wooden wall. As I've said before, that wall is divided into three different sized cavities behind the wood and therefore, should sound different depending on which cavity you're in front of. I'm happy to report that that is EXACTLY what happens. As he played facing the wall, about two feet away and angled about 45 degrees to it, walking down the wall sounds like adjusting the tone controls on a stereo! Thanks for suggesting this, Knightfly!!!! len

Thanks for suggesting this, Knightfly!!! I suggested that??!? Cool 8) (Only HALF kidding; sometimes I read things I wrote a while back and realize that short-term memory really IS the first to go :cry: ) Steve

Knightfly wrote:

I suggested that??!?

Yes, you really did. Believe me, I would not have given up the space or the nicely painted wall of my own accord. That is, until I'd actually heard it! I hope to be able to do some real testing and measuring this week so I can SHOW what the effect is of putting the mic in one place and then moving the speaker down the wall. That is, after I finish the testing of the control room rear wall you requested (w/ w/o bass hangers). len

Looks really good mate!

I guess it's time again for an update. I've been working on lots of little stuff. This first couple of pictures is a little box a made for the control room to hold one rack panel vertically in case I want to record something in the control room. It seemed like a good idea at the time... Construction was just glue and MDF I had laying around. After a couple of coats of paint, it will get poly urethaned (like everthing else) and mounted. You can see the snake cable coming out of the wall behind it that the panel will connect to.

Now we get to the ceiling cloud for the control room. This again was made up from some 1x4s I had laying around (I have a LOT of stuff laying around right now. I ripped all the wood down to 2 3/4" inches which will allow filling it with 2" MW and have a 3/4" lip around the edge to hold it in. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to hang it yet but since it's 6' x 8', I have plenty of opportunities to hit a joist. I'll probably end up using eye bolts in the corners (where I have blocks to screw them into). I don't want to screw it up tight to the ceiling so I can have an air gap. Ok, here's the first batch of pictures...

Here's a few more. I'll have a picture of the finished (or at least covered) cloud later today (I forgot the camera last night. len

Ahem!! :shock: What's this I hear about an inaugural recording session with a real live client in your studio? 8)

In another thread, len-morgan wrote:

This reminds me of last January or February when I put up my last piece of drywall. Time to start tuning up the guitars. Well, it 9 months later and I'm still working on the place!! (Although I DID have my first official recording session with a client the day before yesterday).

I would think that's worth reporting in the project thread, Len!! :D

Len-Morgan wrote:

I'm close but I've given up on giving any kind of estimate on when it will be done. It will be finished when it's finished and I'm not going to comprimise on anything just to meet an arbitrary deadline.

That is precisely the attitude that has kept me sane over the past year! :lol: I credit my wife for reinforcing that with me over and over again. --Keith :mrgreen:

I was going to, Keith but I thought that keeping the chronology correct was important too. :-) I've still got unposted pictures of things that happened before the session. As a matter of fact, I'll post the three songs we banged out here: The Loser Bobby and Billy October Town I'd be very interested what you think about the guitar tone. The guys voice was shot (from the High School football game the night before) so the vocals will have to redone when his voice recovers. I know it's not your favorite genre but a guitar is a guitar, right? len

Well my friends, after a two month absence from updating this thread, I guess it's about time. I don't have a lot of pictures because frankly, I've been recording more than building and I'm down to the last bits of trim and clean up. I decided to bit the bullet and bought a "house" drum set. It seemed like a good idea to a) save set up/tear down time for clients and b) to save wear and tear on the walls. The drum room is a little small so scratching the paint is very likely. I had trouble getting a good kick sound so I built my own kick mic out of an old Radio Shack speaker (6.5") and an impedance matching transformer. (Total cost for components except the speaker box [which I already had laying around]: about $6.00). I would encourage anyone to give this a shot. The sound is really quite good. I got the ceiling cloud finished and installed. I just about finished the rear wall of the control room. As a note to Knightfly: I'm not going to be able to do the measurements we talked about on the CR rear wall (w/ w/o bass hangers, etc) since I can't figure out how to get ETF/RPlusD to work and the video demos on their site don't work properly. However, I can say it sounds GREAT to me with all the hangers and MW up. So, I guess you're ready for some pictures. The first is a picture of my drop down door seals. I don't have any pictures of them installed yet since I haven't installed them. :-( The next batch is the last of the ceiling cloud construction and installation.

Lookin' good Len, your carpenters are sure a whole lot better lookin' that the ones I get stuck with :wink: Don't worry about the with/without hangers tests, that was mainly for you, so you'd have a choice if there was much difference; if the room works for you, we're BOTH happy :D BTW, when you finally DO get your door seals in and right don't be too surprised if you end up with a bit more bass in the room - it's normal due to less LF leakage. If it gets too much and there's no corners (in any axis) you can add MW in, it's not unheard of to just turn down the bass a few dB. When you get ETF to work, it may show you some peaks/dips but the main thing is whether your mixes translate from the room to cars, living rooms, etc, and if they do YOU'RE DONE. That's the one downside of soffits, you better get 'em right the first time; I did my best to help you on that one, so far it doesn't sound like I screwed up TOO bad :roll: ... Steve

Len... Where ya been at buddy??? (I hear an echo as I'm saying his name...Hey Len...) You mentioned you couldn't get a good sound for your kick drum. Are you using a compressor on it? They make a lot of difference in tightening up the overall sound. In most cases you can set one so it mainly "feels" the attack and closes sound off before a possible "boomy" decay. Anyway, hope all is going well for you! (You must be making some cold-hard-cash...maybe that's why you've be AWOL!

camistan wrote:

Anyway, hope all is going well for you! (You must be making some cold-hard-cash...maybe that's why you've be AWOL!

Man, I wish that was true! I just found out this morning that I've lost my job!! Great way to start the weekend. Unfortunately, living in a small town (25K souls) it's unlikely that I'll be able to replace that income here. I'm looking at an hour's commute each way at a minimum to find anything. It was a good ride while it lasted though. As far as the studio goes, it's pretty much done except for some decoration (cove base, cleaning up the construction waste, etc.). I've actually had a couple of people in the studio to record but it was all freebies. We were working around construction debris and wires were every where so I didn't feel right about charging them. Also, I haven't gotten my final inspection yet so technically, I CAN'T run this as a business yet. Now that my job is going away, maybe that will be the kick in the pants I need to finish up the studio and start charging for it. If you'd like to hear what the studio "sounds like" you can try a couple of places. Christian Heavy Metal Screaming Punk: www.myspace.com/hitthegroundrunningonline or accoustic guitar and voice country/folk: www.broadjam.com and do an artist search for George Bancroft. Only the vocal/guitar stuff was done in the studio. The other stuff with a band was done in Austin several years ago. I've got lot's of pictures and one of the band members in the first group has offered to photograph and produce a myspace website for the studio in partial return for all of the studio time they got. I'll be back soon....now...where's that broom? len

Man-O-Man...that's REALLY a bummer! :shock: I'm really sorry to hear about the job Len. Yea, if nothing else it will push you to finish your studio and hopefully put you in a position to make $$$ doing something you love. I can only imagine that's a blow that can hit you hard inside, but hang on in there Len...there will be a positive down the line for you! :) I'll Pray the best for you and your family. By the way, the studio is looking great. It seems you've been pretty consistant to get things to where you're just about finished...good deal on that! I tried to check out the 3 songs you had listed above but the link didn't go through. I DID check out the Heavy Metal group (Hitting The Ground Running) that recorded in your studio. I don't listen to a lot of Heavy Metal, but I have heard some on the radio and online. From my "limited" listening experience, it sounds comperable to anything I've heard out there (and for me, that's a GOOD thing!) Now as far as George Bancroft, that was really good. I do like country music, and I thought it was all good. Did he have the other tracks already mixed on CD and all you did was add the guitar and vocal or were you able to mix the pre-recorded stuff (track-by-track) with what you recorded? Either way I thought the mix was good. If you DID however blend the guitar with the vocals, the blend was really good because you can't tell they were recorded at 2 different places due to quality of equipment. You've got the set up to make some $$$ just DO-IT! :) Anyway glad to see you back on here...and hey, after you get COMPLETELY done, don't forget to come back here and help some of us that are not, er' FINISHED :roll: .

It's not as bad as it sounds at first blush. I have at least 2 months notice to find something else or get the studio up and running. I'm not a fan of Heavy Metal either but I'm not sure as a studio owner, that that's really my decision to make. Once it hits the A/D, it's all bits and even more important now, whether it's Black Sabbath or Crimson Soul, the money is still green! Besides, I really like the kids that did that music. They're 17 years old and both of those songs were done by just 3 kids. Granted, one of those songs had over 50 recorded tracks to get the end result but I was impressed with dedication they had to get just the sound they wanted. As far as George goes, I guess I wasn't clear about the non-accoustic songs. Those were NOT done in the studio. We are using Broadjam.com as a vehicle to make submissions to TAXI and get feed back on the songs so those songs that had a full band were completely done in another studio. Only the stuff that was just guitar and vocal was done in my studio. I was particularly happy with the guitar tone we got (due in large part to the wooden wall in the "big room" which I have Knightfly to thank for. By the way, most of those songs were recorded with two mics (one vocal and one guitar) rather than just guitar and then overdubbing the vocals. I would have liked to pitch correct some of the vocals but I had too much bleed between the two. Finally, as to my kick drum sound, I think I got that sorted out. What I ended up doing using a kick drum mic inside the kick, and then taking an old Radio Shack bookshelf speak (about 6") and connecting it up to and XLR connector and setting it in front of the drum. Between the two "mics", the sound came out pretty good. I'll won't be going anywhere either before or after I'm finished with the studio. I've learned too much here to not give back. Thanks for the prayers. I'm not worried because no matter how little I have, it's always turned out to be enough, and enough is all I need. :-) len

I'm so sorry for your job loss, Len... :-( I hope you got some severance money. I also hope you can find something suitable without having to commute too far. --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks Kieth. There isn't any severance pay (I'm self employed) but I was given two months notice. There's still a chance I can get them to extend it to the end of the year (that's what my contract said when we wrote it 9 years ago). As much as I'll miss the job, I really can't complain. I did about 6 weeks of hard work (programming) 9 years ago and they've been paying me $4K/month ever since. Up until last December, I had another contract for the same software that was paying about $2.5K/year and until two years ago, I had a third (my original contract) for another $4K/month. I amounted to about 10 hours (usually less) work per month and I got to do about 99% of the work at home in my PJs (or in my studio). I had it set up so I could do all of my maintenance remotely so I was able to fix/modify software even while I was in Ukraine. They didn't even know I was gone. A sweet deal like that (a little over $1K/hour when I had all three contracts going) can't last forever. Just last week I picked up another contract for the Pecos, TX sheriff's office but that's only going to pay $500/month. Not quite enough to pay the rent. :-( The upside is that when I have this contract in place and do all the necessary mods to it, I should be able to take it to ANY small county/city in Texas (and probably a lot of other states too). Having 20 small contracts instead of a couple of big ones makes it hurt a little less if one of them cancels. The bad part is that the customer loves my program but their corporate office thinks they have a better one that they wrote in house (it isn't) so they can't justify paying for mine. That's the rub in working with private prisons. The change hands all the time and bring along their own corporate software that gives the management all the right reports but really sucks when it comes to the people that actually have to use it. Most of the IT guys that write the code have never been in a prison or jail and it shows in their user interfaces. Anyway...I'm not worried. I haven't worked for anyone else but me in 16 years and at my age, I'm not sure how marketable I am. We'll see. Alfred E. Neuman is my hero!!!!! len

perfect time to focus on getting the studio working my friend, good luck.

Hey Len I have a couple of questions about your HVAC system. Did you use flex duct for all of your runs? Did you end up using silencers? You mentioned them but I didn't see them in the pictures. Where your duct is attached to the ceiling did you you do anything special for isolation? I'm at the ducting stage of my studio and am trying to figure out if I should make silencers and how I should attach it to my ceiling. Your studio is looking great BTW. Thanks Lief Gleeman Studio

I'm so sorry Jester for not getting back to you sooner about your HVAC questions. Your email sat in my in box forever and then while trying to clean things up, it disappeared. To answer your questions (if they still need answering), yes I used flexduct for all of the runs. Every register in the ceiling has it's own flex tubing back to the big plenums (24" x 24") I built near the HVAC system. I didn't use silencers other than in my control room. What I ended up doing there was using those little duct board "corners turners" that are documented a page or two back in my thread. Room to room isolation is very good since the flex decouples the rooms in a way that sheet metal ducting wouldn't (unless I had a flex connection to the ducting). The only area where I have an isolation "problem" is between the drum booth and the "big room." Even with the 1 1/4" drywall, double stud walls between the rooms (and two panes of glass), I can still hear the drums but they are WAY down and any bleed into the big room can be solved with microphone placement. And for what it's worth, I haven't installed the drop down door sealers on either the drum booth or big room doors so I still have a bit I can do. I hope that's still of some relevance to you at this point, but if not, maybe it will be to someone else. len

Hey Len! On the radio news today, I heard "Big Spring, Texas" was the location of a big oil refinery fire. Didja feel it? Is your studio so soundproof that it practically didn't happen? ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

I not only heard it, I felt it!! The house felt like it lifted about 6" up in the air. I haven't been down to the studio yet but everybody here is fine. Considering the size of the explosion (it was felt in Midland 50 miles away), and that there were only 4 injuries (only one serious) and NO fatalities, AND no wind to speak of (since I can see the refinery equipment from my house), we were very blessed this morning! When I felt the blast, being a native Californian, my first thought was earthquake but it was only one upward bump, albeit a big one). I was in Sunnyvale during the 1989 quake and I remember how that shook me (no pun intended). It's good to hear from you again! Thanks for asking. Len "Shaken but not stirred" Morgan, Big Spring, TX

I live in Lubbock and work for Oxy. I've been reading your thread now and then, knew you were from Big Springs. My wife asked me this morning if I knew anyone down there at the refinery....I told well I kinda know someone from Big Springs...LOL Nice to know you're OK. Keep up the work on the studio.

pearlsnap, Thanks for the concern. The studio is essentially done except for some trim work (the same trim work that I needed to finish a year ago). I've been recording quite a few bands here some from as far away as Austin (6 hours away or so and not a bad place to record). Apparently, I somehow came up with a VERY nice sounding "big room" that musicians love! If you're ever around Big Spring, give me a call and I'll give you the nickel tour. len