Len Morgan's Studio Build Diary

Aloha Len, Looking good and very colorful! Glad to hear that the injuries are healing, too. :D Say, I was wondering if you've decided on your speaker height? Aloha 8)

And a few more shots of the back wall MW being mounted. I had a lot of trouble getting something that would hold the MW up to the wall. Impalling clips didn't hold it well enough (it REALLY needs to stay put since this wall will be totally covered with cloth and if one of those rear batts comes loose and leans against the bass hangers, I'll be screwed). The basic idea I used was: 1) Drill and mount SHORT anchors. They were only long enough to go through one layer of the 5/8" drywall so my isolation wouldn't be compromised. 2) Screw a tie-wrap (the kind with a screw hole attachment point) into the anchor. These were just long enough to go through the 4" MW and leave me a little tail to connect to. 3) Tape a stiff wire to the end of the tie wrap to help push it through the MW. 4) Push the two wires/tie wraps through the panel from the back. The panels were 2' x 4' and I mounted them vertically. The mounts are one foot over and one foot in from the top and bottom. 5) Find some sort of stiff "washer" and cut a small slit in the middle of it. I first tried cutting the plastic "bubble" from the front of various packaging I had laying around (ok, garbage I hadn't thrown away yet). Next I tried yogurt lids (these worked really well but they were a little large), and finally I settled on some large felt pads that were designed to go on the bottoms of chair and table legs so they won't scratch the floor. 6) I then removed the wire guide from the ends of the tie wraps and pushed the ends through the slots in the "washers" from step 5. 7) An additional tie wrap is slid over the end of the tie wrap that is sticking through the MW and it's slid down tight against the washer and MW to hold it tight against the wall. 8) Trim the ends off the tie wraps and move on the the next panel. Ok, now the above in pictures:

Because of poor planning in the beginning (and not asking the right questions at the right time), my ceiling vents came out right in the middle of the new wall so I had to make a little soffit along the top to let the air out. I fashioned a couple of elbows out of duct board to make the 90 degree transition. As the pictures show, I first made a little paper version of what I wanted the finished product to look like. I cut and taped and folded until everything looked right. The next step was to measure the actual sizes I'd need and write these on the model I'd built. Then I cut it apart where the tape was and unfolded it. This gave me my cut and fold pattern for the duct board. After that, it was pretty easy to just transfer the measurements to the duct board and make my cuts and folds.

and a couple more...

The final group of updates are still works in progress. The first is the slat wall I'm building on the East wall of my main room. I still need to build a couple of partitions to divide this cavity into three separate spaces, but it's getting there. The last picture is the first of my two speaker soffits/baffle frames. The speaker shown is sitting too high but the blocks are just standing there with nothing but gravity holding them together. I'll have more details of this area as I get more of it done. And of course, more pictures... len

kendale wrote:

Say, I was wondering if you've decided on your speaker height?

Nope, not yet. I posted the question on the Speaker forum but there doesn't seem to be much action there. As you can see from the last photo in this group, my speakers have three drivers. A tweeter on top, a 6.5" woofer in the middle, and an 8" passive radiator on the bottom. I just don't know which "woofer" center I'm supposed to have at ear level. If you were refering to my question about the height of the desk, I'm going to go with the 30 or so inches you've got. I measured a few tables around the house and they are all in the same range height wise. After I get these speaker walls built and boarded up, I'm going to start working on the desk so I can get my equipment in there and start tuning the room. There are some doubts (in my mind at least) that I will even need hangers in my back wall but since it's all going to be sealed off with fabric, I want to test it before I close it up. What concerns me a little is that no matter where I walk around in the CR (within reason), I hear no nulls or peaks in the music. The only exceptions are up real close to the speakers and right up next the to the MW with my good ear to the MW (I'm deaf in the other one). So no, I haven't figured out how high to make my speakers yet but I need to find out soon. len

[quote="len-morgan What concerns me a little is that no matter where I walk around in the CR (within reason), I hear no nulls or peaks in the music. The only exceptions are up real close to the speakers and right up next the to the MW with my good ear to the MW (I'm deaf in the other one). len[/quote] Heck, I'd figure that to be a good thing! Unless you were EXPECTING to hear some and did not. Your pics are great by the way. I am just now framing the interior and you are giving me good ideas. Tom

I would consider it a good thing too except other than the MW along the back of the room (and it doesn't have bass hangers or the outside 4" of MW yet), I don't have any treatment in the room. I was still counting on at least a ceiling cloud over the mix position and an absorber on either side of the mixing desk. Normally, I'd be counting my blessings but I don't think I've seen anyone yet get away with just a little mineral wool along the back wall. And I know it's not because I've come up with some magical design. I'm just not that lucky (I'm still hobbling around on a bum knee from bonking the trailer ball on the back of a truck last week!). The reason I think about this is because I'm deaf in one ear. Am I missing hearing something because I don't hear in stereo? If that is the case, will I be able properly mix anything when I'm done? Once I got my speakers up, was able to "hear" stereo to a certain extent if I closed my eyes so perhaps all is not lost. len

Here's the pictures of my speaker pilar construction that I mentioned a few posts back. Enjoy!

And finally, the adjustable shelf for the monitors...

len-morgan wrote:

The reason I think about this is because I'm deaf in one ear. Am I missing hearing something because I don't hear in stereo?

Oh wow, Len -- sorry to hear that! :( Since birth, or was it due to some kind of trauma?

It's not really that big a deal (my mid-life career change from electronic engineer and computer programmer to recording studio operator not withstanding). :-) It happened when I was 12. I got an infection (which my mother swore till the day she died was from a small cut I got while riding a minibike) which almost killed me. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks and was running a fever of 108! The doctors told my parents that if I ever did come out of the coma, I'd be a vegetable because the fever was so high. Well, one of the complications of the disease was my body started throwing out blood clots. I had one in my liver, ankle, and heart. The doctor's think one broke loose and went up into my head. It could have caused a stroke, logded in the artery that feeds an eye (thus blinding my in one eye), or in my ear which is what appears to have happened. I was told by my doctors that at first they had no idea what I had and compiled a two page list of things it could be. My mother happened to mention that they had found I had a minor heart valve leak and all of the sudden that narrowed it down to only a couple of things. The figured out what it was and started treatment with a new (at the time) antibiotic. They did tell my parents that no one had survived this treatment (there were only 10 reported cases prior to mine) but they did know that doing nothing would kill me for sure. The problem with the treatment was that the antibiotic turned toxic after a certain amount of time. The first few people they tried it on died because the cure killed them. The next few they stopped early and the disease killed them. They were trying to find out the right dose that would kill the disease and not the patient. I was the experiment at 6 weeks and two days. Apparently, it worked. :-) I only found out I couldn't hear in my right ear when I was trying listen to my little TV with an earphone (before headphones), and when I switched ears, I couldn't hear it any more. The blood clot thing was the best they could come up with. I can still sort of hear stereo but probably not the way you do. But I have to move my head from side to side and listen to the difference as I do. I'll cope, I'm sure, and if push comes to shove, I can always have a "guest engineer" sit in and finish of the stereo image. When you think about it, hearing stereo reproduced in a control room is sort of an auditory illusion since you have some signal coming out of both speakers which is not what would be happening if you had the band sitting in front of you. I've often wondered if the color that pops into my head when I hear something is green is the same color YOU see in your head? Why is green green? Because somebody pointed to something and said this is green. Human perception is a magical thing that allows us to all agree on something like "red" or "green" and yet really never know if we are all "seeing" the same thing. :-) len

Amazing story indeed, Len. You're lucky to be alive and we're all lucky to have the privilege of knowing you. 8)

I don't know about the "lucky to know me" part but the first I wholeheartedly agree (although I don't think luck had much to do with it. That little infection caused a little more damage to my heart valve and over the 30 years or so, I've had to have three open heart surgeries to replace them. A "ring and valve" job so to speak. After the first one, they were pretty much routine for me. The last one (about 10 years ago) only my kids and two other friends knew I was even having it done. I took a bus to Fort Worth on Sunday, they did the surgery on Monday, and I left on Saturday (and I drove most of the way home (about 5 hours) because the guy who was going to drive me home was about ready to fall asleep at the wheel. I went back to work the following Monday. I must confess that part of the speedy recovery was because the Dr. that did my second operation knew I'd need to do it again some day so he put a Teflon "zipper" between the two cut halves of my breast bone and just wired me together. When it came time to do the last one, all the surgon needed was an Xacto knife and a pair of wire cutters and I popped open like an overstuffed Turkey at Thanksgiving. Most people don't know that almost all of the pain after heart surgery is from sawing (literally) the breastbone in half. I didn't have that so I was ready to go two days after surgery. The down side is that the pain prevents you from doing stupid things like driving too soon or lifting things that can tear the wires out. In any case, since I keep getting replacement parts, I figure I'm going to be making music for a LONG time to come! :-) Gosh, if you think THAT'S interesting, we haven't even touched on me growing up in Asia (Taiwan mostly) - lot's of good stuff there too! :-) But then, I guess that would be a little OT. :-) len If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one enjoys it?

It's the gift that keeps on giving!! :lol: :shock: Anyway, yeah, my mom's had two open heart surgeries, so I kind of know the drill... That breast bone thing is a major drag. I stand by my statement about it being a privilege to know you. And, if it's your own thread, nothing's off topic unless you say it is! ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

sharward wrote:

I stand by my statement about it being a privilege to know you.

The feeling is mutal. I hope we get the chance to meet face to face one of these days. I addition to all the gifted people we meet here, there's a lot of ones that are special in a way having nothing to do with studio building. I count you among those, my friend. len Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 each for those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE

Hey Len! I've noticed you haven't posted anything for a bit. Hope all is progressing well for you. Any new pics to show?

Thanks for asking Stan. You're absolutely right - it's been a LONG time since I've posted anything but it's not because nothing has been happening. I have a lot of pictures but I kind of screwed up a lot of them. My son graduated from college in early May and I set the resulution on the camera higher than usual (1600x1200) and so I've got to "fix" all of them before I can post. I'll give a quick laundry list of what's been done though: 1) All doors are in and trimmed (painting in progress 2) Glass ordered and should be installed next week 3) 1/2 of the wood is up on the slotted resonator wall in the "big" room - Other 1/2 should be going up today 4) New A/C system was installed Friday and charged yesterday (after having to replace the coils on the inside unit). It still needs a little work since after about 4 hours of operation the big pipe (cold freon) stopped being cold (although the little one WAS hot). Probably needs a little more freon. I can't complain though since the guy that did the installation (actually, I did the installation but he came out and soldered up the pipes, vacuum tested the lines, then filled it with freon for a grand total of $50!). 5) The speaker walls are essentially done in the control room but the cavities need to be filled with insulation and then painted. The sound GREAT even in a semi-completed state. That's the quick update. I'll try and post pictures in the next day or so. Thanks again for asking!!!! len

len-morgan wrote:

. I have a lot of pictures but I kind of screwed up a lot of them. My son graduated from college in early May and I set the resulution on the camera higher than usual (1600x1200) and so I've got to "fix" all of them before I can post. len

Len et. al. , If you have Win XP Home there is a very quick and easy way to shrink your photos. Simply select the photos, right click on them and e-mail them to yourself. Windows will ask you if you want to make them smaller. Click on yes, make my photos smaller. Then send them to yourself. Open the e-mail and save the photos. I do this all the time as I leave my camera on the highest resolution and my photos are all about 1 mb each.... db

FYI, I have XP Professional (not Home) and I don't have that option...

Keith, FYI - I also have XP Pro and I DO have that option...sort of. When you select the picture(s), then right click on one of them, pick "Send To", then "Mail Receipient." You should get a little dialog box that pops and has two options on it (Make the pictures smaller, or leave them alone [I think those are the two options])). On my system I was not offered an option to pick the size but they were all reduced to 640x480. I didn't take the time to see what would happen if I tried to email these already reduced images. Would it make them even smaller? I also don't know if there is a registry key somewhere that sets the size of the finished picture. Note that I don't think this option is offered if you start composing the email and then select pictures to attach to it. len

I stand corrected... It's there.

That's the one! Hey, what theme are you using? It looks a little OS Xish (and a lot better than mine) len

I'm using the "thank goodness I can customize it so that it doesn't look like it was designed by Fisher Price" theme. :P

sharward wrote:

I'm using the "thank goodness I can customize it so that it doesn't look like it was designed by Fisher Price" theme. :P

I'm too lazy to play with that stuff.... :roll: Additionally, If you use MS Outlook as your e-mail tool (For sure Outlook 2003... I'm not sure about older versions), once you attach the photos, just to the right of the attachment window you can click on "attachment options" . On the right a window will open that has, among other things, "picture options" with a pulldown that will give you three options for resizing "small, medium, or large". It does the resizing when you click send...db