Paradise Studio - Conversion of a detached garage

Well I finally made some time to post some progress. Seems like things have slowed down but in reality its just detail work that doesn't show up as "big" in terms of achievement. We are working here there and everywhere right now, I would like to get the control room tightened up and get its floor down, but Mike the keyboardist had some black days of which he has now recovered. He's the color coordinator and all around feminine energy :lol: And I still think Lowe's are the bigger Buttholes, only because I have to go there more often as Home Depot is too far away for daily runs. Its typical of corporations to hire people and not pay them well and the result is lack luster service, why should they care? See that corner back there with the missing grating on the air returns, that's Nate the bass player's project, he's been on that for 4 weeks now, its hard to find good workers :cry:

And the fourth shot.

Control room absorbtion traps. I am awaiting further advice from the master of acoustic treatment Ethan Winer to proceed. If you haven't been to his site, I highly recommend it!

Looking good, nice floor.

Wow -- the lights are great!! (Everything else is too, but the lights especially so!!) --Keith :mrgreen:

Finished painting walls and laying the floor in the control room. Notice how beautiful the yellow 705 goes with the walls . . . yuk! I hope to have the fabric on this week.

I insist that you do something really ugly and dumb, because this is just depressing! :lol: Seriously, nice work. I love that color of "blue." We used a very similar color in three of our bedrooms two years ago. 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

Are you leaving the foil facing on the rigid FG for a reason? If I'm not mistaken, it's going to reflect all of your highs right back at you. But overall, it IS a beautiful piece of work. len

I'm interested in the response to that question as well... Steve

Some how I didn't see your question posted a while back. This is from Ehan Winer's FAQ: http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

If you are using 705-FRK rigid fiberglass or an equivalent product, you can cover more of the wall and still control the liveness by alternating the direction of the paper backing. That is, one piece of fiberglass will have the paper facing the wall to expose the more absorbent fiberglass, and the next piece will have the paper facing out to reflect the mid and high frequencies. In fact, when the paper is facing into the room the lower frequencies are absorbed even better than when it is faces the wall.

and . .

Table 1 in the main text shows the NRC for 2-inch foam as 0.80 while the same thickness of 705-FRK is only 0.60. Yet 705-FRK is nearly six times more absorbent than foam at 125 Hz!

So in the corners I have 2" 705 behind 2" 705 FRK, I am looking for the best low frequecy absorbtion. On the ceilings and behind my Auralex foam there is only unfaced 705. In all cases it is spaced away from the wall. I do believe that Everest mentions this as well but I couldn't find it leafing through his books.

Well I never, So basically putting the facing forward into the room is the better thing to do for the lows. One of John's studios had this - leftbank I think. All the 703 had black facing that faced into the room. Thanks JohnG

Well we had the Grand opening this past Saturday. Although I have much to do yet with the wiring and termination of equipment, I have a fucntional facilty. Here's a shot of the studio looking into the stage area, we had enough room for a party-concert and were able to have 40 people in the room. .

This is the hallway, hard to believe it was an old garage were there once was a horse living here.

This is the control room, much tweaking to do here, I just got the qear wiring in for AC enough to light things up and have some sound through the monitors. I plan on making a system to get the computer screens lowered when needed.

This is looking from the stage back into the studio. As time permits, I will post more detailed pic's for you all. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Everything is absolutely gorgeous, Mark! Congratulations!! 8) You've done some amazing work -- the decorating is stellar! --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks Keith! You are always good for a compliment! What a relief this is, almost 2 years in the making. My gear has been in boxes for 2-1/2 years. We had a big party Saturday and around 70 or so people showed up. We had a fireworks display, (no I don't have a pyrotechnical license) and an open stage into the wee hours of the morning. I have much acoustic treatment to do yet, but it will be ongoing. When I fired up the Tascam and Nuendo software, I had no clue how anything worked, felt like an idiot. It will all come back in good time. Nuendo has undergone many changes and additions so I have much to learn. I really haven't even played with the EFT room analysis software yet as well. But my wife is still with me, that's a biggy. The big deal for me is that I kicked the trains in the ass! Its also great to go outside when people are playing inside and you can't hear them. This forum has been a tremendous help, along with F. Alton Everest books and many people to numerous to mention. I even had some input via a phone call to Bob Katz, if you know who he is. I have a lot of patch bay soldering to accomplish as well, fortunately my father has been coming to the rescue on taking that bull by the horns. As things settle in a bit more, I will try to post some better detailed photos of things of interest to the forum.

Incredibly beautiful, a work of art in itself. :)

Thanks Greenhorn!!! I appreciate it.

Mark, Your studio is really stunning to look at! I really like the trim you put around your Control room window. Congrats on a fine job you did! 8)

WOW Real nice. Are you planning to do shoot video in your live room too? I'm just wondering where the need for all those lights came from. It looks like in one of your pics you'ev got some par 56 cans (500 or 1000 watt lamps) and par 38 cans (100 to 150 watt lamps) up there pointing at your stage area. Even if your lamps are less watts that's alot of light, enough for a medium size club stage. Just curious, I'm sure it's looks great. Marc

Marc, Part of the need is to create a stage atmosphere. The big lights are 300W, only 2 of them. The rest are 150W. And yes at some point we plan to do web casts and some video. For now some concerts partys so to speak. We had about 50 people in there last Saturday for a performance. Its fun to record and practice while feeling like you are on a stage. I didn't want a sterile atmosphere, its extrememly important to have great color and art when playing muisc. After all artists listen to music when they paint or sculpture. Thanks for all the compliments!! Mark

-Camistan Thanks as well!

I haven't lurked around here in ages, but thought I'd post a new photo of the control room. Last summer '08 I rebuilt the bridge and put in a new board and some gear plus I rebuilt the top of my "argosy - rip - off" console. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are in this studio construction madness 8) Sharward didn't you get room done yet? :P