T-Mix Studio / Construction Diary

Well finally.... After 2 years of planning and a bunch of questions, I am finally started on the new studio. You can't know how much I really appreciate all the help you good folks have given me, and all the helpful info I have gleaned by all the member's pictures and descriptions of what to do (and NOT to do). I have had to make several compromises to make the facility meet my needs of practice room AND studio, as well as match my work habits. But I believe none will handicap me too much. Hopefully if I do this right I will post some pictures of what I have done to date, plus I will keep updating you guys as I move inside the studio and finish the interior. Right now what exists is a 28 ft by 33.5 ft freestanding shell with the bathroom rough plumbed. My plans are to have an outer shell wth 10 foot walls and then build the inner walls and ceilings at 9 foot so the shell is totally nonattached. I am building the suggested mass - air mass walls with anywhere from 2 to 3.5 inches of space between the walls. It will have one large combined tracking / mixing room about 14 ft by 31.5 by9ft tall. There will be a machine room directly behind the mix area to house the noisey equipment, as well as a 5 by 6 vocal booth. Eventually I will frame out some storage and a 10 ft by 11.5 ft drum booth. My plans are hand drawn. If I can take a good picture of it I will post it so you can see what I am talking about. Thanks for all the help! Tom

Awesome! Can't wait to see this come along! 8)

Well I start roofing today! Here is a pic of the buillding before. I'll post more later. I still have all the inside to do . I have managed to pull down all the extra bracing on the inside so I have a clean slate to work with. I still need to install the door so I can leave my tools inside and I have made a decision to add a little shed type roof over the door to protect the opening during bad weather, and also let me mount a security light and camera. Tom

Tom, Congrats on such an ambitious project that is looking fantastic right from the start. What a huge undertaking. I wish you the best and really look forward to seeing the progress as you go along. It's interesting that you've chosen to go with a combined tracking/mixing room. Your dimensions are very similar to mine (14ft x 25ft) and I am splitting my room up into two with a dedicated control room. But lately I have been rethinking that decision and was wondering about keeping it one large space. This is the first I've seen that someone else is doing that. Are there particular reasons why you don't want separation or need separation? I'd be curious to know your thoughts. Great job and keep posting lots of photos!

Kathy, Thank you for your kind words! Although my first designs had a seperate control room, drum room, main room and vocal booth I realized it was going to chop the studio up into a bunch of smaller rooms. I record a LOT of stuff by myself and did not want to have to punch record and then run through a maze of double doors. I second reason for the combined mixing / tracking room was... well... It is what I have now! And it works so well... except for the noise of my computer and some noisy equipment. So I built a machine room on the wall just on the other side of where my speakers will be and I have all the noisy equipment there and port the wire thru the wall. I also record a lot of Celtic / Folk Blue grass / Jazz type stuff where everyone wants to be in the same room like a jam session. They also like to be able to listen back and work mix ideas right away, so being immediately available is nice. I interact a lot with the recordists. It is going to be sooooo nice to have a large room with good acoustics to record ensembles and small jazz bands. Right now my recording space is like 11 feet square! So to make a long story short, a single mix / tracking room fits my work habits a lot. And if I ever sell the place in the future someone can make one heck of a home theater / play room out of it! Tom

Tom, there's a lot to be said for that approach if you work a lot by yourself; my next place will be capable of both ways, by using remote control (probably Cat5 extenders) and a large enough CR so it can be a 1-room setup OR just a CR. Can't quite tell from the small pix, are your inner trusses scissored or flat-bottomed? Steve

Steve, I thought a bit about the remote control. There are some folk doing it by a cheap laptop and a wireless hub and using the laptop for a remote to their computer.They actually can have their complete computer rig elsewhere like an editing room. But I think the final thing that pushed me over the edge to making a large room is I play in a band with 2 of my brothers (Brothers 3) and we have rehearsed at my house for over 8 years (there are actually 7 people in the band though... www.brothers3.us). I just wanted to have a wonderfully large rehearsal room. Oh and the trusses are flat bottomed. I had thought about scissor trusses to give me more head room. But since I was not actually going to use the bottom of the the trusses inside the rooms (isolated ceilings) I could not figure a good way to build the higher slanted ceilings in the individual areas. So flat it is!! I can handle flat. I made the outside wall height a little over 10 feet. I thought I would bring the room height to about 9 1/2 feet to allow room for the 2 x 8 ceiling joists. I should take some pictures of the inside now that all the supports are down. Tom

knightfly wrote:

Tom, there's a lot to be said for that approach if you work a lot by yourself;

Well, this subject is weighing heavily on my mind lately. I'm really seriously considering not dividing my room now. There are so many mixed feelings about this. I don't want to hijack your project thread so I'm going to go over to my own thread to post my questions and thoughts on this. I'm just really glad that the issue was brought into the limelight when I read about your project, Tom.

Tom, Have you thought about what you are going to face the outside of the building with yet? As for a control room, my building is another 25% over yours and I wish my control room was just a pee pee bigger, but the main room is great. We intend to use it as a studio/stage to have party/concerts and such. I always wanted a club where I where I could leave my gear up all the time, this is as close as I will ever get.

I am in a rush this morning but I'd thought I post a few more updated pics. Tom

Aloha and good morning! :D Whoa, Tom! Looking real good! :D :D Have a great day! Aloha 8)

Here is the latest pictures. It sure goes slow doing it alone.. I hope to be done with the basics by Christmas and start working out the acoustic treatments while I am on holiday. I am at the point of trimming the baseboards and doors as well as setting the bathroom fixtures. I have the electrical fixtures in place but not the glass sconces. (I dont want to hit them with a ladder) Let me know what you think! Tom

Now painted.

Hey Tom! Great stuff and well organised..:) Can you please let me know what you are doing for corners between walls and flooring? Like maybe a closer photo pls? Thx

Sideshow, Right now there is nothing. I have caulked the inside corners (with acoustic caulk / no tape joints) and simply painted over them. They look fine to me. At the floor I am putting simple 3/4 by 3 1/2 inch wood for trim as well as around the doors and control windows. I had in in my small garage studio and it looked good, plus being very durable. I am trimming with the heavier wood to make it easier to mount things like the corner bass absorbers as well as the wall absorbers. I will be putting mounting strips of 3/4 by 1-1/2 on the walls and ceilings for mounting the acoustic treatments. Otherwise I have to screw though over an inch and a quarter of drywall just to reach wood. I'll post more as I finish the trim. Tom

Tom, Thanks for the information! Much appreciated. :D Take Care and I will pop in regularly to see how you are doing!

Well It has been a while since I posted pictures. I am Almost done with the acoustic panels for the large room. I still lack the corner bass traps and the cloud and wall panels in my mix nook. Anyway, here are a few pics. Tom

Once I am through with the ceiling I can put the light sconces on. I was afraid I would hit them with my rolling scaffold. Let me know what you think! Tom

Awesome Thats what I think Tom

Great work Tom! It's really amazing when you can start from "SCRATCH"! And I mean DIRT scratch! :lol: Keep it up!

:D really incredible work. congratulations. We waited for more picts!!!! Cheers

Thanks guys for the encouragement. I need to occupy the large room as soon as possible. i have some paying customers about to go elswhere if I can't get my act together. That means using the place before I work the issues out.... not always a good idea. i have some low frequency ring , but I have not put the bass traps up nor covered the ceiling or walls in the mix nook, which is where I here the low frequency resonating from. Thanks again. More pictures to follow as I finsh the different rooms. At least I finally have the final City "Buy Off" all my inspections covered and the "OK" to occupy the place. Off to work!

Hey Tom...a question... That sure looks like a tight wrap around those ceiling acoustic panels. (Very professional looking!) It looks like you used some type of burlap material. Was there a particular way you wrapped the material to get that "tight" look? Did you have to do any cutting of the material near the corners or edges of the panel? Hey...just how did you do that???? :o Thanx!

camistan wrote:

Hey Tom...a question... That sure looks like a tight wrap around those ceiling acoustic panels. (Very professional looking!) It looks like you used some type of burlap material. Was there a particular way you wrapped the material to get that "tight" look? Did you have to do any cutting of the material near the corners or edges of the panel? Hey...just how did you do that???? :o Thanx!

Yes I did use burlap material, and the wrapping job is my wife's doing. She helped me a LOT with the fabric. We obviously built the frames first, the one thing we did which helped a lot was make the width of the frames about an 1/8th inch narrower than the mineral wool, that way when we forced the mineral wool into it stretched the frame out and made the material taught. Then we started with stapling the fabric to the inside long edge then gently pulled it taught to the other side starting in the middle with a spacer to space the middle the same size as the ends. Then we worked from th e middle to the ends stapling as we go. At the ends we first gently pulled it taught in the middle and put a single staple, then wrapped the burlap just barely around the corner (from the long edge side to the short edge side) just to complete the smooth look from the sides to the ends and put single staple to hold it. Then we folded the excess end material (kind of like you would a Christmas package) but to where the folded edge just fit inside the inside edge of the long side rather than letting it fold diagnally. Once we fit the mineral wool in, the panels really looked nice and even. I hope that makes some sense. I should have taken step by step pictures, but I figured I did not want to lose any production time since she volunteered!! (he he) Thanks for the compliments and the interest. Tom

Hi Tom, Great looking place! :D I can't wait to check it out. I am DROOOOOOLING. I'll be keeping in touch - talk to you later. Regards, Spanky Moore