Please Help me with Large Desk Design

Hello, I have been drawing and redrawing designs for a desk I will be putting in my new Studio (control room). I saw a couple people on here who have put up scetches of their ideas, and some looked really really cool. I was wondering if I outlined what all is going on/in this desk I want to build, could someone maybe help me out with a design idea? I just dont like the ones I come up with. :oops: (plus I cant draw good) :lol: Its going to be a rather big desk. And it needs to accomodate the following. (this desk will serve a double purpose, one half for live band practice sound, and the other for recording only. So it will have to completely different consoles on it. On the desktop I wanted to have: (left to right) MACKIE 24X8 CONSOLE W METER BRIDGE (for live band practice) then in the center of the desk LARGE REMOTE CONTROL (FOR ADAT MACHINES) AND 6 PATCHBAYS ETC then on the right side of the desk MACKIE D8B CONSOLE (for recording) plus room for writing recording notes somewhere then mounted in front of the MACKIE 24X8, facing me, I wanted to line up the 3 ADAT machines side by side in the desk. I will be using my Alesis HD24 for recording into, but these ADATS I will have hooked up to the "live" board just to have that option if I decide. (I have no other use for them...lol) Also could I mount my monitor Power Amp(s) in this area as well?? (2 of them) or is that a bad idea? then,,,maybe on top of the DESK, over the ADATS have a shelf for the 17" flat monitor for the D8B CONSOLE and my TANNOYS monitors. There will be a window behind the desk into the tracking room, so for design purposes I need to be able to see in there as well. :wink: I was thinking of having room under the desk in the center for leg room, but to each side, have Rack Mount areas (maybe this Desk needs to be sort of "U" shaped for this, I am not sure>?>? I have a ton of outboard gear to mount for the "Live" side of the desk. I want to again mount 3 ADATS side by side on the "live" side of the desk, facing me. And I will then mount my HD24 and Masterlink, some FX units and Compressors etc on the recording side of the desk. Units on both side will all go to the Patchbays in the middle. Or should I keep the Bays seperate also, and to the sides?? Anyway, it will be a HUGE deck probably, but if someone could help me with suggestions, ideas and drawings, that would be sooo awsome. The Studio will be dual purpose,,,,recording AND a practice/rehersal room again with 2 seperate systems. Thanks much AJ

maybe a pair of desks - the recording/mix desk and the rehearsal desk. this way you can move them around to be optimal in the control room. have you looked at buying commercial desks specific your mixers? here's a quick drawing. I'm building a desk myself but I modified the design a bit since each of your mixers is about 2 rack widths. basically the desk sits on 2 10U racks on 4" casters. 2 top sections provide 4U space, and each lower section about 12U but only about 1/2 that is usable for effects or patch. the blank panels provide workspace.

that's a nice mackie desk and patch bay Glenn ;) care to share ?? :D :D cheers john

Glenn, Thanks for the awsome suggestion, and awsome drawings. Having 2 desks would open so many options as to the set up and room design. Thanks again, very much appreciated, and i will probably use these suggestions:D I also have to ask, what software do you use in making your drawings? They are pretty amazing, along with your images (the consoles, patchbats etc) you include in them. Thanks again AJ 8)

the drawings are done with Sketchup. I found some images of the mixers you described and their associated size specs. I then simply drew some boxes to approximate their shape and imported an the image onto it... the components are modeled in Sketchup, as components, that I use in designing the desk and layouts. same principal - approximate box with image on it and some cases "extended" the controls so in b+w mode they still look like something... when I post the photos and drawings of the desk, one of the sketchup files will have the components available for other folks to use... (mostly Behringer equipment, but its what I have/use... :-)

Cool Glenn - that's how I do it.;) I use pushpull to get the image to fit the box, then scale to make it the correct size to scale. cheers john

John - I've watched the master in action... 8) in general I go to the web site (or google the images) to find a nice square-on shot and size specs and then clean up the image. I create a shape sized per specs and import the image on it. then explode it so I can make cuts etc... if i want it to survive losing the color or image, I'll take some time to draw out shapes over the buttons and knobs and extrude them to make it 3-d. last I'll shape the case to size to it accurately reflects the specs. maybe we can have a sticky to post sketchup components to? i'm sure people would like to have the ability to effectively model their layouts... I'll be glad to post my components up. I have a bunch including your wall units modeled...

Glen, Great! I can't wait to see the sketch up files! :shock: Thanks, Michael