Mighty! Productions studio design and construction

I have 3 narrow window openings in my control room entrance door. This door is being built in the style of Rod's "superdoor" - a single door with a jam that spans both inner and out wall. The windows will need to be custom made, and Im wondering if I should use a thick (.5" or greater) single pane window, or a double pane window comprised of 1/4" and 3/8" panes with a 1" air gap? The glass shop I went to recommended the double pane window, but I have my doubts. Wouldnt the sound just flank right around the air gap in the single door construction?

I've installed 2 runs of 2" PVC electrical conduit to get my audio cables from the control room to the iso booth, one run at each end of the room. These runs will drop in from the ceiling into the area where my corner bass absorbers will be built. I'm planning on building my interconnect panels into the face of the bass absorbers. Both runs have a 3/8" break in the conduit mid run to prevent any flanking from room to room.

I've completed one of two glass block panel windows that will go in the control room in front of the existing basement window. These will open french door style if I want to get some direct fresh air into the room. I plan on using the same GM K seals on the windows as I'm using on the doors. I have a feeling these glass block windows may not give the best isolation, but should be adequate for my needs, and give me a look that I will be happy with. The window will be backlit to provide some ambiance. The jam still needs to be fabricated, so I placed the completed panel in the rough opening just to get an idea of what it might look like.

busy bee :) Me like :)

I finally finished the electrical. Sub panel is installed, conduit is installed, wire is pulled, outlets(IGR) are installed, switches are installed. Magically, everything tested ok on the first try! I hope no one ever tears those walls down to see what a horrible job I did bending conduit!

I have been modeling the studio in SolidWorks as I go. It helps me with the design details, to verify that things will actually fit together the way I think they will. It also helps keep me motivated when I see the way things will hopefully one day look like. Today I modelled up the control room front bass absorbers, and the control room mid-range absorbers. I also inserted the model of the desk I'm planning on building, based on the Argosy Dual 15.

My daughter, Morgan, was born on 10-07-08. Needless to say, its been a bit slow going down in the studio since then. I'm still adjusting to her "schedule", which is pretty much no schedule!

Despite the recent addition to the family, I have gotten some work done this fall. The supply side of the HVAC is nearly complete, just need to get the flex duct hooked up to the last silencer box. This will be arm twisting, face contorting challenge considering I left myself virtually no room to squeeze things in up between the joists. I've also put up most of the insulation, only leaving out the areas that I still need access to. The door and window jams have been cut to size, and I'm in the process of getting them installed, along with mortising for all the hinges. I have a couple days set aside at the end of the week to work on things, so with any luck I'll have at least somewhat operational doors by the end of the weekend. I've attached a few overall pictures of the progress.

Following your build Mighty, and congrats on the beautiful new addition to the family. Quite understandable why studio progress is slow. For all the right reasons. I liked your solution for the conduit break. However, that may be a bitch when it comes to wire pulling. Maybe try and rubber coupling similar to what a plumber may use. Could save some angst later on down the road. W

Thanks Wayne! I was planninng on using a fish tape to pull the audio wiring through the conduit. I'm thinking that it will be stiff enough not to get hung up at the break in the conduit. Even if I put a coupling around it, I think there will still be the exposed lip of the pipes that could snag the wires. I think I'll run the fish tape through a few times before I close things up with drywall, just to make sure it wont be a problem. Thanks for the tip!

Its time to play photo catch up. These pics are from just after I got the doors hung. After a lot of shimming and screwing to get the jams prepared, I had a bunch of anxiety about whether or not the doors would actually close once I got them hung. Luckily, they went in without a hitch. A few more tweaks to the jams, and everything seems to fit nice and even.

After finishing up all the HVAC supply and return boxes and lines, its finally time to begin drywalling. I think the worst part of drywalling is moving it all from the garage to the basement! The ceiling went up first. Just getting this first layer up has taken the better part of 2 months, as I rarely get more than 2-3 hour chunks of time to work on it, and its usually by myself.

The soffits came next. These were a p.i.t.a with all the odd angles and cutouts for pvc conduit.

Finally the walls, and now it actually feels like I have rooms! The interior walls are done, and the caulking has begun. A buddy helped caulk the C.R. room corners, and I have a bit of rework to do as a result. He got a bit carried away with the backer rod, and there are several areas where is is showing, which means there is no acoustic seal.

Given the amount of time this is taking, I'm seriously considering hiring out the install of the entire second layer. I'm just a bit nervous that the contractor wont understand how the corners need to be finished (even after a thorough explanation). I need to free myself up to start finishing the door stops and seals, and start thinking about all the work its going to take to stain the concrete floor.

Its been a busy summer so far - chasing my 9 month old daughter around, going to family gatherings, keeping the lawn mowed, yada yada. But alas, I have still made time for progress on the studio! The drywall is done, caulking complete, primed, and cieling painted. I hired out the hanging and finishing of the second layer. There were some issues with the way the contractor left the corners for caulking, but nothing a utility knife and some elbow grease couldnt take care of. I hung the final light fixture in the booth, which makes it look a whole lot closer to finished - exciting stuff at the 2.5 year mark!

Next up - framing out the corner bass absorbers. The absorber in the corner with the sump pump will have a hinged door to allow access. This will also make it handy to service the connector panel that will be mounted in the face of the absorber as well. My plan is to use 4" 703 (or equivalent) in the frames, leaving the rest of the cavity open. If I find I need more absorption, I can add additional insulation in the form of hangers/super chunks later on.

I'm finally getting to some of the "finish" type items that start to give me hint of how this whole thing may turn out when done. My plan for the glass block window was to back light it to provide a nice ambient glow in the room. I still have one half of the block window to build, but I got the rope light installed in the window frame, and set the finished half of the window up in the frame to see how it looks. I'm pretty stoked with the result! Also, I did a temporary install of one of the door closers to help with installing the rest of of the door seals. I needed to find out how much compression the door closer would provide in order to position the seals properly.

In addition to/part of the studio build, I have been working on a new DAW computer to go in the studio when its finished. My trusty AMD Athlon 3400 laptop has performed admirably for the last few years, but ProTools has an insatiable appetite for more and more horsepower, so it was time to upgrade. The new rig is an Intel i7 920 mounted in a 4 space rackmount case with a fanless video card, 6 GB DDR3-1600 RAM, 3 500GB SATA hard drives, a hot-swappable 3.5" SATA trayless drive bay, and a media card reader with an eSATA port and external power ports.

Corner bass absorber construction is still underway. I had to route out pockets in the studs to flush mount the plywood panels that will house the interconnect panels.

Hai Might M! Absolute great updates you posted lately (*sorry I didn't catch your previous update. looks very cool!) A summer well spend :)

Lots of progress of the past couple of months. In order to save some time and work, I opted to go with a cheap laminate floor instead of staining the concrete. I've got all the bass absorbers up and covered with fabric. I did some test trim work and like the results, so I'll be proceeding with the rest of it in that manner. I moved my temporary mix desk and a couple lounge chairs in, so the space is actually useable now - whooohoooo! Still need to finish door seals, glass block window, cloud absorber, slot absorbers, HF absorbers, trim work, and audio wiring - piece of cake right?

The cloud absorber is up. Four switch outlets above it provide power to four different colored rope lights for ambient lighting. The rope lights will take some time to relax and lay down flat after being coiled up tightly in packaging.