Indiana Home Studio Build

James, Your Studio is really looking good! How do you like the sound? Are you able to listen to music at lower levels than you anticipated? Also, just curious as to the family & friend comments on your build. Looking Great my man!

Thanks Brad and Stan! Yeah, it feels good to be able to hear *real* music in the studio again! BUT... I haven't even scratched the surface as far as getting everything wired yet! I did just enough to get music to play back from the computer, nothing more! I have 5 patch bays to wire, and a lot of troubleshooting ahead. @Stan: I have not really spent a lot of time listening yet! I played back maybe 2-3 songs just to get a feel for how the system was working, and played with my new Central Station monitoring box. As part of the new control room, I got rid of my big mixer! OUCH! It is going to take some getting used to, that is for sure! The new studio is way too small to house the big ol' beast, and it was just time to move on. From what little I heard however, it sounded GREAT, partly because of the novelty of being able to play it, and partly because I was so tired, I was just overjoyed at the minor success! I will do some more critical listening in the next week or so. As far as the family and friends... well, the ones that have seen it, love it! There has been a pretty positive reaction overall. I do wish that I had the time/money/patience to build some new furniture, but that will have to wait until Phase II of the project! ;) I had to do some pretty significant modifications to my old desk to get it to fit in the new room. I took it all apart, and whacked off about 18 inches from the depth, which is more difficult than it sounds! Plus, it is a light-colored wood, which does not really fit the decor very well. My other "issue" so far is the placement of the NS10 speakers. I used to have them on the inside, but space constraints wouldn't allow for that to happen if I wanted to maintain proper symmetry with the main speakers. So I moved them to the outside, and raised them up pretty high on those crappy stands. They are far too wide to get a real stereo image, plus, they are behind the main speakers a bit, so the stereo image will also be effected. But, "it is what it is", at least for now. I do not want to put them on my desk, and I cannot move them forward without moving my desk back 6 inches, and I just don't have the room to spare. They are my "second" set of monitors anyway, and I use them for comparison, and for looking into the mid-range, so I am hoping that they will at least "work" where they are. I have not hooked them up yet, so I have no idea how they sound. I will have to come up with a more permanent solution later.

I hope everybody had a great Easter! I have been able to get a few things done in between family gatherings and church. Here are few pics with some of the progress... Got some of the black door trim work done in the air lock. I still have all the floor boards to do, but I should get those done this coming week if all goes well. I also decided to re-do the trim pieces around the corner bass traps in the control room. I had originally stained them a light golden oak color, but have since decided to do all of the trim work a darker color to match the floor better. Unfortunately, my desk and racks are a light wood, but they will have to do for now until I get to phase II of the project, and either build or buy a new desk and racks. Here you can see a picture BEFORE: And AFTER: Here are a couple of pics of the control room as it stands as of today. Still lots more wiring to do... and that NASTY BLUE CARPET THAT NEEDS TO BE THROWN IN THE RUBBISH PILE!!! The obligatory lava lamps! They obviously cannot stay where they are permanently since they are obstructing the NS10s, but I stuck them there temporarily until I decide where I am going to put them. And one last "artsy" shot. Almost done with the back half, and should be starting on the live room in a week or so. I have one more large bass trap to make for the back wall of the CR, plus finish the floor boards in the air lock. And of course, the aforementioned wiring, which is going to be an ongoing process over the next couple of weeks I fear...

Hey, wait a minute... I see (through the glass) what appears to be a finished live room? Is it done as well, and we get no pix? :shock:

BradJacob wrote:

Hey, wait a minute... I see (through the glass) what appears to be a finished live room? Is it done as well, and we get no pix? :shock:

Haha! No, that is the OLD live room! It will be completely gutted and re-done. I will be posting some before/after pics of that room as well once I get started on it. I *wish* it was a finished live room!

doublehelix wrote:

Haha! No, that is the OLD live room! It will be completely gutted and re-done. I will be posting some before/after pics of that room as well once I get started on it. I *wish* it was a finished live room!

What needs to be done?

BradJacob wrote:

doublehelix wrote:

Haha! No, that is the OLD live room! It will be completely gutted and re-done. I will be posting some before/after pics of that room as well once I get started on it. I *wish* it was a finished live room!

What needs to be done?

Oh my! Tons of stuff!!! First off, I beefed up the walls between the live room and the CR with a second layer of drywall. This still needs to be sanded and painted. I couldn't do any sanding when all my gear was in there, so I had to wait and finish the back half so I could move all the gear out. Now that I have the gear out, I can gut that room completely, pull out all the carpeting and other "junk", and start on the walls. I am going to refinish all of the walls and repaint the entire room, including the ceiling. Secondly, I am ripping out all the old nasty carpet and replacing it with hard wood flooring, which means flooring AND trim work. Third, I am building new corner traps similar to the ones in the control room, but this time without the cutouts (I hope!). I will also be building a bunch more bass traps. Next, the back wall is going to be wood paneled, and I am also wall-mounting a set of speaker monitors on that back wall for quick playbacks and also for setup/teardown music. And finally, I need to solder all the millions of connections on that side of the wall! Other than that, not much!!! ;) Sheesh! will this thing ever be done???

Man, there's something about a dim-lit studio with rows of LED bars flashing up and down and listening to something you've done and are satisfied with over and over while leaning back in your" engineer's chair.... Priceless... Great pics James... 8)

camistan wrote:

Man, there's something about a dim-lit studio with rows of LED bars flashing up and down and listening to something you've done and are satisfied with over and over while leaning back in your" engineer's chair.... Priceless... Great pics James... 8)

You are so right my friend, absolutely priceless! I have been spending a lot of time doing just as you suggest, and after all the hard work that has led me to this point, it is truly a great feeling.

The control room construction is "officially complete"! Ya-hoo!!! I made the final two bass traps this weekend. These suckers are *HUGE*!!! Since the room dimensions from the front to the back are so short (a little over 10 feet), I was advised by several people to make the back traps as thick as possible. These suckers are 8" thick (7" of fiberglass), with a 1" air gap, effectively making them stick out 9" from the wall!!! They look ridiculous! Every time I walk into the room since I hung them, I cringe at the sight! As long as they work, I will be fine! By the time I finished hanging them last night, I was way too tired to fire up the computer to play any music in there, but I will get to that tonight. Now that the treatment is complete, I also want to perform an analysis of the room, which I hope to get to in the next few days as well. So here are some pictures of my "Big Mama Traps (R)" (since "Mondo Traps" was already taken by Realtraps!). The large one is 36" X 48" (!!!), and the small one is 12" X 48" (do the math, and you can see why I made them these sizes!). I also finished all the trim work in the air lock, and patched and painted a few areas. I have not hung the trim pieces yet, but once I do that tonight, I will be done with the construction on the back half of the studio, and all that remains is the live room, and some wiring!

Yup! They're huge all right, but needs must and all that. :wink: Nice one James - well done on the 'finished the control room' stage, and many congrats too on the 'Senior Member' bit! I knew you were much older than me!! :lol: :lol: :lol: Kind regards buddy, Lou. 8)

cool, big-ass-momma-traps :) Hey, I've just dumped exactly the same couch. gheh (I had it stashed at the kantina for years... ) Great job DH!

James, Nice work. Love the colors and the decor. But the bass trap is very masculine. Size does matter :shock: 7 inches Huh? Peace Tom

Tom Van Wrote:

Size does matter 7 inches Huh?

He may have been bragging, but I'm sure he said 8" thick! :shock: :shock: :shock: Sorry - forgot the air-gap.:wink: Still, as the tailor said to the actress, "Never mind the quality, feel the width!" :shock: I wonder if She was wearing tightly packed jeans at the time! Nice one Tom :wink: Regards, Lou. 8)

OK folks, I guess I am going to have to do multiple replies here, "Lou style"!!! ;) Lou: Thanks for the kind words, and now that I am a "Senior Member" I can tell you peons what to do! I do need the windows washed on the inside of my car... You gotta stop with the tightly-packed jeans bit, I get excited every time! ;) Ro: Yeah, I hate that damn couch, along with the ugly blue carpet! Some day, the couch will be gone, replaced with a nice new black couch or a few black chairs. I will probably do that when I get a new desk and racks next year. Tom Van: Thanks for the kind words! Also, just to be more clear on the "size issue", it DOES matter!!! The room sounds GREAT, much better than I expected. I was worried that it was going to be too dead, but instead, things sound very balanced. I am happy! I have had a couple of folks ask me how I hung these traps, so I took a couple of pictures showing the process: I used a "cleat" design that is often used with kitchen cabinets to support the weight, very similar to the method that Brad Jacob used with his traps. The first step (of which I do not have a photo) was to cut a 1X4 piece of wood in half lengthwise at a 45 degree angle with a table saw. You will be able to see what I mean from the pictures. After a bit of measuring, I hung one half of this "cleat" on the wall, making sure that I screwed it in tightly to the wall studs to support the weight. Here is an end-on shot of the cleat showing the 45 degree cut a bit better. Next, the matching half of the cleat was attached to the top of the bass trap. I wanted to make sure that there was at least 1.5" gap between the back of the trap and the wall, so I mounted the cleat on a wooden batten that I first attached to the back of the trap. I then had to match the thickness of the batten and the cleat on the bottom of the trap with some small pieces of scrap wood, and attached a few felt "feet" to keep from scratching the wall. Here is an end shot of the trap so that you can see the angle on the cleat a bit better. From there, it is just a matter of lifting the trap up onto the hanging cleat, matching up the angles. Pretty simple, really.

The room sounds GREAT, much better than I expected.

Thats the best news. All that hard work...And a comfortable spot to hear your mixes I think we should all pitch in to get James a new couch :wink: :lol: Peace Tom

TomVan wrote:

I think we should all pitch in to get James a new couch :wink: :lol:

Ha! Ain't that the truth??? "Alms for the poor...?"

Seems like all I have to give these days is my two cents. No really...you can have it...

I installed the last set of floor board trim in the air lock last night, and that pretty much completes the construction in the back half of the studio. Next up is the live room, which we will start working on in earnest this weekend. I still have a few small items to do in the iso room, which I never take pictures of because it is full of construction materials! Paint cans, tubs of mud, piles of tools, air compressor, wet vac, 2 ladders, etc. It is so full of "stuff" that it is impossible to post any pictures that anyone would want to see. As we get the entire project complete, I will go back in there for a few touch up tasks, and will post some more pics later. Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the air lock trim work... The plan is to put a small table with some candles (or something) on the back wall under the picture of Mr. Marley, and I also have a few other small pics that I might mount on the walls.

Wow, that BLACK trimwork makes it really come alive. Great choice of colour and what a great work!

Ro wrote:

Wow, that BLACK trimwork makes it really come alive. Great choice of colour and what a great work!

Ditto on that James! Black/Grey - that's slam dunk. Looks great! (said like a kid asknig for more oatmeal): "More pix of the control, please..." "We want more pix of the gear and stuff please...." :wink:

Ditto and Ditto James - Bang on use of colour! The whole area looks absolutely great! :wink: :wink: Well done my friend. My rooms are now painted but one of my colour choices is looking a bit radical! I know it will be fine when the fabric is up, however, it'll take a bold update at the weekend to give you guys a clearer idea of where I'm heading. :oops: :shock: :oops: Great job James - Real glad the 'mamas' are sounding good for you too Dude. :wink: :wink: Much warmth to you and yours, Lou. 8)

Wow James, very impressive, classy looking space. It strikes me when you compare your project as a Hobbit Hole compared to the likes of Lou, you should remember that it's all relative. I don't even dream of my little single combination room being in the same ballpark as your project! :D I do have to say for someone who admittedly doesn't enjoy construction, you do absolutely awesome work. As many others have said, the detailed documentation of your project will be helpful to many others including myself. Congratulations on the beautiful job! Even though I've just hung my first wall of sheetrock (and your project has made me realize how far I have to go) I'm constantly looking forward to future issues. I was so glad to hear that you're happy with the sound of your control room and that it's not too dead. I'm assuming that none of your acoustic treatment has reflective fronts, correct? I'm currently planning on carpet for my space, so that might make a bit of a difference, but with all your treatment, I too would have feared it being too dead. Maybe treating my room won't be quite as much of a challenge as I feared. Anyway, great work!! Count me among the list of admirers of your work! :D

Wow! Thanks guys for all of the kind words! Very encouraging! I have actually had a pretty tough couple of weekends in the studio. The good news is that the control room is about 98% wired, there are just a few more cables that need to be made, but I need to order some more wire and ends. It is some of the lesser-used things, like the side-chain inputs to my DBX 266XL compressor that I use only for ducking the musician's talk-back mics (it is a crappy compressor, but works great as a mic ducker!). The biggest issue I have had is with the computer. I have spent the last 2 weekends in "computer hell" trying to get the damn thing to work again. It is crazy! It was working perfectly when I shut it down, and after sitting idle for a bunch of months, it decided to be difficult. I screwed around with it forever, and finally gave up, and started from scratch with my most recent Ghost image. I actually ran that on Sunday night, and by Monday morning, most of my problems were history. I have since spent the last couple of days pushing it pretty hard to make sure that things are running well, and of course the endless series of upgrades to drivers and all of my programs. It has been almost a year, and a lot has changed in that time! Realize of course, that this my THIRD time upgrading all of these programs over the course of the last 1.5 weeks! Grrrrr!!!! Computers!!! I am not sure why my state-of-the-art computer would be having these types of problems. Check out the picture that I have attached below, and let me know if you can offer any help or suggestions! (note the mouse): What this all means is that I have not been able to work on the live room for the past 2 weekends, which sucks of course. Hopefully, I have got things worked out a bit now, and can move onto the live room. In the mean time, life goes on...

Is it plugged in?