Indiana Home Studio Build

Really?............................................No Shit! :wink: More warmth, Lou. 8)

you know, I actually LIKE those cutouts for connectors. So, I don't see no idiot here! Nice work, do you have some pix of the wood finishing? (a total shot of the finished product for example)

Ro wrote:

you know, I actually LIKE those cutouts for connectors. So, I don't see no idiot here!

Once again, kudos to Brad Jacob for the final design idea. He and I batted around some possible solutions to the problem, and then he was first out of the gate with the solution you see here. Brad is the genius here! Like I said in another post... This is the great thing about this place, the sharing of ideas and hints, along with all of the encouragement through some pretty frustrating times.

Ro wrote:

Nice work, do you have some pix of the wood finishing? (a total shot of the finished product for example)

I am working on the trim work as we speak, and I will have some pics to show in the next few days.

Lou wrote:

Really?............................................No Shit!

Hehe... I know, hard to believe, eh? I am pretty much done with construction in my life for a while! I am kinda sick and tired of cuts and scrapes all over my hands, and dust in my hair and up my butt! "Soon" however... "soon"...

Been working hard on a lot of things, some big, some small, all in an attempt to push this project through to the finish. It seems as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so I am trying to stay positive. Here is the latest update: As mentioned, here are a few of the "small things" that have to get done at one point or another. In this first shot, Pierce is putting some wood putty into some of the nail holes from the sealing door stop install. Next up, I decided to swap out all of my door knobs. The previous knobs were shiny brass, and were the round "knob" types. I switched to the black "handle" type since they look better, plus as you can see in this picture, there is not much clearance between the door handle and the new sealing door stops. These new handles make it much easier on the knuckles when opening and closing the doors! Next up, I had to make all the small plywood pieces for my corner traps to fill out the holes from the cutouts. I had one trap done last week, but completed the other pieces this weekend. These are all of the small trim pieces for the around the corner traps to hide the staples and ragged edges of the cloth covering. Stained, and then 3 coats of polyurethane. Here is another one of those "small things" that needed doing. Under the door sill, I needed to fit a board into the large gap below the metal frame. Of course, no board would fit in any dimension, so a 2X4 had to be planned in a joiner in both dimensions other than length to fit. As trivial as this seems, it was a lot of work! This board will eventually be covered with trim and won't be seen, but was needed for support, and to give me a firm place to attach the trim to! Next up, the airlock floor. Have I ever mentioned that I hate glue down flooring? ;) It makes such a mess! And now, onto the trim around the corner traps. I am not totally happy with the way these worked out, and I am going to take down a few pieces and re-do them later (when I am doing the rest of the trim work). Here is the before pic.... And the after pic... Here are a couple of pictures of the top of those short traps that have to fit below the sconces. This was before I puttied the corners and joints. Here is an example of the full-length corner traps. I HATE THE TOP PIECE OF TRIM on this corner and also on the other full-length corner, and I am going to replace them with standard 1/4 round rather than this ugly excuse for a piece of trim. They look really lame. I have NO IDEA what I was thinking!!! Here are a few more random shots of the four corner traps. I had just got done using the shop vac around to pick up some of the dust and wood chips from the trim pieces, and you can see the dust in the air in the pictures! Funny, since it did not seem dusty when I took the shots! Next up: -I need to build a small door to hide the circuit breaker panel -Trim pieces for the airlock and control room -Bass traps for the control room -Move in gear Then... -Start on the live room (Oh, joy!)

Slowly it all comes together, and it's cool. Nice room, those trims really make it like a finished product (except those top and bottom screw ups, haha) no man, nice work. Also like the distribution panels, nice work!

Thanks Ro! I am also struggling to come up with a solution to trap the top-back corners above the sconces. Since the corner traps had to be shortened to accommodate the sconces, I have the top corners untreated at this point, which is less than ideal. We all know that these corner junctions where 3 walls come together is one of the most important areas to treat. I am thinking maybe a small, flat square panel-type bass trap, that is 4" thick straddling the corner (maybe 24" X 12"-ish???). Not ideal, and most likely would be a pain to mount. Does anyone have any other brilliant ideas as to how I can treat these corners? I know Auralex makes some corner foam cubes that look pretty cool, although I would never use foam, and would build something myself using rigid fiberglass. I am thinking that maybe I could design something like that as an alternative to the small square, flat traps from above, but again, it sounds like a pain to mount... Here is a picture of the area as a reminder... I need to treat the area *above* the current corner trap and sconce.

Honestly James, looking at those traps, the two front ones - the patchbay and outlet boxes should be concealed a lot because of the desk/console. The two back ones look like the couch will hide the electric boxes. But the tops being basically missing, will look bad. At this point, I would bite the bullet, put down a drop cloth and cut out a new box location for those lights. Then use the old box as a junction box with a flat plate that the bass trap will cover. Extend the wires to the new box, install the new sconce, and button it all back up. Then hey, spackle, sand, paint - and be done with it. Yes, it's more work, it sucks... BUT, when you sit back and look at it, you'll be plenty-glad you did. Plus it will make the studio that much more pro-looking. Just carve out a weekend, get some help and give it hell. It should only be about 2-hour fix. Thoughts?

Bass trap building weekend... I built 6 traps this weekend, 3 of them were 3" thick, and 3 of them were 4" thick. The 3" traps were for behind my monitor speakers and on the ceiling over my head, the 4" traps were for the side walls. I still have to address the back wall, which is going to be a challenge. I am planning 8" traps on the back wall due to the small dimensions of the room. Here are some of the pieces and braces for one of the 3" traps. Joined together, ready for nailing. Here I attached 4 "L" brackets to hold the front of the fiberglass in the trap, and for use as a means to hold the criss-crossed wired that will keep the fiberglass in place. It is hard to see in this picture, but there is some fine wire crossed in the middle of the trap. Flipped over, and filled with fiberglass (the wires are now facing DOWN. These next 2 pictures make me laugh since everything looks so distorted and cock-eyed! In reality, it is just the angle or lens distortion or something since everything is pretty square. This first one shows some batons installed to hold the back of the fiberglass in place, and to give the trap some stability. Here, you can see the front of the trap again, with the fiberglass held in place by the criss-crossed wiring. And finished. Six more traps, waiting to be covered. And here they are, hung up in the room. Next up... Trim!!!

doublehelix wrote:

Bass trap building weekend...

Awesome work and documentation - you should take the basstrap/panel work and copy it into a new thread within the acoustics forum. It would be a great addition to the list of related projects.

Cram wrote:

doublehelix wrote:

Bass trap building weekend...

Awesome work and documentation - you should take the basstrap/panel work and copy it into a new thread within the acoustics forum. It would be a great addition to the list of related projects.

Gee... thanks Cram! But they are *only* bass traps after all! Pretty basic stuff.

James - Looking nice. Can't wait to see the gear all lit up. So you have to do your control room now? Is that going to be like another complete build, with rock, spackle, the works? (gulp) Keep up the good work man, it's taking shape and the end is in sight. BTW - I did my update post - finally!

Hey Brad: No, I have to do my *live* room next. The orange room with all the bass traps is the control room, which is almost complete. In the live room, all of the rock is done and spackled, I just need to sand and re-spackle any spots that I missed the first time on just ONE WALL. The rest is done. The whole room needs painting however. For the live room: -Some basic spackle and sanding work (oh, joy!) -Paint -Solder my audio boxes -Tear out the nasty carpet and install the hardwood flooring (this is going to be a pain. It is large room) -Acoustic treatment -Trim I am thinking another month or so in the live room. Sucks! The good news is that I should be done with the control room, air lock and iso room in two weekends. I wish I had the time/money/talent/patience to build a new desk and racks. I am going to use my old ones for now just so I can get up and running. Looking at your finished desk makes my want to do that now as well, but dude... I need to get back to the music!!!

Hey James, Just checking in to "eyeball" your progress. Lookin' GOOD...

Just a quick update... The exposed hardware on the ceiling bass trap was bugging me, and I was struggling to come up with a solution to cover them. Here is what I ended up, at least temporarily: Here is an example of the hardware before covering it: I got some of that flexible corrugated plastic tubing that is used to bundle wires from Radio Shack, and cut it into small sections. This stuff has a pre-cut slit that runs down one side so that you can spread it apart. And here is what it looks like when complete. Not great, but "better". I put this stuff on all four sets of hardware.

nice man - pretty creative. I love it!

BradJacob wrote:

nice man - pretty creative. I love it!

Thanks Brad, but I am thinking that these are only a temporary solution until I can come up with something more permanent. They work for now however! I've got other bigger fish to fry at the moment!

doublehelix wrote:

BradJacob wrote:

nice man - pretty creative. I love it!

Thanks Brad, but I am thinking that these are only a temporary solution until I can come up with something more permanent. They work for now however! I've got other bigger fish to fry at the moment!

I can show you how I did mine. Using the same lumber, if the panels are up against the ceiling, the insulation is still off the surface by 1.5 inches. It's basically the reverse cleat system. Here's a picture... It's crude, but explains what I did. (the picture only shows one side, of course you'd need to do this on both sides)

Alright James, You caught my attention. I did the chain thing thinking they would look nice with painted black chain. But after I installed mine they just looked like painted black chain. Boring :? Go figure huh!?! Now I have to get the ladder back out and stop at the Depot on the way home. :cry: See what you made me do :lol: You know the sticky section keeps growing but it would be cool to have one sticky with the trick stuff/pictures in it Looking very nice very nice Peace Tom

@Brad: Thanks Brad, but it is a bit too late for me now. You have a cool solution (as usual!), but alas... My ceiling panel is 3" of fiberglass in a 4" frame, with about a 3" air gap. It works fine, just looks ugly! I wish I had thought about another method before. @Tom: Haha! My pleasure! Any time you need to do some extra work, be sure to let me know! I'll be sure to volunteer your time!

Not a lot of progress this weekend, I had several family commitments, but I did get some trim work done around the inside of the CR door and the CR windows. Here are a couple of shots... First, the "ugly window". I am going to clean the outside of this puppy come spring, I promise! Now, the main CR window. And finally, the inside of the CR door.

Started moving a couple of pieces into the control room... lots more to go.

A few more items loaded in... man this takes forever! I have a lot of rearranging of the racks to do, and TONS of wiring... You can also see some more of the trim pieces for the airlock sitting on the couch, waiting to be hung. Also, if you look closely at the corner traps, you can see that I took down the trim pieces! I decided to re-stain them a darker color to better match the flooring.

Wow James Great Work ! i see that the Gear is IN :wink: Congrats , Reeally beutifull.

Thanks for the kind words! Actually, those pics did not show all of the stuff moved in yet, but we did complete the move in and rearrangement of the racks today. BUT... The big news: We hit a HUGE MILESTONE tonight! I actually played back a multitrack recording in the control room!!! Woo-hoo!!! It seems like such a little thing, but I have been waiting for this day for a long time! :D

Hey-hey brother... You're there! Looks great, and I'm guessing the sounds you heard were making you fill up with joy, yeah? Makes all the hard work - well worth it! I'm glad to see it wrapping up - and the place looks just great, really... Now finish up that live room - and get back to the music. Soon you'll feel what I'm feeling: the memory of building the studio is getting more and more a distant memory - as the music begins to take over again! Fantastic job man!