Lou's Studio - Construction Phase

Awesome!!!!!! "Make my day", do ya wana............punk! Your posts make my day mate. Thanks

Looks amazing Lou!! I'd like to have such a flat response, too *sigh* I'm a bit concerned about the subwoofer right underneath the desk, hope it won't cause any vibrations of the desk and console, it looks pretty tight down there! Enjoy and cheers Roman

I'm so very jealous Lou :wink: That has just turned out ace brother, congrats all the way 8) MOSHON DAVE

this is too nice guys. too nice!!!

Bump. It's been a month since your last update, Lou. Ya gotta give us our fix, mate. 8) :shock: :twisted: Any new pics or progress to report?

Hi Lou, I just came across your thread yesterday and have read the lot. Absolutely brilliant work you've done there - it's a real inspiration. Can't wait to see your 'finished' pics. I'm in the planning phase for a much smaller project but I'm going to call your design and building guys to see if I can afford them. They did a top job by the look of things. As i'm in the UK might i badger you for a bit of supplier info once i start ordering materials? Once again, great job and i hope it's all nearly sorted! Dave

We want to see the final pics! I have been staring last updates many times, they look so good. Any new info?

SIC, sic, sic thread!!!! Amazing!!!!!

ok Lou lets see the final pictures or :inn:

one of the best and most informative reads ever!! i am truly in awe :shock: thank you for sharing and i look forward to your final posts Iain

Lou? Lou??? LOOOOUUU ???? (it's all so quiet .... ain't nobody home)

Well chaps – Firstly, massive apologies for not updating earlier, but there is good reason. Not much progress on the final stages but a couple of things to show you, some sort of final pics, and then the schedule for the rest of the month. :roll: Before any of that though, the replies to some very kind comments. Joey – Many thanks my friend, when are you coming down? I need witnesses! :wink: Gareth – Much appreciated. The gtr cables are 2 x 10m (for live room), and 2 x 5m (for iso booth) they are from Studiospares and are ideal for the job. DH – Thanks my friend, your place is turning out great too! :D DDDD – Nice one dude and thank you. Sillybird – Thanks mate and the sub is just fine as you’ll see. :wink: Mosh – No need to be jealous at all dude! Mike – Ha ha! :lol: Ragman – Definitely give Peter at Studiopeople are ring. He’s totally down to earth and is more than aware of working to tight budgets. I think you’d be agreeably surprised. V.K. – Nearly there, but the pics you’ll see of the control room in a minute pretty much reflect the final look. Mr Meoff – I can tell you that this project has made me sick with worry on more than one occasion. :( Yul Rarse – These will have to do for the moment. Padded Cell – That was a very kind thing to say buddy, and Bolton is only 3 ½ hrs from me! Hint hint. Remember I need witnesses. :wink: Ro – Sorry dude! :oops: :oops: I think that’s everybody so here comes the update. A bit off-topic but still related to the studio. The control room was starting to look great, but it was still lacking the finishing touches. Sarah said you need some cushions for the sofa. What follows is an account of how to make a couple of unique items that really do tie in the visual appearance of the whole room. Now like most blokes, I wasn’t known for being particularly good at needlework at school. So, with Sarah’s supervision, first take some off cuts from the fabric you have left over, and carefully cut long parallel strips of random width. Then arrange in a random combination and sew them together – Yes, I did do this! Then iron them so that the seams on the back are ‘open’ and flat. Then comes the ingenious bit. Accurately cut them at 90° to give you 8 multi coloured strips (4 for each cushion). Finally, arrange them as follows: Put the strips side by side in the order in which they were cut, take strips 2 and 4 and swap them for 6 and 8. Lastly turn strips 1 3 5 and 7 through 180° and sew 1 to 4 and 5 to 8 together! Hey presto a whacky but unique random patch work cushion. :wink: Here’s how they look on the sofa. Next it was on to the wall boxes to house the panels. I decided to make these in solid ash as frankly anything else would have looked daft. The edges were rounded for a better look. Then the steel brackets were added. These were fixed about 1mm inside the wood so that they would pull the boxes nice and tight when screwed to the wall. Then B&Q’s clear satin varnish to give them the look. Time for accurate placement on the walls. With these plasterboard fixings you only get one chance! :shock: The pre-drilled holes make sure the panels will sit in the center of the rebate. I used 2 match sticks to support them when fixing them back on the boxes. Iso panel finished. Live Room panel finished. Neither of which are wired up yet!!! Then I cracked on with my cable hangers. Two in the live room and one on the back wall of the control room. Both were first mounted on some of the skirting board we had left over. This gave a much stronger fixing to the wall as well as a far better visual appearance. Then I had to admit that whilst I loved the 'no cables about' gag, I was concerned about my ‘bowing’ Trinity tray. :shock: This is not a design fault, but the trinity is just too heavy for that span. Add to this enthusiastic playing when the tray was in its fully out position, and with the whole lot bouncing up and down it was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. This is how I fixed it. :wink: A simple breakfast bar leg from my local Magnet which I cut down to size. The foot at the bottom unscrews as much as needed for adjustment. The result? Solid as a rock, and my legs sit comfortably either side. I would have preferred it in a brushed aluminium finish rather than chrome but hey! Right then guys here are the sort of final pics of the control room as to be honest; this won’t look any different once all the wiring is complete. General front view – 2:1 session going on hence the TFT’s being side by side. The view that was my dream at the beginning of the thread is now a reality. :D :D :D Right hand rack with the two Focusrite Voicemaster Pros. Left hand rack with my TwinTrak Pros. The top 3U is for my Line 6 X3 Pro which is currently on its way from the States. Two weeks ago I had the regrettable realisation that my P4 2.4 PC was just never going to be man enough for the job so I took a massive gamble and replaced it with this. 3.2 dual quad 8 core Mac-Pro, 10 GB ram, 3 x 500 GB hard drives, NVIDIA 8800 XT 512mb graphics. What a machine. :wink: It was always my intention to have a ‘cable free’ studio. This is how it’s done. My midi interface and 8 port USB hub velcro’d to the underside of the console. More detail of the nerdy fixing of all cables so far. The big straps are screwed into position, and will hold the snakes firmly in place which will connect to the wall boxes plus all runs to and from the desks to the gear. Especially for Sillybird – A proper view to show that my sub isn’t really coupled to anything other than via its rubber feet, which incidentally are in turn, sat on a seperate neoprene backed floor section that doesn't touch anything either!. :wink: The last one for this update with my Nightfly M on the left, and my Variax Acoustic on the right. I have two acoustics either side of the sofa hung on the rear wall. The gtrs all look great, are all readily to hand, and really finish the room off. Now at this point, all would seem to be just fine, and, to a certain extent, it is. However the last three weeks have been a complete nightmare. My previous kit was two Korg 168 RC’s the cruddy PC I’ve mentioned and Cubase VST 32! I now of course have two Tascam DM 4800’s, Cubase 4, and a sod-off Mac-Pro. Guys if there’s any truth in the idea that the best way to learn new kit is to throw yourself in at the deep end, then this end is so darn deep, I feel like I’ve been cast in the lead role of The Abyss! I have never felt so damned incompetent in all my life. It has been like starting all over again as if I’ve never played or recorded anything before – I’ve been doing this for a living for 23 years. The frustration has often been total despair. It’s basically one hell of a steep learning curve, but I am getting there. I love the kit and can already see its capability; I just can’t wait until I really understand it all properly. :evil: :evil: :evil: On a positive note to close, I have a training day here all day tomorrow on the desks, and a Cubase guru with me on Tuesday, so this time next week I hope to feel much happier about my engineering skills on the new gear. :roll: :roll: Wed will probably see the introduction of a guy who, for national security reasons, (I kid you not), must only be named as ‘J’ Now that’s gonna’ be fun to explain but the wiring starts this week! Hooray. That’s it guys, thanks as always for reading, more soon (won’t leave it so long this time), Warm regards to you and yours, Lou. 8)

Well Lou, it was great to finally get an update from you, and as usual, it was done in your famous laid-back style! Love the pillows, hate the couch! ;) Haha! The place looks great my friend, and the attention to detail is really impressive. Here's to 23 more successful years of recording and playing!!! Cheers! As far as the learning curve... WOW! You are certainly in deep! I used to use Cubase VST 5 as well, but switched to Cubase SX 1 right when it was released, and upgraded to each version as they came out. Now that I am up to Cubase 4, it was a natural progression, one version at a time. You on the other hand are in deep doggie doo-doo!!! Ha! You will get it though. It will be easier getting your head around Cubase than it will be to master those mixers. I am jealous of the computer, that is one MEAN machine! Are you running the Mac version, or are you running the PC version via Boot Camp? I have heard great things about running the PC-version of Cubase on a Mac under Boot Camp, like it is most stable setup out there. One of these days, I am going to show up on your doorstep, bottle of wine in hand, so be prepared! All the best Lou, you have done an amazing job, and have been through a lot of ups and downs. Things are definitely on the "up" now!

I use SAWstudio for my perils, cant stand cubase, but my son swears by it (and often at it :D ). very very tempted to drop by, next time i am down at my mothers i might take the wee trip further down, my Son would also love to see somewhere decent!!! your attention to detail is awesome, rather than a sticky this thread should be required reading!!! With respect and regards Iain

look who made his way to JLS again.. finally :) it's been boring here without your superthreadupdates, Lou! Now, there's a studio essential! great work :) I LOVE them panels, exactly what I had in mind for mine too. Expensive but sooo worth the money. They look brill. Cheers mate!

Wow! What an update. All looks great!

Great Stuff Lou! Loving the cushions and the cable free look rules :D I gave Peter a call at studiopeople and will be getting them on the case soon as well as starting my concrete plinth. You're spot on about their willingness to find a solution - even on a tighter budget. Hope your learning curve doesn't get you down too much. Remember it's all the same gear underneath - just covered in annoyingly different menus and buttons... :roll: In the meantime, enjoy the sound of a job well done! All the best, Dave

Great final pics Lou - job well done. cheers to all concerned John

Hey guys, check this out………………an update from me without pictures! Firstly though, a massive apology to JWL. Mate please forgive me, I’ve just realised that I forgot to thank you for your post in my last update. I hope you didn’t take that the wrong way, all the best to you mate. :oops: Now then Mr James – There are only two wines worth drinking, both are from the Savoie region of France. The red is called ‘Gigondas’ and the white ‘Sancerre’. Only kidding! There are naturally some great Australian wines, South African, and of course the Californians don’t pull a bad punch either! James you know you’d be made totally welcome when you turn up on my doorstep; I’m an hour from Heathrow btw. :wink: As for Cubase, well that’s really part of the update to be honest, but to answer your question, no; I’m running the Mac version. I don’t want to bring the wombat hole debate over here, but I’m afraid I’m all ‘Windows’d out’ and the idea of having to run windows on the mac platform just doesn’t seem right. To be totally fair mind you, that also means that I can’t have my preferred Wavelab 6, still, Peak Pro XT is one hell of a bundle when I can afford it! :roll: Iain – As I mentioned on your thread, come down anytime mate I’m just off junc 12 M3. I need witnesses; sorry did I not mention that? Ro – As always mate, many thanks, and no, I’m afraid I can’t make any more cushions! When are they gonna’ make you a Mod btw? VK – Many thanks buddy! Ragman – Nice one dude, glad you got on with Peter ok, and ask me all you want, or just pop down and have a nose, I need witnesses. Sorry said it again! :oops: John – As I hope you’ll appreciate, your comment meant a hell of a lot, thank you Sir, and glad to know your feeling better. Kindest regards to you and Nancy. Right then chaps, “Why the post if you’ve got no pics?” I hear you ask, well it occurred to me that the end of my last update was a bit of a downer, and you guys have all become mates over the last year, and it seemed only fair to let you all know that I haven’t built my own tomb after all. :wink: :wink: Basically my head has been fried with three heavy duty training days, but I feel much happier about all the gear now. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not all over it like a rash yet by any means, but the things that were scaring the hell out of me like how do I route auxes 9 to 12 to assignable sends 5 6 7 & 8 to feed presonus’ 1 & 2 A/B inputs now seem a breeze! Also to have 48 tracks in Cubase respond to 48 faders on the desk perfectly is …well, really rather cool actually. I’ve even got a gooseneck plumbed in for talkback and have that assigned to the same aux busses via the ‘to slate’ button which naturally, when pressed, mutes the control room as well. :D :D :D So all in all, I think I’ve gained around 4 to 6 weeks by having the experts around. If any UK’ers need any technical help with similar gear just pm me cos I’ve got the numbers to call on my phone. :wink: Whilst on that subject, I’ve literally just decided to mention again, (for the benefit of U.K. builders) the following people: Peter Keeling – design, analysis, and specialist material supply – 07977 043763, and of course Mr ‘Uber cool’ himself- Jeff Pank – studio builder, crew management, ordering and planning – 07767 342234, just call them if you need to, mention my name, and the forum - They both know I'm here! I really struck gold with these two, they’re both top blokes, down to earth, understand tight budgets, and are generally great to be around. Dudes, the job they did before mine was for M**t L***e! Get my drift? Now as I’ve said many times before I’m not on commission, but fair’s fair, I’ve had many kind compliments about my build and none of it would have ended up the way it did if I hadn’t first met Jeff who, as you know, introduced me to Peter. :D To maintain the more positive mood of this post, something exciting and scary! I have my first paid session here Friday week! * & *’s flagship docks next Thursday at Southampton and sails Saturday morning. Three of the cast from a show onboard that we supplied the music for, are coming here to do a shed load of vocal tracks, and anyone with a Great Britain road map will work out that junc 12 M3, is about 15 mins north of Southampton! Guess who’s gonna be busy with the soldering iron? :shock: :shock: :shock: To conclude my good friends – Whilst I will always be totally indebted to everyone on this terrific forum for all the knowledge I’ve been able to acquire, (John, Glenn, Ken, Ro etc etc etc), the simple truth is that until you’ve heard it, it don’t mean Jack! Fellow UK’ers – Come take a gander, hell I can even see the roof of my local boozer from my upstairs landing! If you like, I’ll trade you, come see mine and I’ll come and see yours! I NEED WIT………………..sorry, nearly said it again. :oops: :oops: :wink: More soon, video walkthrough still on the cards! Take care my friends, Kind regards as always, A much less depressed and frustrated, Lou. 8) PS - I might even post the final mix of next Friday's vocals to prove I did the wiring! :wink: :wink: :wink: :shock:

Aloha Lou, Hey, great to hear that things are sorting out. Looking forward to the vid & final mix! :D Best of success! Aloha 8)

when are you going to get a web site sorted? and i would be honoured if Joe and myself could pop down next time we are down south, hes a cubase nut as well. Iain i am learning so much from your thread, its brilliant

Hi Lou Great to hear things are going well...and it looks fantastic :D Looking forward to some more pics ;) cheers

As someone else suggested, Lou's thread should be required reading for all forum users. Hats off to Lou and his mates for being so diligent with the details of the studio construction, as well as the dedication to taking very useful photos every step of the way. Thanks Lou - well done!

Morning guys – I hope you’re all well as usual, and thought that after five weeks it was time to show you what I’ve been up to, and also try to provide some wiring detail for anyone that might need it. Many thanks again for the kind remarks chaps; you know it’s always appreciated. :wink: Firstly though, a view you haven’t seen in its finished state. Front lobby through to control room. The live room was once again looking a total tip, but hey-ho, that’s progress apparently. :roll: Right then Lou, remove one of Jeff’s panels behind the desk and start pulling those darn cables through. :twisted: The first lot weren’t too bad, but then I had to get a grown up to help me with the rest! :oops: By taping them in a cone shape they eventually came through. Those jacks of course need to be cut off and re-soldered once they’ve been threaded through the glands at the bottom right of the panel. The small void between the front lobby and control room makes the perfect place to neatly store all the mic stands. :wink: Then it was time to set up my soldering station. Before getting to work on pulling the cables to the iso booth. Now at this point I’d already made up and wired in all four of the assignable sends from the master desk to the two inputs on each headphone amp, (one for live room and front lobby, the other for the iso booth and eventually the conservatory). The next job was to connect balanced jacks to the other end of the headphone feeds coming from the live room panel, so that these could then be plugged into the rear of the top jack bay. Then it was a simple case of patching some temporary patch leads from the bay to the individual inputs on the headphone amps. It was done this way since whilst the presonus is a great sounding unit, its headphone level outputs are on the front panel. At this point it was time to do a crude test to check all connections thus far – They’re all fine! I simply stripped the other ends and held them against a headphone jack. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of checking all your connections wherever possible as you go – It makes it so much easier to diagnose a problem should it arise. :wink: Now if you’re thinking that all this is going a little too smoothly, imagine my total horror when I realised that I’d stupidly put my high output gas iron on top of my workstation instead of the glass! :cry: :cry: :cry: I was absolutely gutted, but Sarah came to the rescue as you’ll see in a moment. :D Now then for anyone who hasn’t wired up the back of a desk before this is how it’s done. Please bear in mind that in my situation (and I’m sure I’m not alone) I have virtually no access to the rear as the desks are so tight against the front wall, and there was no way they were coming out again. Firstly, pull through enough cable from the live room to enable you to work on it in the middle of the control room. Strip the 16 pair (in my case) back enough to cover the entire width of the desk you’re wiring to, hold all cores accross all chanels and accurately cut each one in numerical order, so that it lines up with its corresponding channel strip. In this case the cable was fed from right to left, and so, cable 1 was the longest and cable 24 (part of the other 16 pair) the shortest. Then thread all plastic sleeves onto the cables and secure in place with tape. There’s nothing worse than soldering the perfect connector to later realise that you’ve forgotten to thread the sleeves! :oops: :cry: :oops: PS – If you look to the right of the cable by the iron, you can see how Sarah sorted out my burn mark. Now it’s barely visible – Nail file!!! :roll: Prepare and ‘tin’ all cable ends and connector terminals. Solder up the damn things. And you’re done right? Wrong – Here’s the fiddly bit, but it’s well worth it. Lace all cables together 5cm from the connector to allow enough room for the bend into the socket on the rear of the desk. This is possible because of the accurate cuts made earlier, i.e., all cables are shorter than each other by the same amount. You can see where this is going now, and you can also see that the calendar is telling me I’ve got two days left! Finally tidy up to make things look the part. The next step whilst insanely simple solves the access problem. Get someone to pull the 16 pair back through from the live room while you feed it from the control room, leaving enough showing to make the required connections. Very cramped, very awkward, but possible nonetheless. Top view. :D Bottom view, and you can see it’s starting to get crowded down here. Then I cracked on with the custom loom to connect the jack bay to the headphone amp. Since this will always be visible to the outside world, extra care was taken re cutting and lacing. :wink: Then it was on to the panels, first job is to number the back so that you don’t have to keep turning the panel over. :roll: Once you’ve wired everything you need for the first session, replace the panels, and go for a beer. Try not to get too depressed in the pub when you think about the fact that they’ve both gotta come off again, and that you’ve not even started on the racks yet! :cry: :cry: Introducing Andy – The guy who played drums on my album (awesome talent), and a part 17 certified electrician whose not bad with a soldering iron. He also kindly sourced my kit, so it was only fitting to get him to change and tune all my drum heads last Tuesday night! :D :D Then first thing Wednesday the panels were off again and all remaining cables pulled through – that was really hard work. Everything is threaded through the large straps, which, if you recall are screwed with cable tie mounts to the underside of the workstation. All cables now through both walls to both racks. Get the radio on, and just ‘get in there dudes’ It was an exhausting couple of days, both physically and mentally – keeping a track of where everything was going, making sure Andy was remembering that pins 1 & 3 on an XLR plug appear to be reversed on an XLR socket etc etc. Then of course it was time to run all cables from the racks back to the desks. More ‘nerdy’ lacing then. Lunchtime on Thursday and Studio 4’s live room panel is finished. Snakes were wired up, laced and connected to the other desk as before and terminated to the patchbays. All I then had to do was make up more fully visible patch cords, only this time, with XLR’s. Once again (XLR) inputs to the Twintrack Pros are on the front panel. I enjoyed making these! :D :D The Voice Masters inputs are on the rear panel, so I was able to use both male and female XLR patchbays. And voila my friends – All done and dusted, with plenty of room for expansion if ever necessary. :D :D :D Left hand rack, the wiring for the X3 (in the top 3U) is already done and routed back to the master desk. Right hand rack. That’s it for this one my friends, other than to say that everything has been tested, it all works perfectly, and there are NO hums, buzzes or indeed any unwanted noises anywhere. :D :D After exactly 15 months to the day since it’s start, Studio 4 is, as they say in the words of a certain ‘Cool Aussie’…………….UP! :wink: The final bit is all the mics, a cupboard to put them in, and of course to eventually fit out the kitchenette and decorate the toilet. Also I must one day wire in the conservatory, but I don’t need it to earn for now. Work has been non stop in the middle of all this and looks set to continue that way for the foreseable future. It’s been a hell of a ride, but I offer heartfelt gratitude to the forum, the community, and all my new mates up here. :wink: :wink: :wink: Take care dudes, final closing post to come, and the video walkthrough, promise! :wink: Regards to you and yours as always, Lou. 8) P.S. The session went like a dream btw - I'm getting the better of the gear at last! :D :D 8) :wink:

Haha Hey Lou. I saw a fatal error in the your design, and you need to tear it all down and start over! or... The city government called, and they are going to build a new highway that runs right through where your house currently sits. Construction starts next month. Move, or else! (of course they compensate you for your property). Gotta start ALL OVER again!!! :lol: Can you imagine??? The place looks great (of course), and your attention to detail is second-to-none! All of those soldering and wiring pictures look WAY TOO familiar! I have spent many, many hours behind the wheel of a soldering iron, and can sympathize! Imagine however if that burn mark was in your hand instead of the desk! (I have done that, as I am sure you have as well!) Good thing Sarah is around to rescue your butt, that is for sure! I started a session about a month ago (pre-production), and then went right from that into a full-length album project (23 songs that will get whittled down to 10-12 for the album), and I still have not put the finishing touches on my place! So, my advice: Do your best to get it done before you get too deep into recording projects, otherwise, it may never get finished!!! Congratulations my friend! I know that for me, I can sit in my control room while the drums are blasting away on the other side of the glass in complete comfort, and it all becomes "worth it" at that point. Here is to GREAT SUCCESS with Studio 4 for many years to come, and as always, all the best to you, Sarah, and the girls.