John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

If you're not running conduits, I would suggest creating a channel that you can have access to. Otherwise, if you decide to change something or need to add additional cables, once the floor is down, you won't be able to get to it.

First off, when running conduits, be sure to run a "Pull String" through the conduit as you're assembling it. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to run cable through a conduit that's already sealed up in a wall or floor and no way to pull it.

You should be able to blow a pull string through your conduit after finishing with an air compressor. I've even read you can use a shop vac to suck it though. You blow the light string through then you can use that to pull heavier string if necessary. You will need to tie a cotton ball to the end of the string so the air has something to push against. I've never done this myself, but our maintenance department at work does this all the time.

Yes, I've heard of it and seen it, but also, it doesn't work every time. And in those situations...Argh... You can also run fish tape or push rods, etc (depending on bends).

But not everyone has an air compressor. Most everyone has a vacuum or shop vac, but depending on the conduit size, it either works great, or not at all.

I used those metal pipe clips - i think that's what they are called - about 3/4" round that you can screw to the studs in between the walls. This let me space out the wires over several feet vertical distance as they ran between walls, so no wires were close to other wires of a different type. For bringing into a room - I just had a small pass thru hole well caulked. The control room floor is hardwood on 1/2" furring strips + plywood. This left just enough space to run the wires under the floor and directly up into the desk - so you see no wires at all.

For headphones - I have one of those units where you send in 4 signals and it then goes to individual headphone mixers via 2 cat5 cables. You can have 6 in series and every headphone can set their own levels/mix coming from sub mixes. I ran the cat5 cables around to every room - I think about 10 or so drops. When not in use the cables just get patched to maintain continuity in the cat5 cables. It's kind of like a headphone loop around the building that you can tap into.

Hey guys,
How far can you run a powered headphone signal?

Or is it best to put the headphone controller (say a 4 way behringer thing) in the studio so the muso can adjust own volume?
Thus the send will be line level and save on another loom.

lil

don't worry, you can run yards of wire with line-level so to speak.
Ofcourse it's ALWAYS a nice option to have the "user" control own monitor levels.

In fact, I use 2 amps in chain. 1 in RC and one for the user which is a simple 2channel mixer acting as controlpanel (well this mixer's actually working as an attenuator.. )

To stop flanking I left a half inch space mid-pvc run, and instead of hard rubber I made a collar of very flexible rubberized canvas. I have two separate pvc conduits, one for mic level and one for everything else.

No PVC here anymore..

..The stuff is NASTY in a fire, so I'm not complaining, but:

What are the alternatives?

I'm looking for a few rather large passes. 2 to 3 inch diameter.

baranstoll wrote:To stop flanking I left a half inch space mid-pvc run, and instead of hard rubber I made a collar of very flexible rubberized canvas. I have two separate pvc conduits, one for mic level and one for everything else.

Hi..How's the rubberized canvas working out?

The Big Science 2 tune sounds great!

edit>>

changed avatar It was too big.

In Switzerland we use PE-h for our drainage pipes, as well as PE-x for drink water both would be a good alternative doesn't burn on its own! I used it for some of my cable routing . In my studio I used a pipeing referded to here as Metalverbundrohr it's has a sandwiched layer of aluminum between 2 layers of Polyethylene.