John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I finally bought into a studio space, sort of...

Well, it’s more of mobile control room. It’s a former production truck, built out of an old airport shuttle type vehicle. It’s already built out and outfitted. I got it for a song.

Currently has a 48 channel Soundtracs Quartz console with patch bay. The owner also included a Yamaha DM2000 production console. A lot of other old outboard gear, analog dynamics and old school digital effects processors. I’m going to sell off most of it, including the Soundtracs console to try to fund further upgrades. It’s got some mic preamps which I will keep, and I’m going to put the DM2000 to work as an interface and control surface for Protools. And it came with a pair of Genelec 1031As, which I will keep. And I plan to add a set of Presonus Sceptre S6s.

I’ve got to get a 50amp shore power connection installed at the house so I can power it. There’s heat and air and 2 isolated audio circuits.

Yeah it’s a small room, but at least it’s a place to work, and I can take it to do location recording, or OB work.

My plan is to install a Dante based network back bone based on a Focusrite Red 8Pre, and then network the DM2000 to the Dante network for 64 channels of input at 48k.

I’m recording The Tulsa Symphony this weekend, then the Kansas City Symphony next week. I’ll build a SketchUp model of the space whe things slow down here soon. But here are some pics:
And yes, I did clean up the DM2000. Just needed a wipe down and a new battery. It's got this quadratic diffuser built onto the door at the back. Not sure if that's a good idea or not. It's a plaster like material, not soft foam.

This is killer! How does it sound inside? Also, how does it deal with heat/cold/fresh air? What's the isolation like?

vutall wrote:This is killer! How does it sound inside? Also, how does it deal with heat/cold/fresh air? What's the isolation like?

Sorry I missed this question.

It sounds ok. It's not perfect, but it's usable and better than sitting in a living room or bedroom. I haven't measured the room yet (maybe I'm afraid of what I will find otu). But the Genelec 1031s sound pretty good at moderate volume levels. But the couple of projects I have mixed so far have come back with very positive comments from my clients, and that's what's important, right?

It has heat and AC: the big white things mounted on top, they're basically RV type HVAC systems. The heat strips don't work, but so far a small space heater has kept is comfortable this winter. The AC works great and will get super cold, which is good for Oklahoma summers.

Isolation is that great. You can hear cars driving by and rain. But it's not really meant to be the best isolation space.

I've been using it to mix my symphony and chamber music projects and working on a blues album for a friend. My issue now, is that since I'm using it to mix projects in, I can't really take the time to tare it apart, either the studio side or the engine, to get it really working the way I want. I'm trying to sell that big Soundtracs console so I can build a new desk for my DM2000. I'm also trying to figure out what of the current gear I want to sell and what I need to keep. It's got several older analog effects and dynamics units, a TC Electronic DB Max Broadcast maximizer, a DAT recorder, a CD/Casset deck, a CD Burner, and an Alesis Masterlink, and a pair of Tascam X48s. But it's all analog transport and interconnect. I run Protools and Dante transport.

Some pics of my current set up working on a recent recording of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony.

Here's a basic Sketchup model that I built of the studio portion of the truck, showing what I want to do with the DM2000.

Very awesome! This is certainly a unique project. I'm glad to hear that you've already done some mixing in there and its turned out well.

Do you plan on doing any additional construction inside the vehicle, or just redoing the layout of equipment/furniture?

Yes, eventually, I’m going to redo the acoustic treatment inside. Putting up some slot resonators of some kind and bass traps at the back, once I get the old side racks out of the truck also. It probably won’t be feasible to do a whole lot more with isolation because of the size restraints.

It’s only about 7’ 4” wide inside, and doing a whole MSM construction will eat up too much space. There’s at least one layer of plywood inside the fiberglass vehicle exterior. I might look in to adding another layer or a layer of sheet rock maybe. But that’s all down the line.

I also want to get it set up for 5.1 mixing, with a set of Genelec 1029As as the center and rear sepakers and 7050A subwoofer.

I also need to get some mechanical work done. It needs new glow plugs and a new alternator and some of the dash gauges don’t work and need to be fixed. And eventually I want to add a turbocharger kit to the 7.3L IDI Deisel engine to get more pick up on the highway and better gas mileage.