John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

here are some more photos of the construction. Its amazing I have a life, at all.

First picture - nothing exciting - sheet rock going up - slowly.

Second picture - the side framing of the vocal booth. Notice I'm butting the vocal booth against an angled ceiling, and will be covering the cedar paneling with plywood then sheet rock. I chose not to bother tearing down the cedar since peeking behind the insulation was more than acceptable. So, I nailed it back and marked the studs. Then I'm going to screw the plywood through to the studes, then screw the sheetrock on top of that, but not to the studs.

Third picture - header and footer of the vocal booth, for framing. The floor is level of course, but the ceiling at this spot is a 4.35 degree angle, sloping backwards. Glad I remember basic geometry.

Scary

Last three pictures...

Picture 1 - initial framing of the vocal booth wall, with a large opening for an anderson double-paned window, which has butyl rubber between the panes. I was going to make the entire window, however the price on this window (and the size) was perfect, so I picked it up and a good friend of mine is going to make another pane, on an angled plastic assembly, to go inside the booth, inside the window frame, thus having an angled window inside. This will lower acoustical transmissions through the window. All of these studs have been chaulked, then screwed in tight.

Picture 2 - the window has been installed.

Picture 3 - Plywood going up on the outside. In front of this surface will be 39" high equipment racks, which I think is about 21U or so, four of them, on a 10 degree angle going away from the booth and to the left, then turn, for two more racks of the same height. This will give me 126U worth of rackspace at the back of the room, and a flat surface which I'm considering putting countertop sections on top, so I have a place to lean on and write while standing, possibly put a coffee machine (way to the left), maybe stack some papers, books, stuff like that. I haven't worked out the finishing of this structure (and haven't started making the equipment racks either), but this is approximately where it will go. None of the equipment that attaches to these racks have drives, fans, or other devices that make mechanical noise whatsoever. I do not want to transmit mechanical noise through the wall into the vocal booth. The booth will be insulated of course, but safe is better than sorry. The recorders will be mounting underneath the console table all the way in the back so they aren't in the way, since the space under the slanted ceiling isn't terribly useful, and I have a remote autolocator so I don't need to see the recorders at all, other than to hot-swap drives. Crawling underneath the console table to swap drives is going to suck, but like everything else, its a tradeoff. I am seriously considering mounting all the recorders in the crawl space, so there will be zero noise from the units. I've already insulated the crawl space as well as 1/2 covered it in plywood so dispite the cabinet doors leading to this space, its essentially part of the room thermally and acoustically.

Making progress there. Did you decide to begin some drywall so you can make yourself feel like you're in the finishing stage? It sure is a boost to your morale on a long project to be able to think, "this is the LAST layer that has to go on...".

Anyway, I'll be popping in on your webcam every once in awhile to see if I can witness any "things not to do" in real time!!

Cheers,
Darryl.....

At LEAST your gettin something done. Man, all the carpenter ants,
wiring, stair work, insulation....that stuff will drive ya nuts. Once your past that preliminary crap, putting up ANYTHING new is great feeling. Kinda like haveing to dig sewer ditches at the begining of a house....eck. Anyway, lookin good there my friend. Hope you finish sooner than you thought. And hey, watch those doggone cords AND your fingers!
fitZ

DDev wrote:Making progress there. Did you decide to begin some drywall so you can make yourself feel like you're in the finishing stage? It sure is a boost to your morale on a long project to be able to think, "this is the LAST layer that has to go on...".

Anyway, I'll be popping in on your webcam every once in awhile to see if I can witness any "things not to do" in real time!!

Cheers,
Darryl.....

Yeah, I've been hanging sheet rock in the front of the room, then to be honest, I got real frustrated with it. Sadly, amongst all the 3/8" sheet rock I picked up, I managed to somehow have a 1/2" thick piece in there, so I have some areas to take down, and redo. Of course this is the over my head parts of the place which just sucks.

So, I built equipment racks instead, as a diversional effort.

cadesignr wrote:At LEAST your gettin something done. Man, all the carpenter ants,
wiring, stair work, insulation....that stuff will drive ya nuts. Once your past that preliminary crap, putting up ANYTHING new is great feeling. Kinda like haveing to dig sewer ditches at the begining of a house....eck. Anyway, lookin good there my friend. Hope you finish sooner than you thought. And hey, watch those doggone cords AND your fingers!
fitZ

Yeah, it feels good to make progress, even though its going slow. Of course work interferes which is irritating as all heck. but suck be life! heh-heh.

Racks are framed out, and the framing of suck is triangulated enough to support some serious weight, and a counter top. I think I'm getting the counter top tonight, once I decide for sure, what the color scheme will be.

Offwhite for the walls, and either dark green moulding to match a gorgeous countertop I saw a few days at, OR the original burgandy if I can find a burgandy countertop I like.

Most of the counter tops I've seen at home depot have a slight texture to them, which sucks for writing. I'd rather have a glass-like smoooooooth surface, which limits the color choices unfortunately.

I could go custom of course, there's a cabinet maker nearby, but his counter top price (any way I want, shape, color, etc) was triple what home depot was. I think I can choose from a lesser selection and lop off an end to save 2/3 the cost

Hey frederic, have you ever laid laminate? Its NOT that hard.
Believe me. Unless you want the countertop WITH a rolled front edge and backsplash. Even then, there are countertop companys that arn't that expensive to get a standard countertop WITH a custom color, cause THAT is all they do.
Anyway, IF you don't need the splash and rolled edge, you could do it yourself. That way you can order GLOSS laminates in any color from HD or a countertop company. Let me know and I can tell you how to do it. EASY stuff!! Gotta have room though. Hmmm, maybe I should just shut my mouth and let you spend that money thats burnin a hole in your pocket

PS, actually, gloss laminates have a laquer face, and arn't that good for horizontal applications. They scratch easy.
fitZ

Hey frederic, have you ever laid laminate? Its NOT that hard.
Believe me.

Yes, I have, but unfortunately it looked like someone stapled dead birds to plywood. It came out that bad. Sooooooooo.

Unless you want the countertop WITH a rolled front edge and backsplash. Even then, there are countertop companys that arn't that expensive to get a standard countertop WITH a custom color, cause THAT is all they do.

The cost differential was triple, from a home depot counter top as compared to a custom counter top, however the custom could be anything I want with perfectly mitered edges and all that.

I ended up going with a home depot counter top, with the rolled edge in the front (which I like) and the backsplash, which I can tolerate. Since things are a hair crooked, I can plane the backsplash's rear lip a little and miter it perfectly to the wall. Not ideal, but it will help hide my inability to build things correctly. And yes I measured it 5 times!

my mouth and let you spend that money thats burnin a hole in your pocket

It would have been cool... but by the time I read the above I ended up with a counter top. It was on sale from $118 to $86 so I felt good about it.

PS, actually, gloss laminates have a laquer face, and arn't that good for horizontal applications. They scratch easy.

Oh, great, I better take my miter saw off it then

No prob my friend. You made the right choice. And even I would have done the same at that price. Heck, $86 is a bargain. I paid $60 a sheet of special ordered gloss laminate from Lowes. And still had to do the work. Never do that again. Thats $2 a square ft. Ha! What the hell they think this stuff is, gold? Paper and plastic is what it really is. AND, they sell millions of sheets a year. Why don't they just print money. Ha! Of course, they arn't the FEDERAL RESERVE.(Federal? That's a joke. Its really the...nevermind) Otherwise they would lease it to ya, and then charge you interest. And then send the IRS after you installed it to collect taxes on it. What a scam. (Opps, sorry, shouldn't have made that analogy)
Anyway, your in business now. So good luck. D
Cheers
fitZ

Scam, no kidding!

Yeah, it worked out... countertop is resting in place, I'm not going to clamp it down until I sheetrock the vocal booth face, which I might do if I feel courageous, or wait until tomorrow when my cousin drops by to help. The last full sheet I tried to hang myself (with a 2x4 deadman no less) resulted in me, the deadman, and the sheetrock falling to the floor. Waste of sheetrock for sure

I should install the remaining three outlet strips, thats easy.

I'll have more pictures tomorrow once I find the camera cable. I keep tucking it somewhere, and never the same spot. Duh!

"once I find the camera cable" -

Play Doctor, and hang it 'round your neck like a stethoscope - add a white labcoat, and you're "Mad Scientist Locked in Attic" -

knightfly wrote:"once I find the camera cable" -

Play Doctor, and hang it 'round your neck like a stethoscope - add a white labcoat, and you're "Mad Scientist Locked in Attic" -

heh-heh ... i posted them "over there".

Yeah, I know - for some reason, the link to your web cam won't work for me - keeps coming up 404... Steve

knightfly wrote:Yeah, I know - for some reason, the link to your web cam won't work for me - keeps coming up 404... Steve

There was a brief period last night where my wife was spackling, and the camera was unplugged. Do you get that all the time? Maybe you're behind a corporate firewall? Maybe the camera is being hammered too hard... I only have 30K outbound bandwidth, which isn't a lot.

Nah, it's all the time - I'm behind a Linksys firewall-router, DSL modem (3-port print server kept getting lost when I tried to use the XP software "firewall", so went hardware.)

No biggie, it's not like I need any MORE things to spend non-existent "spare" time on Steve