Studio Wiring
- Thread starter gidman
- Start date
skippy
New member
Well, when I built my room this time I did some pretty over-the-top things. Some of them might help you, and some you'll probably find to be good for a laugh.
This is my second studio built up from scratch. The basic concept was to serve three purposes: act as my personal songwriting scratchpad, be usable as a rehearsal space in the unlikely event that I ever got enough braindamage to want to play out again, and serve as an acoustically interesting space to record a capella vocal music (my wife's passion).
I decided to build a one-room studio in the (then-unfinished) basement to handle the first two missions, and to install permanent mic and foldback speaker lines up into the living room (which has an 18' vaulted ceiling and our piano) to serve the third. It's a great place to record piano and vocals: two good condensers set up in an x-y pair really makes an a capella quartet come to life, and the piano sings very nicely in there. When recording acoustic music, we use the upstairs as the main room, and the downstairs acts as the control room. For Elektric Muzik, it all happens downstairs.
I bought about 300 feet of 8-pair snake cable, and ran runs of it _everywhere_ before we did the drywall downstairs. I ran one run up to the living room to handle the chores up there (Big mistake: I should have run two runs, because 8 pairs often isn't enough). I ran one run to each corner of the downstairs room, so that I can put together a 4-piece for rehearsal or recording and have no loose cables run across the middle of the room, to trip over or rip out....
I bought a bunch of blank stainless wall plates and fabricated jack plates for each location: each of the 4 corners got a plate with two female XLRs and 6 1/4" TRS jacks. The wall behind the mixing desk got a bunch of plates with male XLRs and TRS jacks (and Ethernet and phone lines)- I ought to post photos.
For rehearsal and recording downstairs, everything is normally played in virtual space, through headphones: no amps (hey, it works for my style of music...). I play E-drums, there is both a pod and a J-station for bass and guitar to trade off on (or to be used both at once when I feel like playing Stick), keys go direct from their own submixer.
Each of the 4 corners gets a cheap little Behringer 602 mixer to act as a headphone mixer/amp. I distribute a stereo monitor mix from the main board with all instruments and vox, and I send direct outs on each instrument and vocal mic back to the corner it is coming from. That way, there's never a problem of having to stop everything when someone says "turn me up in the mix!": each player has the rough mix, his instrument, and his vox on knobs that he controls himself. You want more? Then turn up the freakin' knob! Speeds up the process no end.
So I can rehearse/record/screw around downstairs, doing good old rock and roll, and my wife can rehearse upstairs doing her delicate vocal stuff, _at the same time_... and not only do the cops never show up, I don't even disturb her. I like it. If we need an amp sound while tracking, we can set it up downstairs or upstairs, mic it up, and let fly. And if we feel like doing acoustic music, we just plug the mics and foldback speakers right into the wall upstairs, and we're good to go. It's a very flexible setup.
Wiring? You can *never* have enough. I'd definitely run 12-16 channels up to the living room, if I had it to do again. 8 channels to each player's position downstairs is just barely enough, too, but I've never run out yet. Wire is cheap, when the walls are open. Once the drywall is done, _everything_ is expensive! Don't forget Cat5 and RG6 while you're at it: you never know when a broadband link is going to become more important than your audio wiring. Hmm- how about running an EZLink over Cat5 from upstairs to a DAW in the basement? (;-) I ain't got no DAW, but if I ever _do_, the wire's there...
For headphones, I'll be the first to admit that the mixer-per-player thing is completely *nuts*- but it works, and is actually a lot cheaper than the commercial equivalents. Distributing line-level signals, and letting everyone control their own headphone mix and headphone level, was a goal of mine from way back: screwing with the monitor mix just burns too damned much time in a normal studio setting.
There you go. One guy's bizarro, over-the-top approach. You might want to do a search over in "Studio building and display" for what others have done, and maybe repost your query there... There are as many ideas there as there are posters!
Hope that helps.
This is my second studio built up from scratch. The basic concept was to serve three purposes: act as my personal songwriting scratchpad, be usable as a rehearsal space in the unlikely event that I ever got enough braindamage to want to play out again, and serve as an acoustically interesting space to record a capella vocal music (my wife's passion).
I decided to build a one-room studio in the (then-unfinished) basement to handle the first two missions, and to install permanent mic and foldback speaker lines up into the living room (which has an 18' vaulted ceiling and our piano) to serve the third. It's a great place to record piano and vocals: two good condensers set up in an x-y pair really makes an a capella quartet come to life, and the piano sings very nicely in there. When recording acoustic music, we use the upstairs as the main room, and the downstairs acts as the control room. For Elektric Muzik, it all happens downstairs.
I bought about 300 feet of 8-pair snake cable, and ran runs of it _everywhere_ before we did the drywall downstairs. I ran one run up to the living room to handle the chores up there (Big mistake: I should have run two runs, because 8 pairs often isn't enough). I ran one run to each corner of the downstairs room, so that I can put together a 4-piece for rehearsal or recording and have no loose cables run across the middle of the room, to trip over or rip out....
I bought a bunch of blank stainless wall plates and fabricated jack plates for each location: each of the 4 corners got a plate with two female XLRs and 6 1/4" TRS jacks. The wall behind the mixing desk got a bunch of plates with male XLRs and TRS jacks (and Ethernet and phone lines)- I ought to post photos.
For rehearsal and recording downstairs, everything is normally played in virtual space, through headphones: no amps (hey, it works for my style of music...). I play E-drums, there is both a pod and a J-station for bass and guitar to trade off on (or to be used both at once when I feel like playing Stick), keys go direct from their own submixer.
Each of the 4 corners gets a cheap little Behringer 602 mixer to act as a headphone mixer/amp. I distribute a stereo monitor mix from the main board with all instruments and vox, and I send direct outs on each instrument and vocal mic back to the corner it is coming from. That way, there's never a problem of having to stop everything when someone says "turn me up in the mix!": each player has the rough mix, his instrument, and his vox on knobs that he controls himself. You want more? Then turn up the freakin' knob! Speeds up the process no end.
So I can rehearse/record/screw around downstairs, doing good old rock and roll, and my wife can rehearse upstairs doing her delicate vocal stuff, _at the same time_... and not only do the cops never show up, I don't even disturb her. I like it. If we need an amp sound while tracking, we can set it up downstairs or upstairs, mic it up, and let fly. And if we feel like doing acoustic music, we just plug the mics and foldback speakers right into the wall upstairs, and we're good to go. It's a very flexible setup.
Wiring? You can *never* have enough. I'd definitely run 12-16 channels up to the living room, if I had it to do again. 8 channels to each player's position downstairs is just barely enough, too, but I've never run out yet. Wire is cheap, when the walls are open. Once the drywall is done, _everything_ is expensive! Don't forget Cat5 and RG6 while you're at it: you never know when a broadband link is going to become more important than your audio wiring. Hmm- how about running an EZLink over Cat5 from upstairs to a DAW in the basement? (;-) I ain't got no DAW, but if I ever _do_, the wire's there...
For headphones, I'll be the first to admit that the mixer-per-player thing is completely *nuts*- but it works, and is actually a lot cheaper than the commercial equivalents. Distributing line-level signals, and letting everyone control their own headphone mix and headphone level, was a goal of mine from way back: screwing with the monitor mix just burns too damned much time in a normal studio setting.
There you go. One guy's bizarro, over-the-top approach. You might want to do a search over in "Studio building and display" for what others have done, and maybe repost your query there... There are as many ideas there as there are posters!
Hope that helps.
skippy
New member
ProCo 24AWG 8-pair for the in-wall mic and line stuff, and Belden 12AWG plenum speaker cable for the foldback runs. The RG6 quad-shield was Belden also, and I don't recall who made the Cat5... I hate to say this, but "it's all the same", when it comes to that stuff.
The ProCo I used was not plenum rated cable, so strictly speaking it is not legal for use in in-wall wiring. In practice, this is seldom checked, but it needs to be noted. Plenum-rated individual shielded pair cable is a pain to come by, and a bitch to work with (it is stiff and obnoxious), but if you have a building inspector who is on his toes, they might well require it. Assuming, of course, that you even let them in the building... (;-)
The ProCo I used was not plenum rated cable, so strictly speaking it is not legal for use in in-wall wiring. In practice, this is seldom checked, but it needs to be noted. Plenum-rated individual shielded pair cable is a pain to come by, and a bitch to work with (it is stiff and obnoxious), but if you have a building inspector who is on his toes, they might well require it. Assuming, of course, that you even let them in the building... (;-)
Studio
Dammit Skippy...thanks
Inspector insmector...
Don't you think that I should follow building codes?
The studio is part of my new home.
I'll question the inspector and find out just what the code would be for this area.
I want it right, but I don't want everything to be rejected because I used the wrong gauge of wire for audio.
Dammit Skippy...thanks
Inspector insmector...
Don't you think that I should follow building codes?
The studio is part of my new home.
I'll question the inspector and find out just what the code would be for this area.
I want it right, but I don't want everything to be rejected because I used the wrong gauge of wire for audio.
skippy
New member
They don't really care about the gauge of wire, for audio. To most building inspectors I've ever met, there are two kinds of wire: power wiring (and they rightly pay *extremely* close attention to that!) and everything else... They could care less if your audio wiring will actually work for audio- you can run gnarly old 2-pair telephone wire for your speakers or mike lines, and they'll be happy if it has the right stamp.
Since in many cases the wire will extend through the fireblock plates in the construction, _that's_ what they care about. All they will typically do for audio wiring is check the jacket to see that it is stamped with the correct UL insulation class code. Whether it _works_ or not is your problem, not theirs. They just do not want it to spread flame quickly if the house catches fire...
The difference in flame propagation between the ProCo snake cable I used and a CL-3 (in-wall) rated plenum cable is pretty minimal, especially when you use good installation techniques. However, checking with your local inspector and doing it absolutely right according to your local code is _always_ the right answer!
Since in many cases the wire will extend through the fireblock plates in the construction, _that's_ what they care about. All they will typically do for audio wiring is check the jacket to see that it is stamped with the correct UL insulation class code. Whether it _works_ or not is your problem, not theirs. They just do not want it to spread flame quickly if the house catches fire...
The difference in flame propagation between the ProCo snake cable I used and a CL-3 (in-wall) rated plenum cable is pretty minimal, especially when you use good installation techniques. However, checking with your local inspector and doing it absolutely right according to your local code is _always_ the right answer!
Tom Hicks
Well-known member
Skippy
Please post more tales from the front.These real life details are invaluable to home hobbiests.I would like to see what you think about gobos and tuning rooms.Do you have bass traps in the basement?I'm assuming cement/drywall/and or panelling and very reflective.
Rooms in private homes are just not right to record in without taming the resonances or close miking everything.
Thanks for the details.
Tom
Please post more tales from the front.These real life details are invaluable to home hobbiests.I would like to see what you think about gobos and tuning rooms.Do you have bass traps in the basement?I'm assuming cement/drywall/and or panelling and very reflective.
Rooms in private homes are just not right to record in without taming the resonances or close miking everything.
Thanks for the details.
Tom
Studio
Since space was kind of tight and I wanted a "studio", not just a jam room.
I designed it with 2 7x10 isolation booths and a 7x21 control room . All walls will be double insulated and double sheetrocked with acoustical tile on top...only 4' high. In the corners I will have the sound arrestors foam.The windows are 3x5 separating each room, I will put in the thickest glass I can find.
The exterior is a hip roof with brick,double insulated attic.
I belive that this will keep the sound in.
I tried to keep enough flat wall space in the rooms so it wouldn't be totally dead.
I will post a link after I am through, with pictures through out the entire building process.
Since space was kind of tight and I wanted a "studio", not just a jam room.
I designed it with 2 7x10 isolation booths and a 7x21 control room . All walls will be double insulated and double sheetrocked with acoustical tile on top...only 4' high. In the corners I will have the sound arrestors foam.The windows are 3x5 separating each room, I will put in the thickest glass I can find.
The exterior is a hip roof with brick,double insulated attic.
I belive that this will keep the sound in.
I tried to keep enough flat wall space in the rooms so it wouldn't be totally dead.
I will post a link after I am through, with pictures through out the entire building process.
skippy
New member
Yes, the faceplates were just blank, undrilled stainless steel. You can easily fit 2 XLRs and 6 1/4" shortframe TRS jacks on a 2-gang box plate, and 4 XLRs/12 TRS on a 4-gang plate. There are some prepunched plates commercially available, but they fit only 1 or 2 connectors per box. I wanted greater density, so it was much more straightforward to fabricate my own. I'll also post pictures when I get a chance, now that I know that anyone is interested.
Stainless works reasonably easily in a simple drill press with sharp tooling and decent lubrication. For drilling the larger-diameter holes for the body clearance on the XLRs, I used a Unibit (single-flute, stepped drill bit). You need to be somewhat careful of speeds and feeds with a stepped bit like that, so that the metal doesn't work-harden, grab the workpiece, and twist it out of your holddown clamps. No big deal, though. It's also nice because the Unibit can deburr the workpiece as it cuts it, which is a great timesaver when you're making eleventy-seven of the damned things. It took me about 6 hours to lay out and cut all 12 of them.
Re: tuning rooms. I'll defer to the many other posters here who are *vastly* better at it than me, and vastly more up-to-date: everthing I know is achingly old. Take everything in this section with a complete grain of salt.
Truth be told, we've found we haven't needed to do that much to the living room. It is carpeted at one end, has hardwood floors at the other, has lots of odd contours and jogs in the walls, very thick drapes that span the one wall with a window on it, lots of extremely overstuffed modern furniture, soft wallhangings on the other walls, and one entire end opens up into the rest of the house on both the first and second floors with a sweeping semi-spiral carpeted staircase: it's sort of an open plan, and basically uses the rest of the house as a trap! I built some movable gobos with fabric-on-Auralex-on-soundboard, which we can use when we need to. They've only seen use downstairs for my noisy music thus far, though. The drapes seem to be sufficient for trimming the HF response of the upstairs room: you can get completely different sounds depending on mic placement, drape settings, and which way the performers face.
For a capella vocal music, the upstairs has proven to be nearly ideal: performers feel instantly at home, and the room is just live enough for them to be able to hear all of the subtleties of their performance without being slappy or overly bright. These folks don't work with headphones, and they don't overdub: it's all about multiple voices creating a moment together, all or nothing. The liveness of the space is critical to that...
Downstairs, I have the usual Auralex panels to handle HF reflections at the board, light bass trapping in the corners, and the gobos to do whatever else needs doing. The walls are 1/2" drywall over 1/2" soundboard, and all of the studio room walls are either staggered stud with R-24 stuffed into the voids, or single-stud spaced off the concrete by about 2" with the same stuffing. The basement is a walkout on a very steeply sloped lot, so very little of the studio wall area is actually backed by concrete. I admit it: I wanted to be able to watch the sunset from the board.
Remarkably, I've found that the several other rooms that open off the studio room swallow a surprising amount of bass, so I've been able to avoid some of the "little room/big speaker" bass problems when monitoring. The other rooms act as unintended Helmholtz cavities, seems like: luckily, we made them all different volumes, so they all have different resonant frequencies... I'm glad that we didn't just build one single big rectangular studio room down there when finishing the basement. That turned out to be a very good compromise. We could even use one of the rooms (currently dedicated to use as my wife's art/sewing room) as a vocal booth, if needed. She's also a quilter, which means that our Auralex gobos are much more attractive than just having that damned foam to look at...
Other than that, I haven't spent much time tuning just yet, and I've done exactly zero measurement work- it's all been by ear thus far. Without question I'm very lucky, because the upstairs sounded remarkably good for acoustic music right out of the box, and I don't _have_ to try to make the semi-boxy downstairs room compete with it for ambience while tracking. I'm sure that the tuning will evolve dramatically over time: we've only had it up and running for a few months now.
I would never think of advising anyone else on acoustical treatment. What we have here works for the two competing styles of music that seem to crop up in this house, and it sounds good to both my wife and I: no mean feat. This I credit to 10% inspiration and design skill, and 90% blind luck and good karma. For real information, go to John Sayers' site, and ignore *everything* I've done here!
Stainless works reasonably easily in a simple drill press with sharp tooling and decent lubrication. For drilling the larger-diameter holes for the body clearance on the XLRs, I used a Unibit (single-flute, stepped drill bit). You need to be somewhat careful of speeds and feeds with a stepped bit like that, so that the metal doesn't work-harden, grab the workpiece, and twist it out of your holddown clamps. No big deal, though. It's also nice because the Unibit can deburr the workpiece as it cuts it, which is a great timesaver when you're making eleventy-seven of the damned things. It took me about 6 hours to lay out and cut all 12 of them.
Re: tuning rooms. I'll defer to the many other posters here who are *vastly* better at it than me, and vastly more up-to-date: everthing I know is achingly old. Take everything in this section with a complete grain of salt.
Truth be told, we've found we haven't needed to do that much to the living room. It is carpeted at one end, has hardwood floors at the other, has lots of odd contours and jogs in the walls, very thick drapes that span the one wall with a window on it, lots of extremely overstuffed modern furniture, soft wallhangings on the other walls, and one entire end opens up into the rest of the house on both the first and second floors with a sweeping semi-spiral carpeted staircase: it's sort of an open plan, and basically uses the rest of the house as a trap! I built some movable gobos with fabric-on-Auralex-on-soundboard, which we can use when we need to. They've only seen use downstairs for my noisy music thus far, though. The drapes seem to be sufficient for trimming the HF response of the upstairs room: you can get completely different sounds depending on mic placement, drape settings, and which way the performers face.
For a capella vocal music, the upstairs has proven to be nearly ideal: performers feel instantly at home, and the room is just live enough for them to be able to hear all of the subtleties of their performance without being slappy or overly bright. These folks don't work with headphones, and they don't overdub: it's all about multiple voices creating a moment together, all or nothing. The liveness of the space is critical to that...
Downstairs, I have the usual Auralex panels to handle HF reflections at the board, light bass trapping in the corners, and the gobos to do whatever else needs doing. The walls are 1/2" drywall over 1/2" soundboard, and all of the studio room walls are either staggered stud with R-24 stuffed into the voids, or single-stud spaced off the concrete by about 2" with the same stuffing. The basement is a walkout on a very steeply sloped lot, so very little of the studio wall area is actually backed by concrete. I admit it: I wanted to be able to watch the sunset from the board.
Remarkably, I've found that the several other rooms that open off the studio room swallow a surprising amount of bass, so I've been able to avoid some of the "little room/big speaker" bass problems when monitoring. The other rooms act as unintended Helmholtz cavities, seems like: luckily, we made them all different volumes, so they all have different resonant frequencies... I'm glad that we didn't just build one single big rectangular studio room down there when finishing the basement. That turned out to be a very good compromise. We could even use one of the rooms (currently dedicated to use as my wife's art/sewing room) as a vocal booth, if needed. She's also a quilter, which means that our Auralex gobos are much more attractive than just having that damned foam to look at...
Other than that, I haven't spent much time tuning just yet, and I've done exactly zero measurement work- it's all been by ear thus far. Without question I'm very lucky, because the upstairs sounded remarkably good for acoustic music right out of the box, and I don't _have_ to try to make the semi-boxy downstairs room compete with it for ambience while tracking. I'm sure that the tuning will evolve dramatically over time: we've only had it up and running for a few months now.
I would never think of advising anyone else on acoustical treatment. What we have here works for the two competing styles of music that seem to crop up in this house, and it sounds good to both my wife and I: no mean feat. This I credit to 10% inspiration and design skill, and 90% blind luck and good karma. For real information, go to John Sayers' site, and ignore *everything* I've done here!