Building rooms on wheels?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Garak
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Garak

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I'm looking at buying a building something like the one that guruland is being build in. The building I have in mind is a big long metal storage building on the former Harmon US airforce base here in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada.

I don't have the money right now to go and build a full blown studio like guruland is going to be. The Budget right now is maybe enough for a control room and a vocal booth. To help pay for the building I'm going to rent out storage space for RV's and stuff.

So I was thinking maybe if the rooms were built on castors they could be reconfigured as the studio expanded. This means more work would have to go into the structer so it dosn't fall apart when moved. One good thing about this design is that I could break the studio up into two smaller studios if needed or make one big studio. Also I could set it up so that the room I'm recording from is always infront of the control room.

It wouldn't be light to move, it would be alot like moving a large travel trailer. On flat concrete two guys can easily move one of those with the little castor under the front jack. I was thinking to make it a one man job, just use come along winches or automotive electric winches.

I would put alot of castors under neath maybe a 3" castor every 12" in a grid. The floor it self would be made of 2" x 4" joist that are notched into one another in the same sort of grid as the castors with 3/4" plywood ontop. The walls would be 2'x4' or 2'x3'(to keep weight down) stud wall with 5/8" drywall on the inside and what ever is cheepest at the hardware store on the outside. The celing would 2'x3' with drywall on the inside and just insulation on top to make it easy to run new cables for ac and audio into the booth. Hopefully I can find some cheep patio doors and some nice cheep windows for communication.

I think I'm only going to build two iso booths for now around 8x10 in size(irrgular shape) and use one for a control room untill I can afford to build a full blown control room which will be in a fixed position.
 
Cool idea Garack - why not consider a steel chassis like the trailer vans.

cheers
John
 
Steel around here is hard to come by and expensive. Wood on the other hand is cheep.

Here is a little floorplan I just done up in paint, its crude right now but it gives you an idea of what I have in mind. I need to find my auto cad CD Bleh.

http://garak.dyndns.org/floorplan.jpg

The grid on the floor is 12"x12" squares, its just there to give an idea of scale.
 
coool - I'd invert the control room and put the desk at the narrow end. :)

cheers
JOhn
 
Yea thats a good idea, it will also make it fit better into a bigger studio later on down the road. When I was drawing it I was thinking I would get more desk space at that end, but now after looking at it I wouldn't lose much.

In paint it isn't all that easy to invert it so I'm going to leave it untill I can find my autocad cd.

Few questions:
How do you seal around outlets and xlr jacks and the such?

I guess the best place would be around where the cable comes into the room, what products are best for this?

What kind of construction glue is best for sealing the cracks between the wood?

What about the gap between the drywall and the floor? will plaster do the job?

Anyway I have to take a drive upto the building I was looking at, I can't remeber the realtor's name or company.
 
Your plasterer can seal around the hole you make for the cable. Same with the floor connection - just use a standard sealant - comes in tubes ;)

cheers
John
 
Well the building I was looking at cost $20k more that I thought someone told me it was and it has no power, water, or sewer.

Its huge though, something 50'x300' its really long.

Anyway forget that building to expensive.

I've been thinking maybe I should look at an old travel trailer. I've seen old ones around dir cheep. I could sell the stove, fridge, etc... they come with to pay for some of them they are so cheep. Gut the inside out and rebuild it into a mobile studio.

The hardest part would be working around the 7' or 8' width. Wouldn't be big enough for a drum room or anything. Maybe just a control room and a small vocal booth. I could record drums on location. I want something that I can use for location recording anway.

I think I'm going to have to move away for collage next year and if I build something like this I will be able to take it on the road with me.

I guess the first challange once I find one is sound proofing a control room without adding too much weight. So going with 2 layers of drywall isn't an option. I guess the first step will be removing most(all) of the windows and sealing all the cracks in the metal siding.

I think this would be alot more affordable and flexiable than a fixed building. It has its challanges but it will be worth it.
 
hey Garak - bring your money over here ( you'll immediately double it) and we'll setup a trailer and go bush recording 5:1 surround atmosphere tracks like rain and surf for the film industry :):)

cheers
John
 
Sounds like fun :P

I'm in canada so my money only increases by like 5 or 10%

The doller is around .60 USD while yours is something like .50

I think its time everyone switches over to one doller like they are doing in europe.

The trailer idea is just something that poped into my head. I got to wait untill the snow is gone to start it so in the mean time I'm going to keep an eye out for commerical propertys. I work at a realestate office and everything out there comes accross my desk so I aways knows whats out there.
 
There are some mobile recording studios that are pretty elaborate. You could look at some search engines under Mobile recording to get the ideas flowing, John would be more than happy to help work out the integration needs of transforming your idea into reality. Used RV's might be a great staring place, you just need to make sure you have the right power needs (hook up) for the equipment.

Peace,
Dennis
 
i AM actually thinking of doing it - my power would be totally solar with enough power to run my puter and a small mixer/monitors. I envisage going out into the outback and recording the sounds in 5:1. Rain is one of the hardest FX to record cos you always have the sound of the roof you are under and I've designed a system to eliminate the roof noise, Wind is another hard FX.

cheers
john
 
I don't think power will be a big concern. Most audio gear and computers don't need all that much power. I should be able to run everything off a 15 amp circuit with out any problems. Most trailers are wired with a 30amp 2 phase(I think).

The biggest challange is keeping the weight down while having some soundproofing. Also making it sound good in such a small space. Parallel walls are going to be a big problem. I can't really waste space on walls that are angled 12 degrees. Maybe I can use a zig zag pattern along the walls or something.

Any ideas?
 
That acutally sounds like fun :)

Where I live is quite the oppsit of where you are.

Here in Newfoundland its wet and cold year round. In the winter it gets down to maybe -20 at the coldest and the summer it hits 30 on the hottest days. Normal summer temptures are around 20 and winter maybe -5. We get alittle bit of snow this time of year.

IMO I live in the best place in the world. Not too cold nor too hot, no major pest or anything that could even hurt you in our wilderness but there is still lots of wildlife. Lots of mountains, lakes and ponds.

Life here is pretty afordable, cheep land, cheep building materials, cheep power (we have alot of hydro power) and best of all cheep broadband internet. The only thing that is truely expensive is Shipping and maybe gas.

Down under sounds like fun place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there :)

Recording nature is something I would like todo. You wouldn't belive how quite the back country is around here. The only thing that makes any noise is the birds. The ocean and the rivers and brooks make some intersting sounds that might be worth recording.

Bleh enough of this offtopic mumblings
 
i came form the cold - south island of New Zealand - there is nooo way I'd go back :):)

cheers
john
 
Garak - Hey man - I was in Stephenville last summer! We spent a week or so in Newfoundland. Awsome place. It's funny, My wife and I were wondering if there were any/many recording studios on the island.

Cheers.
Kevin.
 
There are no commerical studios in Stephenville right now.

In the 70's there was kloud studios which I don't know the full story of, the owner has three clubs around town these days, I'm kind of scared to talk to him, he is pretty grumpy looking.

In the late 80's and 90's there was WE studios, the W and the E broke up and Wally moved his studio to cormack (around 2 hours from here). Eester kept the house and her son's band hired me to record them so we are using the old basement studio.

The nearest studio past Wally's is out in central somewhere, I think its in gander and there are 3 or 4 studios out in St. Johns.
 
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