Dum, dummer, dummest - or, how not too....

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sjoko2

sjoko2

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OK guys, I'm taking a break from varnishing (got a headache), so its CONFESSION TIME!!

Now I just know that EVERYONE must have done something really stupid when building a studio. Come on ... confess
Of cause this thread is purely educational - so we'll know what not to do (or is it 'coz I need to know I'm not the one-and-only Stupido Surprimo?).

I suggest we put a panel of judges together ( John, Brian, Big K, Kelly - are you game?) to hand out the HomeRecording Klutz of the Year Award. Judges have to qualify by posting at least one major goof, and cannot vote for themselves. Who posted the "what do you master to" click-on thing? Perhaps he can do the same for this.

Prizes: I put up a prize, I'll mix and master a track for the winner, or alternatively master a CD, whatever the choice.
Anyone else want to put a prize in the kitty?

I recon I'm hard to beat. But hey! I ain't no builder! And I've been at it in this place for 6 months now! So... here goes:

1) Seen the pictures of my control room front wall on John's Studios under Construction site? What you can't see on the pictures is a big red-brown spot on the cloth. That is where I missed the timber lath between the insulation, and fastened the cloth, through my finger, onto the rear wall with a pneumatic stapler. A bummer when you're stapled to a wall and you can't reach pliers to pull a 1 1/2" staple out. Can you imagine how proud I was when I shouted for someone - anyone, to come and hand me my pliers but nobody could hear me? That is when I found out acoustic treatment really works. (by the way - it did hurt, went straight through the bone, had to use a wirecutter to cut the staple, someone heard me after about 6 minutes)

2) Do you ever read all the info on pots of paint, glue and the like? Everything seems to have something dangerous in it. But you gotta use it right? I was working in the control room, gluing AST felt onto sheets of ply before fastening them to the ceiling. The air system was in already, and on. So I was happily using contact glue. Stinks like hell, but after a while you don't smell it anymore. After about 6 hours I was "tuning" a panel in the peak of the roof, standing on top of a ladder. Tapped on the panel and thought: "mmmm.... could do with another screw just there". So, driver and screw in hand, I stepped to my left. Pity that there was no ladder there...., smacked about 6 feet down. After I (sort off) regained some level of consciousness I realized that I had been (and still was) as stoned as a drunken parrot from the glue fumes.

3) I walked down the stairs with a sheet of 4 x 6" 3/4" particleboard in my hands (that's stupid for a start - its to heavy to carry on your own!). Almost at the bottom of the stairs, the laces of my left boot caught in the hook of the laces of my right foot. Funny feeling if your leg suddenly refuses to move. It was a bit like a rugby tackle, only instead of a ball I was carrying the particleboard. Also unlike rugby, nobody to pass it to. Apart from that, had there been anyone there I don't think they would have caught it anyway. The concrete was coming towards me at great speed (why are there no speed restrictions for things like that?) So I sort off forgot about the board and concentrated on breaking my fall. I did that pretty well. The particleboard seemed to prefer a soft landing as well, it choose 2 of my fingers. After talking to myself for a bit I noticed that my middle finger was at a funny angle, so I thought as it hearts anyway, I might as well set it now. A shot of whisky and a piece of wood between my teeth ... job done, spalk it, bandage it, ready. I thought my index finger wasn't broken, just fractured. Wrong!! Now it looks a bit funny. Remember a band called Stiff Little Fingers? I think I'd be able to get that sound now.

Come on guys - lets have yours!
 
Whew!! I'm still smarting from your descriptions...1/1/2" staples eh??....fired from a compressor gun??

Unfortunately I left the construction to the boys so I can't really pass on anything as severe as that. I did what you did to my finger once in the slots at the bottom of a leslie cabinet, my finger has always hada slight kink ever since.

But if you really want a sick story I'll tell you what happened to Graham, one of our carpenters at another job. If you are squeemish, don't read this. Apparently Graham was at a job and was working on the aircon unit in the ceiling of this McDonalds. When he was finished he decided to climb down the ladder from the ceiling but slipped on the top rung of the ladder and fell to the floor, except that between him and the floor was a trolly, you know the ones they use to move fridges etc. Two rubber wheels and two metal hadles with rubber caps on them....well Graham hit the handle straight up his bum!! there he was suspended on the handle of the trolly with the handel stuck up his...well he managed to get it to fall over and just lay there till the medics extracted the handle. He had major surgery and is OK today, but his story really tops the self-injury stakes.

I bet Brian has done some nice things to himself whilst building. Kelly??

cheers
John
 
Great job on the soundproofing. Just dont hang that double edged sword on the wall or you might impale yourself. What a great idea-to learn from others mistakes. I'm only about 30% towards completion of my control room so I have no major bungles other than wiping excess expandable foam with my hands. I have a feeling though if anybody is to knock you off your ladder as the indisputed king of screw ups they mat be enjoying the ultimate in soundproofing. Great post!!
 
ehhhhh expendable foam has the worse acoustic properties snapper .. sound goes straight through it.
Sure you didn't do anything else stupid? C'mon now, don't leave me out there!!
 
The foam was for the new glass block windows I installed in the basement, no soundproofing needed there. But I still have some remains on my hands from one week ago today.
 
Damn John! That's a bad story! I really hope Graham is straight and not gay - or it will have ruined his sex life as well! (which, in my humble opinion, could be worse than the accident itself).

Snapper - that stuff is lethal!! Get it off!!

Lessons learned sofar:
wear gloves
wear glasses
have pliers handy
don't wear boots with laces
make sure you see were your staple
protect your ass!!

dangerous stuff, studios
 
Hey, guys, I'm sorry to admit my stories are pretty lame... I have a recording of Frothy (lead guitar) singing "Poke Salad Annie," it's at the beginning of the song, he steps up to the mic, starts singing, "Down in Louisiana, where the alligators grow so mean, and this damn microphone just shocked me AGAIN... it's about to piss me off! Poke Salad Annie..." in perfect time, turns out the cord was running through the underside of the "stage," which was, of course, flooded.

Um... We recently expanded the practice room/barn/studio/dumpster and needed roofstuffs. Well, we're pretty "treehouse" minded, and decide to go the tin roof route (yeah, tell me about it...). Anyway, the sheets aren't quite long enough for the whole extention we made, so we cover it to the end of the pre-existing "roof" (previously MORE tin roof over a patio-type thing). We finish up, climb down the ladder, figure it's a done deal... Later that week we walk into the barn and there are weird patterns on the ceiling foam when we turn on the lights. We inspect the lights, the foam... nada. We keep looking around for the secret camera when Brian sits down at his drums... You've probably guessed by now that the rain had been dripping on his new heads for the past week, had warped them into strange shapes, and reflected the overhead lights onto the ceiling.

Lessee... There are two "stories" to the barn (that is to say, two LEVELS), the "room" and the "attic." Well, the attic floor was originally made with MDF, and if you've picked up on the whole water thing so far, you know what's coming next. We had climbed in the attic, putting up carpet against the ceiling joists for some extra sound-proofing, and it was damn heavy! It took three guys to hold up the carpet, and Todd was so intent on nailing he forgot where he was stepping... His foot went straight through a patch of rotted MDF as he was swinging the hammer, which also broke the MDF... and fell on my acoustic downstairs. Fortunately, it dented only the soundhole... (the REAL pain was getting all those woodchips out of the guitar... :()

Our door is held shut (while we're inside) by a chain we pull and latch on a nail... this nail gets bent on occasion, and makes less of a sealed threashold, so we're always having to bend it back in place (or alter the chainlinks, or replace the nail...). Well, Mike had enough of that, and as our resident fix-em-upper, he decided to drive the nail until only 1/4" remained. In beating the nail as much as he did, he flattened out the head (which we keep bent concave, so it will fit in the chainlinks), a fact that later got a little... messy. Basically, I shit in my pants cuz I couldn't get out (juicy squirts, you know what I mean...:(). I pretty much handle door maintenance nowadays...

Here's one: The outside of the door is locked with a padlock, and I'm always losing keys or wallets and such. I had an idea, quite a while back, to rearrange the room so that the monitors fired away from the neighbors houses. So I climb in through the attic, 'cuz I'm drunk as shit, and begin moving stuff. I wake up the next morning with a horrible hangover and equipment all over the place. I remember having taken everything apart without thinking about balance and feedback, and couldn't figure out a way to put it back together again while adding something worth the effort. So I had laid down on the sofa, thinking abstractly about what the hell the room really needed, and dozed off. The next morning I was hungover and needed to pee really bad... but I couldn't just walk outside! It became a VERY awkward dance/tightrope walk to get over or aside all the shit I'd moved to get to the attic and down to reality. I ended up peeing out the attic doors you see @ www.mp3.com/high-tide and http://www.angelfire.com/al3/studio/Pages/kelly_holdridge.htm , all while Mr. Behel, "our" neighbor, watched with appropriate disgust...



See, I told you they were lame (or at least, minor). If I ever get around to actually DOING something about the barn, and REALLY screw it up, ya'll be the first to know. We're thinking of digging a basement-type pit and fitting it out as a deck on top, that's sure to entertain...

BTW, this is a GREAT thread. Funny as shit!
 
There are 2 possibilities:
1) we are the only ones doing stupid shit.
2) everyone else is to chicken to admit it.
you choose.........................
 
Ok, Here is one.. Installing the Power Supply (rackmount) for my Mackie 32/8 upside down in the rack... Thats dumb, but even dumber is not realizing it, until about 3 days later (3rd session with it).. I mean I was actually using the damn thing, turning it on, and off, and not even realizing it was upside down. Im lucky it didn't overheat, cause i don't think there are any cooling slots on the bottom of the chassis. Oh, and here is another one, I spent a few hours drawing up a wiring diagram, and a blueprint, so I could have all my wire runs, behind the drywall... Great Idea eh?... Well it would have worked better, but I came home from work one night, and the workers, were ahead of schedule, and had finished the drywall..That night, I had originally planned to go over the plans with the builder.. They offered to remove the 20-30 feet of wallboard, but I said F*** IT!...Ever since, I have 4 nice black cables, running the course of my studio, on the floor along the one wall. ALSO, I Got a bit stoned trying to glue up my LRC for my ADATS in the vocal booth.. worked great, but the glue stunk, like paint thinner, and just baked me... I had to stand in the fumes and hold it against the wall for upwards of an hour for it to stick... but it worked, and looks quite nice, and is handily installed on the wallof my vocal booth.
 
heheh these are funny anecdotes! The handle-in-the-arse takes the cake though! :D
I've made some pretty stupid moves in my time ... but I won't admit to any of them!!

I will say this though, there is a tape measure, a hammer and a level sitting on the concrete-block ledge that's behind the drywall and sound board in the studio room. I really liked that hammer too ... oops. :)
 
Damn BK, that's a bummer. I've got a pair of really cool Rayben sunglasses in a airspace between walls in the UK, my favorites. I know exactly where, And the wall is finished with really cool ceramics for diffusion........
 
Yargh! I'm getting nervous with regards to my new studio (currently in the "plotting" stage). Judging by the other comments here, I'll probably end up dropping the whole house on me when I lower the basement.
 
If you plan to lower the basement, that might be the quickest way to do it!
 
This is my ouch....

But it won't win the award. But who knows.....:)

A week and a half ago, we just purchased rockwool to apply to the back wall (the wall behind where I mix from) of the club. Great!

Anyways, the walls needed to have some cobwebs and nails removed before we applied the stick pins to the walls for the rockwool to hang from.

Now, the floor of this place is at this point slightly slanted. It is an old movie theatre.....

So, there was only one part of the wall where I had to actually place the ladder on the sloping floor, and to make matters worse, the ladder was a bit more of an angle because I had to clear a rather heavy portable bar that was up against this wall.

So, not thinking about the COMBINED angles of the ladder and the sloping floor, up I go to remove some nails.

I get up there and look back behind me and notice right away that I am in a very precarious situation. My feet are around 6 feet in the air and there is a bar right below me.

I yell over for a young lady that was helping with some cleaning in the club to come right over and "foot" the ladder so I can climb down and go about this another way.

No sooner had she got one foot on the ladder, it started to kick out on me....

I tried to "walk it down" but the ladder started to go sideways too. By the time I tried to push off from the ladder and hopefully land on the bar, my feet were below the level of the bar top. Down I go at an angle with the bar top approaching me way too fast (yeah sjoko2, I KNOW they should have speed limits for these kinds of things damnit!).

Nothing to break my fall at all, I go crashing into the bar top with my left shoulder at full force. The impact cause me to fall back to other direction, I hit THAT hard. I am no lightweight, at 5' 7" I am about 170lbs!

So, when I finally land on the ground, the club owner comes over the help me up....When I sit up, I almost passed out, and definately I was going into shock. That was when my left shoulder started to hurt in a severity I have never felt before in my life!

The club owner used to be a wrestler and though that I just possibly strained a muscle. Once I got over the startings of shock and what not, I was able to stand and go sit in a proper chair. Mind you, the only way I could hold my left arm and not have this severe pain was straight out to the side! If I moved it in any other direction the ensueing pain would almost blind me and make me want to throw up!

So, still, we thought possibly just a strain. I take a few Advils and wait it out. For two hours I sat there with my arm straight out to the side and not being able to move it. At that point, I figured something was in fact very wrong.

Off to the Emergency sonusman went. You can imagine the car ride! I was in pain the whole time.

I sat there for another 2 hours before I was seen by a doctor and he offered pain pills. Vicodin, big deal, but I took what was offered. The pain started to die down a bit.

Anyway, off to X-Ray. Yup, dislocated shoulder!

Now the fun part. Have any of you fully dislocated your shoulder before? This is the fun part you remember if you have, and will make you cry if you haven't just hearing about it.

They have to set you shoulder back into the socket. I elected to have this done while concious because I didn't want to wait another hour to be put under so they could.

It took the doctor about 10 minutes of constant pressure and manuvering to set the shoulder again. This was absolutely the most pain I have endured for a prolonged period of time in my life! My god. You cannot appreciate how bad this hurts until you live through it. If it ever happens again, I will elect to be put unconcious before they reset it!

The good part is that the relief from the pain is very immediate! The doctor though was almost shocked that I sat through the resetting without screaming from the pain, and said he had never seen anyone relax so well while he reset a shoulder as I did. I guess I am a stud and can handle blazing pain or something.

Anyway. The shoulder will take about 8 weeks to fully (sort of) heal. In that time, I cannot do any overhead work. Oh well.

Just thought I would throw mine in here.

Ed
 
OOoooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!! eeeeeeeeeeeqwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!
That hurts!!! Get well soon Ed :>)
 
Try breaking your elbow in 3 places and having the nurse decide to straighten it out to get a better angle on the x-ray. I almost beat the hell out of her with my good arm. How did I break my elbow in this manner you might ask? Alcohol + 2nd story balconies + no banister = lots a pain, 4 surgeries, and 1 year of big ass cast. God that sucked.

Jake
 
Maaaaate :) ...........if you can type a post that long...you're getting better
beerchug.gif


cheers
john
 
Well, I had acouple of fuck ups when putting my little room together. The first one was shooting a stple through my index finger while putting the insulation in the ceiling (and then trying to play a band job that evening. Play guitar? It was hard to just wave bye bye). The next big boo boo was fitting one of the panes of glass for the control room window. I was carefully setting it down when for some unexplicable reason it burst into a billion pieces. That was a quik $80 out the window (pun intended).
 
Sighhhhhhhh <---of relief) , now they're starting to come out of the woodworks :)
 
Hey John, I was posting the same night it happened. With the way they recommended me to keep my arm, like in a sling, I could lay it right at the keyboard and type. Reaching the Q and W and the lower number keys were pretty tough, but the rest was easy.

Today the shoulder has felt pretty good. It only was sore and stiff for the first half of the day.

Ummmmmmm....jrlemonz - we are looking for injury stories from doing sound treatments or building studios. Hell, I have plenty of other ouch's I could list, but this is the only one that fit the criteria.

Ed
 
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