Midimonkey Wiring

[frederic]

Power strips for Producers Desk/Rack Farm:

Drilling Initial Pilot hole from underneath producers Desk/Rack Farm into garage below:

Garage Ceiling w/bit hanging through (used a 30" long drill bit, as the floor of my studio is about 4" thick, plus 18" of joist, plus about 3/4" plaster on the garage ceiling... TONS of space for wiring!

Power strips installed into back wall of producer's desk/rack farm, as well as 4" ID toilet flange to protect the cabling that will be going through the floor in the rack area, underneath, and up by the console desk:

Flang installed behind "short" wall behind console desk. This wall is where the slanted ceiling in the last picture of this thread slopes down to meet a wall that's about, oh, 40" high tops. This is going to be a storage space, but also a neat way to hide wiring as not to have it come through the nice wood floor I laid down. Under the producers desk/rack farm I didn't put a floor down and retained the original linolium because you'll never see it anyway, and why waste the materials. Anyway, the yellow cabling are cat 5 patch cords for the two studio PCs, the webcam, and the ethernet attached storage box. The blue wires are the two gig-E feeds from the basement.

Plastic, $5 toilet flange also with a 4" ID for feeding cabling through the garage ceiling. It doesn't show in the picture, but I've already run string to tie the cable snakes to, and haul them through one of the two ends. I just have to figure out how to hump the 500lb spool of snake cable up into the studio from the garage.

And a not-so-relevent picture of me sitting in my studio, and yes I'm dirty from climbing through the crawl space about 5 times today lmao. At least the console table is fully loaded, finally.

 

[Track Rat]

Man, that's just too cool for school! I love the 4 monitors. The cool factor goes to 11!

 

[frederic]

And the patchbays to be wired in... 48 TRS 1/4" longframe jacks each. Think I have enough?

 

[frederic]

Man, that's just too cool for school! I love the 4 monitors. The cool factor goes to 11!

Now that I'm starting to get into video editing, I figured "why not". My PC has a four port card which I never used the additional two ports, and best buy had MAG monitors almost matching the two I already have on sale, for $139 each minus a $50 mail in rebate. Too cheap to pass up, yanno?

 

[Track Rat]

I only have 8 52 point long frame bays. I need more patch bays!

 

[frederic]

I only have 8 52 point long frame bays. I need more patch bays!

here ya go:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=143075

LMAO

I have 23 (I think) sitting on the desk in the above picture, some are hidden by the ones in the front.

Frederic <--- packrat

 

[DDev]

Toilet flanges for feedthroughs? Cool idea. I was thinking about installing some short lengths of plastic guttering for cable troughs on the backside of my console desk, but got in too much of a hurry and never did it when it would have been easy. Oh well, spaghetti is MUCH more fun to navigate through than something as silly as an organized wire bundle (but don't tell Trackrat; his bundles are a work of art!!).

Looks great so far but I can't wait to see it with full cable assemblies in place. The backside of your producer's desk is going to be an interesting view with all the gear you've got loaded. And speaking of being loaded, did you ever decide what to do with the extra gear you didn't have room for? My offer to store it for you still stands

Cheers,
Darryl.....

 

[frederic]

Toilet flanges for feedthroughs? Cool idea. I was thinking

There is a product called a "core flange" for when you're running fiber optic and cat 5 cable through cement floors, and you use these core flanges to protect the cable jackets from the roughly drilled concrete. Essentially, a core flange is an overpriced toilet flange made of fire resistant plastic. Toilet flanges aren't fire resistant because they're usually wet

And, toilet flanges only come in one size - 4". But they work well, and are dirt cheap.

about installing some short lengths of plastic guttering for cable troughs on the backside of my console desk, but got in too much of a hurry and never did it when it would have been easy. Oh well, spaghetti is MUCH more fun to navigate through than something as silly as an organized wire bundle (but don't tell Trackrat; his bundles are a work of art!!).

Spaghetti is no fun at all. Cable ties at a minimum are worth the investment. For things I'll rarely, or never tear apart I use normal zip ties, but for things that might change somewhat often, I'll use ortronics velcro ties, simply because I have bags of the things. A (cheaper) substitute is to visit a craft store like Jo-Ann Fabrics, and buy velcro strips about a foot in length. Peel off the backings of both hook and loops, and stick them together, back to back. Then wrap around your cables and your cable mounting points, and viola, removable, cheap cable ties.

Though on ebay ortronics velcro ties aren't that expensive, and they are about 3/4 to an inch wide, nice and meaty

Looks great so far but I can't wait to see it with full cable assemblies in place. The backside of your producer's desk is going to be an interesting view with all the gear you've got loaded.

I'll be snapping pictures of the cabling, no worries, though I don't think I'm starting tomorrow. I discovered the patch bays I'm keeping and not selling, also need to be cleaned. Not a big deal, I have some Colclene around I'm sure. Just have to pick up a shitload of q-tips.

And speaking of being loaded, did you ever decide what to do with the extra gear you didn't have room for? My offer to store it for you still stands

Ebay of course my friend I should have some snake cable leftover also. I've decided to load my producer racks differently, to make room for the patch bays. And underneath the console, mount a few key synth modules and a couple of outboards I'll be using most of the time. Then the hard disk recorders, which only connect to the studio via adat lightpipe, and two coax (wordclock and 10BT ethernet), I'll have to bury those somewhere away from both. I was thinking, maybe over the sofa cove close to the ceiling.

See, things didn't work out quite right timing wise... next to my studio is a small bathroom with a matching slanted ceiling. Right next to that is open space with an asphault deck between my wife's office (a bedroom) and my studio, and this bathroom is the connection point between the two spaces. Anyway, I was supposed to enclose the asphaulted area, build a new bathroom, and remove the microscopic "prison shower" stall, which abutts my studio next to the entrance. That shower stall leaving, I'd flip the wall, then include the stall space in the studio, and use it to mount all my recorders. The lightpipe and coax are already run, resting on the top of the shower stall. Probably not a good place for it

Anyway, I never got around to getting permits for migrating the bathroom, so I never got my recorder closet. Maybe I'll just stack them by that wall anyway, and use a pair of 18U rails to make sure they don't slide off the pile.

I also discovered something else that REALLY bites... the joists of my floor go left and right, not the length of the studio, so I'm not going to be able to run the cable under the floor but above the garage ceiling. I was able to run an electrician's snake from hole to hole, but what I didn't realize is the garage's plaster ceiling has pulled off about an inch off the joists. So, now I have two problems. How to reattach the plaster ceiling to the joists (metal wire mesh, plastered over) and how to affix the snakes to the ceiling and protect them. The latter is easy, I simply lay the cables flat against the ceiling, and run them with hangers, then box that in with pine, paint, and it will look fine. It won't be the lowest hanging thing in the garage so no problem. But, pushing on the garage ceiling allows for a lot of movement, whichworries me. I really don't need that to fall down, with my cables attached underneath. I dried putting a drywall screw with a washer, and it simply went through the plaster.

So, me thinks I have to clean out that garage bay (which is a friggen mess), and tear down the ceiling.

I was making such progress too!!!

 

[frederic]

The backside of your producer's desk is going to be an interesting view with all the gear you've got loaded.

Just for you Daryl....

No, I haven't tied anything yet... LMAO

 

[geet73]

I really can't wait to see this finished. Thanks for keeping everything up to date with lots of pictures. It gives me something neat to read about while I'm on the internet.

 

[DDev]

Just for you Daryl....

That is almost as pretty as mine

Sounds like the routing plan needs some holes. Bummer, dude (to quote my 16 year old son). That would be a real pain to have to do the garage ceiling just because it happened to interfere with the studio. The things we do for love, huh?

Good luck!!

Darryl.....

 

[frederic]

Yeah, well, I spent a lot of time late last night (around 2:30 am) figuring out the ceiling in the garage, and its not going to be as bad as I thought.

I found in the back of my metal pile a sheet 3/16" thick, which I brought to a local shop for sheering, into 1"x2' strips, which I'll pass through my brake and bend into brackets, and zap thoughs through the plaster ceiling into the joists, and use those to support the cables. I just have to roll the edges to avoid cutting the snake jackets.

Then once the cable is installed (not soldered), I can cover that with poplar strips on both sides, then screw pine or poplar to the strips to seal it all in. Keep dust, moisture, and based on my measurements, only protrude from the ceiling about 3". I'll have to lay all the cable against the ceiling flat, next to each other, but thats not a big deal.

The back of the console table has about 40 tapped holes, in pairs, for mounting ortronics wire managers, which are essentially "C" shaped hookes that bolt to the back side. All the cables (except for power) will be slung through these for easy access, and the power strip for the console will be mounted on the bottom, back of the frame, with the power cords wrapped around the front of the back support, thus not close to the audio, midi and serial cables, and in the few areas where they might be close, the power will be perpendicular to the audio.

 

[DDev]

Sounds like a good plan. Glad you were able to find a better way than tearing out the ceiling.

Something you mentioned got me to wondering about something I've never really thought about as far as studio wiring goes. You mentioned segregating your audio, midi, and serial cabling from your power wiring, which is the same as we do with aircraft. But we also route our databus wiring separate from audio and video as well. Is there ever a problem with data pulse leakage into audio wiring in studio applications? Just curious. In my case I only have a single midi cable hooked up to an EMU Proteus FX module that I haven't had the chance to learn how to use yet, so it's not much of a deal, but with your pile of stuff it is definitely something that I would be curious about.

Have fun!!
Darryl.....

 

[frederic]

single midi cable hooked up to an EMU Proteus FX module that I haven't had the chance to learn how to use yet, so it's not much of a deal, but with your pile of stuff it is definitely something that I would be curious about.

I've never had a problem bundling audio, midi, serial and toslink together, but I've had interesting recorded artifacts when bundling audio with TDIF. TDIF, tascam's proprietary digital 8-channel thing, is supposed to be twisted pairs in the cable, and shielded around that. Have gotten some bleed through however.

So, I tend to run power seperately, audio/midi/serial/wordclock bundled together, and Akai remote coax and tdif together.

 

[DDev]

I kinda wondered. Good to know for that "someday" when I might need to know.....

There are a lot of interesting wiring practices in aircraft that I know the rationale for, but that don't always get followed in other areas. For instance, with aircraft audio you only want your shield terminated at one end (and it should be the source end) or else you WILL get induced noise from ground loops (unlike typical shielded audio cables in the studio that have the shields attached at both ends of the cable).

Thanks for the feedback,
Darryl.....

 

[LemonTree]

you got a fire extinguisher in there?

I just started my build after 2 years of dreaming. Nothing fancy, bedroom converted to control room with a vocal booth in a large closet. Got all the framing and electrical done last weekend, rockwool got delivered yesterday...it's taking shape. I've been taking pics from the start and hope to get them posted when it's complete.

Looks great Fredrick


I couldn't believe how the tone of my voice changed when I got the rockwool up...crazy...just talking to myself...double checked by walking into the other bedroom and talking to myself in there, night & day. I need to liven it up a bit I think.

Man it feels sooo good to finaly get this off the ground.

Do you think a 10' x 10' x 7' high space in the garage is worth soundproofing with a cctv linkup for drum recording? or is that space too small?

Alec

 

[frederic]

Yes, I have to extinguishers, though I haven't mounted them yet. One will be in the sofa cove area, the other by the console, both are safe for electronics.

Oh, post the pictures as you make progress, partially because we're all nosey, but someone might catch something that you missed. That happened to me twice, and ultimately it saved me redoing stuff. Just a thought...

And thanks!

The tone of my voice would never change, whether I sign in a professional booth or through three kazoos taped together

Do you think a 10' x 10' x 7' high space in the garage is worth soundproofing with a cctv linkup for drum recording? or is that space too small?

A kit would fit into 10'x10'x7' no problem, even a large kit. The question is, how much treatments will you have to do, and how far will they protrude into the room.

A friend of mine did something similar, though he started with 9' ceilings, and simply built a sloped ceiling on top of that, from the original 9' down to about 7', and stuffed it with fiberglass. It came out "okay", was definately an improvement, but not as much as he anticipated.

 

[LemonTree]

yeah I know Fredrick, I'm tied to this place for the foreseable future. Other half won't give up the car space but it's a small car and a 26' x 10' x 7' high double brick garage. If I could leave her 16' x 10' for the car and claim the back portion and get recording full bands, well....that's part 2 of the dream. Control room & booth for now.

I'll get a thread started with some pics, should be done by next weekend.

Alec

 

[frederic]

yeah I know Fredrick, I'm tied to this place for the foreseable future. Other half won't give up the car space but it's a small car and a 26' x 10' x 7' high double brick garage. If I could leave her 16' x 10' for the car and claim the back portion and get recording full bands, well....that's part 2 of the dream. Control room & booth for now.

I'll get a thread started with some pics, should be done by next weekend.

Alec

Cool!

When we moved here I seriously considered taking over one garage bay, but then it dawned on me, where would I do my car projects?

So, my wife and I negotiated for a while and I ended up with the loft for the studio. It was either up here, or the basement, which would hamper our storage as this house like most houses, never seem to have enough closets. The attic is only 5.9" high in the center, so that was out. Plus the garage loft has a second entrance to the outside, which is cool. Visitors don't have to be brought through the house, giving my wife more privacy.

Plus, the garage bay I pleaded for, for my workshop, is a drivethrough garage bay - garage door front and back, and amazingly enough, I can park my F350 crewcab in the bay (barely, but it does fit!), so I can work on it indoors, if I really cleaned my shop up. Which, is unlikely, I'm buried in machinery and car parts LMAO.

Is there ever such a thing as enough space?

 

[frederic]

Minor Update...

I spent most of today figuring out the jacks in each 52-pt TRS bay, so I know how many to mount in the front of the room under the console table, and how many in the producer's racks, and finally how many 24-channel snakes to run through.

So we have 3 52-point bays in the front, with a few jacks left over

3 52-point bays in the rear, matching the above, plus 2 for outboards plus 6 for synths for a total of 11.

and... 7 snakes will have to be drawn underneath, also leaving some spares in case things rot down the road and need replacement.

I guess I should buy some solder, huh?