Studio Build Documentation

[miroslav]

Holy shit! That’s s lot of frames.

Tell me about it.

I kept thinking it was a lot...but like I mentioned earlier, all the estimates from retailers were coming in at basically the same number of panels needed as I had calculated, for the size of the room I have...so I'm going to put them up and see what it sounds like.

(30) 2' x 4' panels
(6) 2' x 2' panels

(2) 4' x 4' clouds
(2) 4' x 6' clouds

(6) 4' x 4' gobos
(6) 2' x 4' gobos

52 frames in total...with the clouds being 3.5" wide frames and the rest 2.5" wide frames.

Still need to close off one side of the gobo panels with some kind of solid material...wood, pressboard, etc...but that will wait until install the insulation and cloth covering, and then I can seal them, so one side will have the absorption and the other the hard surface.

 

[spantini]

...
The funny thing...some of the wood came from Sweden...go figure...so there are labels inside some of the frames that say "Made in Sweden". I can imagine somewhere down the road when I'm long gone and someone gets a look inside the finished acoustic panels...they will assume that the complete panels were "Made in Sweden".

In Sweden they reclaim sound panels from around the world, break them down, refinish the wood, glue them into long boards, slap labels on them and ship them to the States.

 

[miroslav]

I knew it had to be some kind of racket...I mean, why would we get wood from Sweden when there's plenty of pine here in the USA.

Last summer when I replaced all the doors in my house with 6-panel solid doors...they came from South Africa. Not sure if the wood came from there...I don't think pine is a natural growing wood in South Africa, so they may have been just assembled there. I still find it odd to think they would ship the raw pine down there, have it made into doors, and then ship that back up here...???

Just goes to show you how much we've given up making here in the USA. I bet at one time there were lumber mills here churning out stuff like that all day long...now pine wood comes from Sweden and South Africa.
Anyway...not wanting to get into a political twist here...I just found it interesting when I saw the labels on the wood.

To tell the truth...those planks from Sweden were quite good quality...pretty flat/straight, very white, and only with very small knots in it...dime size at most...unlike the other pine planks (no idea where they came from) which had more color and larger knots.

 

[miroslav]

Got my carpeting installed today...they did a great job, love the carpet...but man, I want to collapse from the two days of non-stop work it took for me to empty out 4 rooms so they could do the install. Guess where all that stuff went...into the new studio.

Hey...it was one of those things that has to be done after a certain time...my old carpeting needed to be replaced, but now I feel like I just moved into this house...all the bedrooms are empty. I guess I'll be sleeping on the couch for a few days until I can set up the rooms.

Anyway...the only thing that has anything to do with my studio stuff...is I'll be able to get back to assembling those acoustic panels...but now that I have all the empty rooms, I suddenly feel like I might as well give them a fresh coat of paint too. :rolleyes.
Might as well...it's not going to be any easier than it is now while they are empty.

See...that's how my year has been...just as a finish one thing, I end up creating new work for myself.
Meh...it'll only take me a couple of days to repaint...I have one of those "power rollers" that you fill with paint...so it goes pretty fast.
I should be able to get back to the acoustic panels sometime next week...and just as well for the delay, we're having a couple more hotter/humid days...which isn't great for applying a poly coating outside...very damp...but next week, it looks like the weather is going to break into that early autumn, cooler/drier stuff.

 

[Gtoboy]

Got my carpeting installed today...they did a great job, love the carpet...but man, I want to collapse from the two days of non-stop work it took for me to empty out 4 rooms so they could do the install. Guess where all that stuff went...into the new studio.

Hey...it was one of those things that has to be done after a certain time...my old carpeting needed to be replaced, but now I feel like I just moved into this house...all the bedrooms are empty. I guess I'll be sleeping on the couch for a few days until I can set up the rooms.

Anyway...the only thing that has anything to do with my studio stuff...is I'll be able to get back to assembling those acoustic panels...but now that I have all the empty rooms, I suddenly feel like I might as well give them a fresh coat of paint too. :rolleyes.
Might as well...it's not going to be any easier than it is now while they are empty.

See...that's how my year has been...just as a finish one thing, I end up creating new work for myself.
Meh...it'll only take me a couple of days to repaint...I have one of those "power rollers" that you fill with paint...so it goes pretty fast.
I should be able to get back to the acoustic panels sometime next week...and just as well for the delay, we're having a couple more hotter/humid days...which isn't great for applying a poly coating outside...very damp...but next week, it looks like the weather is going to break into that early autumn, cooler/drier stuff.

Tried to warn ya

 

[miroslav]

After my major carpet install last week, I was blown out from moving all that stuff out of those rooms, that I could get motivated for a couple of days to do anything too physical...but then I knew that the weather was going to be OK for a few days this past week, so besides doing some planting of trees to finish off the last bit of my landscaping work post-construction, I managed apply polyurethane on all the panels I have stained the previous week before the carpet madness.

It took a couple of days to get poly on all of them...and yesterday and today I was able to do the final light sanding after the poly was dry, since it has a bit of a gritty feel, especially when brushed on (but even when sprayed on)...so a quick light sanding of the poly gives it a nice smooth feel...not that anyone will be handling the panels, but it's just something that makes puts on that finishing touch to all the work I did so far.
I used a satin poly, and only did one good coat. I wasn't looking for furniture grade...rather just to seal the stain and lose that dry look.

I got it done just in time, since today the temps dropped...we're looking at first night of 30s...and it's going to be very low 60s, even getting only to some high 50s this coming week...and applying poly outside with cool temps takes longer, and then longer still to properly dry.

Now I have to get back to the post-carpeting work of having to refill the rooms I emptied, and clear out all that stuff from my new studio, which turned into a big storage space for the last week. So it's good that I got the outside work done, and will use the cooler weather to do some inside work...and then that will open up the studio so I can assemble the panels and start hanging them finally....which will be the best way to get them out of my way. I got panels all over the place inside my house now.

 

[geotungz]

What are the dimensions of your rooms? That os a lot of panels.��

 

[miroslav]

What are the dimensions of your rooms? That os a lot of panels.��

I think I have the exact numbers somewhere in the thread...but ballpark, the room is 25' x 33' inside...with a saltbox ceiling/roof that tops out at around 13' inside, with a 10' back wall and 8' front wall.

I probably could have gone with a few less for the walls/ceiling...but I didn't want to finish putting them up, and then realize I needed those few more.
There will be an option for some of the panels to be easily changed from absorption to a harder reflective surface on the walls...I have yet to make those pieces, but it's just a matter of hanging a hard surface over the front of a mounted panel to remove some absorption, if needed.

I've been busy painting a bunch of rooms and some other remodeling stuff in my house, so the studio panels have been on hold...but I'm finally done, so I will be getting back to the studio and finishing the panels, and then hanging them...hopefully in the next week or two.
Trying to also complete some outside work before the weather really starts getting cold. The studio stuff is all inside work, so I can let it wait a bit more...considering how long this whole project has been already.

 

[MOSSROCK]

I'm a little late to the party here but I am super keen to see how this all looks in the end! I find acoustic treatment incredibly daunting so you sharing your knowledge and experience as you go is much appreciated

 

[miroslav]

I'm a little late to the party here but I am super keen to see how this all looks in the end! I find acoustic treatment incredibly daunting so you sharing your knowledge and experience as you go is much appreciated

I've been buried with other work (some of it mentioned in previous posts)...but I hope to be doing the final assembly of the acoustic panels starting sometime next week.
I finally started emptying out the new studio from all the stuff I had to temporarily store in there the last few weeks...so now I can have a working area for putting the fiberglass sheets into the wooden frames I made, and then also adding the cloth covering, etc.
That alone will probably take a few day to complete...and then I'll be able to start hanging them soon after.

My deadlines keep getting pushed back...nothing I can control, I'm working on things every day...but I do want to have most of my studio setup and functional by the end of the year. Once I get the acoustic panels hung...the gear placement is pretty straightforward, I know where everything needs to go...but I will end up having to rewire all my rack gear with new cabling, since the old cabling was simply cut when I broke down my old studio (it was too short to be reused in the new space). So I will have some soldering to do, but it shouldn't be too bad....and then I also need to build another rack section...which will also take a few days to do.

 

[spantini]

Oh, great!.. Hey Marge!! He CUT the cables!!!

 

[miroslav]

Oh, great!.. Hey Marge!! He CUT the cables!!!

I certainly wasn't going to sit there with a soldering iron removing every single connection for an audio snake that was no longer going to be useable.

This is how it went...only instead of the chainsaw, I just used a large tree pruning cutter.

 

[RFR]

 

[spantini]

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout

 

[miroslav]

Here are some of the cut ends...first I cut the whole cable to release the snakes from the rack...then I cut all the ends from the patchbay connections.

At the other end, I did the same with all the XLR connectors, because those are all reusable and they are mostly good quality Neutrik connectors that I will use on the new snakes. I'm going to make for rewiring all the bays that I cut loose...actually I have new bays, so I don't have to waste time first cleaning all the older solder and wire scraps off the old bays, but I will eventually clean them and maybe sell them or give them away once my studio is all fully rewired and back up and running.

I have 3-4 bays that came with my Trident console, and they had much longer, top quality cable for the snakes...so those bays I didn't cut out, and I just gently removed them and will simply put them back in the racks. Those are the bays that cover all I/O points for the Trident.
The ones I cut loose were only 2-3 bays that I used for my rack gear, and the cabling was good quality, but it was some military grade stuff that was super stiff, and had solid core conductors, plus both braid and full foil shielding, with a real tough outer jacket...so it was a bitch to move around, plus when I installed it, I only had so much of it, so I cut all the snake lengths to exact sizes...which are all too sort for my new studio layout...and that's why I decided to just cut it out and toss it.
It's not anything worth saving or what anyone else would want.

My new snakes are all going to be from top-shelf Mogami 48-channel cable...which is very easy to work with, and even at that thickness, it's super pliable and it doesn't fight you.

 

[miroslav]

Just passing through...someone on another website reminded me that I never posted the acoustic traps assembly pics...or my final, completed studio pics in this studio documentation thread...so I'm just here to do that. Don't really plan on coming back to hang out here...I've moved on...but who knows, I may pop in again down the road since there's still some data in a couple of older threads that has some value. Anyone ever wants to find me...my profile has my email...or if you start a conversation, I should get an email notification.

Anyway...here's the assembly of the acoustic panels.

Needless to say, it took some effort to get all these hung...around 40 of them....and it required some acrobatics to do it all by myself.

 

[miroslav]

Here now are the pictures of the finished studio with all the gear wired in and set up. Long haul to get it all done...more work than the pictures reveal...but it's finally finished.
Anyway...see you guys. I'll be in the new studio recording most days. Life is good.

 

[Orson]

Pity you can't sing or play a note.

It looks more like a rock stars living room than a recording studio. It is very nice though and you have finished it admirably.

I couldn't play one instrument. I look on with envy at someone that talented to play half of what you have there.

Well done Miroslav...........100%

 

[CrowsofFritz]

What the shit.

Are you recording other people? Many would probably line up to record in there.

 

[rob aylestone]

I have to say the attention to detail is impressive - love it!