Studio Construction Photos

Frederic,

Where did you get them rack rails and for how much? Also I seen that there are different kinds... depths widths etc... What kind did you use?

I'm purchasing the Mackie ONYX 400F and am going to build my own rack using rack rails...

I just read that the Mackie Onyx 400f is 19inches wide and the rack mounts being 3/4" wide.

Is that standard?

Appreciate it.

Joe
 
ThaArtist said:
Where did you get them rack rails and for how much? Also I seen that there are different kinds... depths widths etc... What kind did you use?
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The rack rails in the recorder rack under the console, as well as the longer ones that are part of the 4-bay producer's desk, are made by Middle Atlantic Products (often called "MAP"). I got them at zzounds, sweetwater or musician's friend, I don't recall which. The rails themselves were fairly inexpensive. 18U is about $38 for the pair normally, I got them on sale for about 60% of that. Musician's friend also sells "generic" rails much cheaper but only go up to 16U. My producer's desk was designed around 18U rails.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/451432/

For the "doghouse" I couldn't be bothered placing an order for a pair of 5U rails, so instead I used scraps of an old aluminum relay rack, normally found in computer data centers. I have a few of these left over from when I owned an ISP, and these rails are much wider - about 2" wide. Since these rails are made of "C" channel rather than angle iron, I not only cut off a length I needed (5U in this case), I also ripped them lenghtwise on the table saw, since they are aluminum. This gives me two angle irons with pre drilled, pre tapped holes, out of one section of "C" channel rack piece. So in a nutshell, a 48U relay rack results in 96U of usable space. The difference is the "rails" I hacked out have to be supported by a structure, rather than free standing like was originally intended.

Ripping aluminum rack rails on a table saw is fine too... since aluminum is softer than many hardwoods like maple and oak. Just have to feed slowly as not to have the saw blade "bite" and get stuck.

ThaArtist said:
I just read that the Mackie Onyx 400f is 19inches wide and the rack mounts being 3/4" wide.

Is that standard?
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There really is no standard. The MAP rails I used required a 19-1/8" rough opening. The doghouse rails I hacked out required a 21-1/8" rough opening because they are wider.

If the width of the rough opening is off a hair, it's okay, because rack gear by the EIA standard are supposed to have elongated mounting holes, so you have a little room for error. Certain brands of rack gear ignore this, and use round holes so the rails have to be almost precise. Some of the older EMU gear for example, is like that.

When I was making the producer's desk and the recorder rack, I made two 19-1/8" spacers out of scrap wood. I'd make one rack rail vertical, put one spacer on the floor, and tape the other to the top, then press against it the next rack vertical... so every rack was perfectly spaced 19-1/8" wide and I didn't have to remeasure and use a level to make sure things were vertical, once I got the first one perfect. The two spacers had a 1/16" hole drilled in the center, and a finishing nail pushed through, which once I got the spacers in the right place, I'd tap the nail a little bit so it bit into the floor or the top of the rack frame, but not all the way so I could easily pull it out. Just enough to hold the spacers in place.

Made for quick rack building.
 
Sure, they'd work fine.

By enlongated holes, I mean in the rear gear not the rack rails. I figured you knew that, just wanted to make sure.

Usually the rails (at least the ones I've bought) come with a 1"x2" piece of paper that tells you the width of the rough opening. If not, all is not lost, all you need is two pieces of gear, or two blank panels:

Put a piece of gear on the table. Attach the rack rails to that gear. Attach the second piece of gear to the top of the rail rails. Now comes the clever, fiddly part.

Loosen the screws on the left rail just a little, and shift the left rack rail to the left, so it's resting on the left side of the elongated holes in the equipment. Tighten screws.

Loosen the screws on the right rail just a little, and shift the right rail to the LEFT so it's resting on the left side of the elongated holes.

Now it will look funny - the gear is shifted to the right, on the rack rails. Measure the width of the outside of the rails, and now you know what your rough opening should be.
 
Hello frederic. Hey buddy, excuse my manners for infringing on your thread. :o Just want to answer Darryls question, then I'm outta here. I'll post a BUNCH of stuff in the DIY thread this weekend after I finish some stuff.

can we assume it is a non-functional piece meant for decorative purposes or does this have a mind-blowing function for your custom studio?
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I wish :D Actually, there are many purposes for it.
The first and formost is FUN. I love to build things Darryl and this thing has been so much fun cause it doesn't have to satisfy some predesigned purpose. I have a general vauge idea of what I want it to look like when its finished. And really, this thing has been in my head since I was a kid. Don't know where it comes from, except every time I'm on the phone and have a pencil and paper in front of me, when I'm done with the call, there is a "doodle" on the paper that I drew spontaineously while talking. Almost sub conciously. They all come out similar. This thing is a concious effort to replicate it in physical form. :eek: :D In a way, it is my own attempt at sculpture. :rolleyes: :p

The second is a sconce lighting. Once finished, this "thing" wil be filled with all kinds of light bulbs and types of lights and circuits. Incandescent clear and colored bulbs for indirect illumination, rope lights, 12v colored neon lighting tubes for cars, auto bulbs, LED's of various colors, size, and configurations including some strips with 20 or so LED's, which I will ask some questions on the DIY thread regarding computer controlled "scenes".......whew! Anyway, there are various little auto dashboard LED "spot" lights, and a couple of Fiber optic lamps that the fibers are distributed to "light points" drilled into the extrusions. Then there are the.....ahem......"special effect lights"....which are actually LAZER LEVELS. :eek: :p ...five of them. Very cool reflections. And finally, the unit itself will be illuminated by lamps hidden in the edge of my console "cloud". There is even a small slide projector to superimpose images on the extrusions..... :rolleyes: :p Crazy huh? Damn but its fun!

Ok, on with the other purposes. I already said this ain't finished by any means. In fact, there are TONS of things that go on this thing. AND, it is only PART of the overall effect on my sidewalls. What is hard to illustrate, is this is part of the sidewall ABSORBER/DIFFUSER elements at each end of the console. :eek: This is sort of a "quasi diffuser grill", that interfaces with a multilevel or thickness absorber/diffuser, made of rigid fiberglass and wood, which is the backdrop and mounting device for this "thingy". Actually, this thing hangs on two "slatwall" hangbar brackets, which in turn, hang from a special piece of "aluminum slatwall" extrusion which is 6" wide and runs the length of the room to the back wall. This "slatwall" piece will allow me to hang guitars, bases, speakers, headphones, cables etc from special slatwall brackets I've collected, where ever I want. On both sidewalls. You see, there are TWO of these units :eek: :p
Third is a cable trough. Right under the slatwall extrusion is a room length cable trough on the wall, to carry all the snakes and cables from the console to the tape machine closet at the rear wall, which houses two Tascam MSR-16's and a 42b 2 track, and a Teac 2300 7" RR 2 trk. Plus some cassette decks, amps etc. The rear wall is a project in itself. Later on that in the DIY thread. Ok, this cable trough is actually a 3 1/2" deep horizontal "tray" mounted on the wall. It has a removable gloss black laminate/MDF "cover", that is flush with the face of the rear sidewall "slat absorbers" :cool:
This cover runs behind the "thingy", carrying cables to it from the console, which brings up the next purpose.
Within this "thingy", are a couple of aluminum extrusion "boxes" that house Mic inputs, Hi z inputs, headphone outputs, and rear Sound Surround speaker outputs. The speakers hang from decoupled slatwall brackets. I only hang them when I want to use them. Otherwise, they are not there.

You see Darryl, these extrusions are used throughout my studio. In my console, tape machine racks, cieling "diffuser" lighting, trim around doors etc, and anywhere else I can use them as I have a ton of different profiles and colors, and up to 12' long. You'll see once I start my posts in the DIY thread.
Ok, you asked, there ya go! ;)
Thats about it. So far anyway :D Again, sorry frederic. :o
fitZ :)
 
Rick, no worries. When have I ever cared about following threads or topics? Don't worry about it at all my friend.


BTW, the webcam is back online. Go to my homepage, click "studio" and it's the top menu item. If the webcam is online, you see it. If not, you get a polite indication that it's not. Only took 16 hours of reading firewall and PHP manuals.

Grrrrrrr.

I've decided that technology sucks. Gimme my burnt sienna crayon.
 
Rick, no worries. When have I ever cared about following threads or topics? Don't worry about it at all my friend.
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:cool: Alright!!BTW, happy Thanksgiving to ya! :)
I've decided that technology sucks. Gimme my burnt sienna crayon.
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Me too. The older I get, the less time I have or inclination for fucking with it. Even my computer interests are waning. I've had more fun building things than fooling around with technology lately, although I can't wait to hook up my tape machines. :p Also, the older I get, the less patience I have with waiting for things I'll probably never do or get. I've decided to use what I have and enjoy it while I can. The fact is, my studio is for my pleasure only and will probably never host other musicians, since I've moved to Oregon and hardly know a soul. Let alone other musicians. So, time to get on with using what I have. Frankly, I can't justify spending another dime on this hobby either. Its already taken a good chunk of disposable income and time. And both are getting less and less available. :rolleyes: Anyway, thanks frederic.
fitZ :)
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Alright!!BTW, happy Thanksgiving to ya! :)
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And to you and yours!

RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Me too. The older I get, the less time I have or inclination for fucking with it. Even my computer interests are waning. I've had more fun building things than fooling around with technology lately, although I can't wait to hook up my tape machines.
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I just have no more patience for bullschit. Anything that doesn't work out of the box, is bullschit, and needs to be rectally administered to the monkey who sold it to me.

That's my new mantra.
 
frederic said:
I just have no more patience for bullschit. Anything that doesn't work out of the box, is bullschit, and needs to be rectally administered to the monkey who sold it to me.

That's my new mantra.
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Right on!

ten characters
 
Got any final pictures of that dashboard? I'd be interested in seeing it.

I love stuff like this. Great work. You're very creative.
 
geet73 said:
Got any final pictures of that dashboard? I'd be interested in seeing it.

I love stuff like this. Great work. You're very creative.
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Thanks for the compliment! As you see the dashboard in the last few pictures, that's how I'm driving the truck the rest of the winter. Too cold to do fiberglassing in the unheated garage. Brrrrrrrr.

But it's an improvement over last winter - I had no dash at all, and I duct taped cardboard over the heater core's defroster outlets and taped the cardboard to the bottom of the windshield, so I had defrost :D

And every time I got in, I'd place the cluster on my lap.

Was fun. NOT!
 
frederic said:
Only took 16 hours of reading firewall and PHP manuals.
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Ok now thats interesting... Did the webcam manual recomend using PHP as the method for encoding the webcam into pages or somethin? (being a decent php coder but im still pretty novice) I am still so interested in your web cam... lol... Did you purchase it online? Do you know the model number of it? Would like to see if I can find it online? Plus how much did ya pay for it?

Look forword to more pictures of the studio too... it looks fantastic... Can I record there? lol Got any samples of stuff online that you've created... I guess I'm interested in the sound quality as well as your mixes... ;)

Thanks again..
 
Yes, www.midimonkey.com is my main site, totally unfinished. I put all the project related stuff on my personal server, which is frederic.midimonkey.com

Just a different server in the same rack.

The webcam manual included instructions in how to set it up, that's it. The PHP thing I figured out on my own, because if you hit the webcam page and the camera is off, bad things happen. The java or activex applet loads, and starts looking for the camera. Netscape takes about 10 minutes to time out, and your PC goes to a crawl during that 10 minutes. IE just dies for a while, then explodes taking other running applications with it. It's most unpleasant. So as not to annoy people wanting to see me webcam if it's powered off, I wrote a PHP script that will decide, based on the camera being online or not, between one of two web pages. One that says "camera off" and stops nicely, and the other that loads the crap you need to see the camera.

Try for yourself: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/studio-cam.php

As of 8:27am EST, the camera is powered off. I'll turn it on later in the day when I'm out of my bathrobe :D

The Webcam is a Dlink DCS-900. I bought two of them new from a seller on ebay for about $70-75 each. One is mounted in the back of the console room, the other is mounted in the garage, so during the summer friends can watch my truck projects in real time. I have a third camera, a DCS-1000 also by dlink, which used to be in my studio but I didn't have it behind the firewall initially, and some script-kidde's killed it. I have to reflash the operating system, but never got around to it.

record there? lol
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Sure, I take all the major credit cards and paypal :D I can fit you in february, by then my current project in theory might be done. I've been working on a soundtrack while I've been doing everything else... grrrrrrr.

Got any samples of stuff online that you've created... I guess I'm interested in the sound quality as well as your mixes... ;)
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Yeah, I can shuffle a few things over from the private server to the public server, no problem. Give me a day or two.
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
:cool: I've had more fun building things than fooling around with technology lately, although I can't wait to hook up my tape machines. :p
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Rick,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your creations. I can't wait to see the finished product (very intriguing indeed :D ). And, your quote above kinda answers another question I was thinking about, which is what is more fun, actually recording in your studio or building it? You seem to get an EXTREME amount of pleasure out of the designing, planning, and constructing tasks that I'm kinda worried about what might happen if you actually ever finish it :eek:

So, now I will rub it into your's and Frederic's faces and just simply say that I have a session tomorrow!! I actually did scratch tracks and (hopefully) got good drum tracks last weekend, and this weekend will be guitars, vocals, and mixing. I haven't had a session since July (was down for 2 months after the water incident) so I'm psyched about actually doing some recording again. It's not my personal style of music, but this is a bunch of my son's high school friends who have a little pop/punk band that are pretty good (as in tight, good vocals, well rehearsed). It really is fun to use this stuff ;)

Well, have a great weekend.

Darryl.....
 
DDev said:
So, now I will rub it into your's and Frederic's faces and just simply say that I have a session tomorrow!!
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That's rubbing my face? Why thank you! Felt good too!

I've recorded a violinist, a metal guitarist, 3-4 vocalists, and tracked about 35 voice overdubs in the last four months, here, in the mess I call a studio. I just pushed everything aside, and ran two 24-ch snakes across the floor.

crude, but it worked. Now that my current projects are not requiring people to be here (other than me), in what little free time I have I can actually finish up the studio so when other people come in, it looks more like a studio than a huge pile of shit with some blinking lights blinking through.
 
frederic, I clicked on your webcam, and got neither a message or an image. Im using firefox, mabye that would pose a problem. I wiped IE a long long time ago, so I dont have another way of checking...... its 3:00 PM eastern standard time here.
 
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