Working in a construction zone...

[Dave Martin]

I don't know which is worse - sitting around waiting for a studio to get finished so that you can move in and start working, or moving into to the room before it's finished, and working on it as time and budget allow.

I chose option 2 with my current room. Essentially, I did a ground-up building for the studio, and pretty much HAD to move in and go to work as quickly as possible. The control room was 18.5 feet by 22.5 feet, by 12 feet - fairly good sized. To deaden the room, I built boxes containing Corning 703 (marvelous stuff) which hung on the walls as well as the ceiling - not a lot, so the room was fairly live. In fact, I imagine that it would be too live for most folks to work in. But I was used to it, and have been working in here for more than a year.

The opportunity came to have the carpenter who built the building come and do some more work, so we started the walls of the control room. At first, I was just going to have him build out the rear wall 6 inches, and use either 703 or mineral wool to dampen the room. Then I decided that we should build a bass trap on the back wall (the design was kind of stolen from Hidley's design of the rear wall of Nashville's Tracking Room). He did that (while I was continuing to work on paying projects).

Once the insulation was put up on the front and back walls, flutter echo from the side walls was a lot more noticeable - in fact, it became intolerable. So we built out the side walls 4" as well, from a little way off the floor to about 4 feet off the ground, and found some 3/4" maple plywood to splay the walls above that, to the ceiling.

All of this stared 6 or 8 weeks ago (It's hard to get guys who are trading out work for studio time to show up every day), and for the last two months, I've been working in a room that was the color of mineral wool (dirty brown) and insulation yellow, with a fairly significant flutter echo problem. (The 703 had to come off the walls when the framing for the maple went up...).

Anyway, in the last 4 days, I got all of the cloth stretched over the insulation and the bass trap, and the playwood has gone up on the walls. The sound of the control room has changed dramatically - for the better, but it's still a huge change. I still have some simple diffusors to build for the back wall (I want SOMETHING coming back from behind me, and a variation of Michael Blackmer's 'chevron' approach should work fine), all of the new wood needs to be finished, and then the trimwork will have to be done. Then, after I recover from all of this, I'm going to have to decide what to do with the ceiling. I think I'm doomed to work in a construction zone for the forseeable future...

It's almost midnight - I've got a session starting at 10:00AM, a couple of reviews that are supposed to be on an editors desk in the morning, I haven't bought any Christmas presents for my wife, and I'm whining on the Gearslutz forum while ignoring the deadlines and listening to music (to try to get used to the new room sound, which will change when the walls are finished, and will change again when we build out the ceiling).

Somebody remind me again how much fun I'm having...

[alphajerk]

change... the only constant in life.

[Steve Smith]

remember when something's only cost was " change" and it was a good thing? :)

Good luck Dave, you will get through it.

[cajonezzz]

Originally posted by Dave Martin

Somebody remind me again how much fun I'm having...

Hey Dave, I'm in the middle of the same thing (building a new room) We're doing the DIY method and have assembled a little crew, hoping to have the rooms built and ready for installation by Feb. If your taking or have taken pics, I would love to see'em here. I'll be posting a few of ours as well. Would you mind elaborating on the bass trap designs you mentioned?

What are the other dimensions of your new room?

[Dave Martin]

[quote]Originally posted by cajonezzz
Hey Dave, I'm in the middle of the same thing (building a new room) We're doing the DIY method and have assembled a little crew, hoping to have the rooms built and ready for installation by Feb. If your taking or have taken pics, I would love to see'em here. I'll be posting a few of ours as well. Would you mind elaborating on the bass trap designs you mentioned?

I've been taking some pictures, though they're in a 'real' camera - I'll have to wait until I finish the roll... Essentially, though, the traps consists of suspended plywood wrapped in fiberglass, hanging at a 45 degree angle to the room. The rear wall of the trap is more fiberglass insulation.
The idea is that sound hitting the plywood is either absorbed or deflected. If it's deflected, it hits the back of the plywood right next to it, and then is reflected into the back wall. Sould anything come off of the back wall, it would have to take the same path back into the control room. It makes a lot more sense with pictures...

What are the other dimensions of your new room?

I mentioned that the control room was 18.5 wide, 22.5 deep, and 12 feet tall. The main tracking room is about 18x28, with a ceiling height anywhere from 12 to about 17 feet. The small iso is about 7x9, the medium iso is about 10.5 x 9, and the big iso is about 9x14, all with 11 foot ceilings. The Pro Tools suite isn't close enough to being ready to even speculate on final dimensions for eithe the control room or the iso booth...

[cajonezzz]

Santa came through and gave the wife and I a nifty new digital camera last nite, so I'll be able to post a few pics of the new place. I'm pretty sure that our operation is considerably more homespun (we tried to involve one of the bigger-dog designers but couldn't come up with the funds) than yours but would love to get some comments/suggestions from those that have done this on our scale. Any gearslutz advice very much appreciated. Gotta go in now and wrestle some insulation up into the ceiling.
Have a great holiday....