Zythum Studios Destroyed in Flood - I am wiped out!

[Mad John]

Originally Posted by lynyrd

I am glad to see that your guitars appear to be all right. I hope there is no hdden damage that crops up later. I hope to read in the future that most (or all!) of your stuff has come back to life with no problems. Good luck man.

Hi lynyrd! Thank you for your kind thoughts..I really really appreciate it my friend!

The studio floors are coming up today, so that is one step in the right direction! An insurance man came to the studio yesterday and there are more processes before I will know if I will be covered for equipment damage.

Thank you guys for all the super cool support! I really went through a hellish time last week and you guys truly got me through the rough emotional ride that I was experiencing (thinking the worst) and I feel much much better about the studio situation, even if more things are damaged than not..I have learned something about values and where to place them..so thank you all for that prospective!

Dear Gearslutz friends: your graciousness was medicine to me and you all brewed various remedies that I shall never ever forget!

Bless you all!!

[jabney]

When it comes time to power on and test the equipment, consider using a VariAC. Do so much in the same way you'd power-up a piece of tube gear that had been unused for several years: (i/e. start around 50 volts or even lower, then slowly bring up the power to 120 volts in 10 volt steps over a half hour or longer). If something starts to smell or spark, then power-off and isolate the problem as best you can. (I used to start from 10 volts and would take an hour or so, but that's probably overkill.)

best,

john

[antoniosolo]

Have faith Mad John, hopefully you have lost little or nothing much. It could have been worse.....

[Mad John]

Guys, it has been a while since I posted on this thread. Still in the turbulence of getting broken gear repaired or replaced, etc. I am a little weary right now, because the studio is inoperative and I have so much to do to get the Studio up and running again.

Here is what I wrote on the Epic
"More free stuff, let's do it again" :


Guys, I just wanted to give you a brief update on the flood at Zythum Studios on March 13, 2010, without going into to much focus on materials:

Just saw the insurance guys yesterday and they seem to support my claimed losses for the most part, so I have been given the GREEN THUMB to go ahead with sending things out for repair.

The bad part for me is that my 24 track RADAR crashed and now the studio has no recorder for a while, but I am so grateful that I came out of this disaster much better than I thought! All the cables seem to be fine, power amps, power conditioners, isolation transformer, etc.

I am hoping to be up and running in June!

In the meantime, to show on some level my gratitude to you fine folks, I would like to offer a strange and unusual album that I produced in 2002 to anyone one wishes it, called "Purple Iron Hat." It is a collection of classic 1960's songs done in a Garage Album style, with about 20 fictional bands that are performed by myself and my wife. The embarrassing part of this is that I still do not have a full package to this album so, I am going to have to release a BOOTLEG version for you all, regarding the "ART WORK." The CD's will be CDR's, but are Mastered by a top notch engineer, Joe Lambert, from New York and cost me $3,000.00 for the 2 CD's. Almost everything was recorded on a Line 6 POD and I would not of been able to do the 40 songs or so with out that device (now discarded!) 70 tracks in all. If you like The Seeds, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, The BEE 52's, Comedy, dialogs, phone conversations, The Pretenders, Nervona, The Beatles, Japanesse bands who can't speak english, The Sex Pistols, etc, etc, etc.





PM me with your address and I will put you on the list.

Have a WONDERFUL and GRACEFUL WEEKEND you all!

[Sqye]

.

Hey John.

I'm glad it seems a lot of the craziness is behind you at this point.

I just want to say congrats for getting through it, and kudos to you for getting everything together, man!

Reading your OP, I remember opening the front entrance door to my studio years ago, and having the fox police lock fall to the floor inside. After starting to feel like something creepy was going on, I realized the lights were on inside.

Then I saw it. I had been robbed. It was totally an inside job by building maintenance - it had to be, because they cleaned out all my expensive power tools, in addition to vintage microphones and all kinds of stuff.

Of course, they left the stuff the didn't know what to do with - but they did RETURN the next day - presumably for my production and computer gear, etc. By then, I had installed another police lock on the rear studio door.

I was very lucky not to lose everything - and insurance to cover all the items I had listed in my policy, thank goodness. I permanently lost a gorgeous matched pair of original silver 414s - on loan to me from a good friend.

But for years after that I would freak out everytime I heard something move outside the studio when I was working by myself late at night. I also stopped advertising - because of even worse robbery events happening to my friends at that time - and it killed a lot of my studio business.

Anyway, long story short - I wanted to be doing my own music anyway, so I'm way happier now writing and producing my own music, scoring my own commercials, etc., and I do plan to get back into artist development - which is my passion - soon.

Cheers to you, again, man for getting everything sorted out, and for having such a great attitude about it all. And I wish you all the best.

Peace, love, health, success, inspiration and happiness to you and yours, dude!

Joseph

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[RawBeanZen]

Originally Posted by Sqye

Cheers to you, again, man for getting everything sorted out, and for having such a great attitude about it all. And I wish you all the best.

Peace, love, health, success, inspiration and happiness to you and yours, dude!

Yes.

[DaKid]

Flooding sucks.

Years back I had built up a little project studio in my mother's basement (I was younger)... korg triton studio, PT, a little analog desk, couple mics, monitors..etc.

I woke up one morning from the faint sound of water moving... I got up and put my eyeballs in (I wear contacts) and realized the house was surrounded by water... I'm talkin like 5 feet.

This is around the time I shit myself.

I opened up the door to the basement and nothing but water up to the 3rd step to the top of the stairs... everything COMPLETELY submerged... I had more than music gear down there... I had a TV.. video game systems... a pool table.... everything ruined!

I still remember that image of slowly opening the door and seeing all of that water with an "American Musical Supply" magazine floating on the top....

Home owners insurance wouldn't cover any of the damages becase it was a flood... and we weren't in a "flood zone" so we weren't eligible for flood insurance.. until AFTER the fact... in which they would not cover any damages for that flood.

People near me had their trailor homes snapped in half and pretty much lost it all with no insurance to help them out because the town was considered a "no flood zone"

I've eventually got myself back to and beyond where I was... but I had a few years in between with nothing. No fun.

Glad to hear you're able to salvage some of your gear! Be thankful and careful!

[Mad John]

Joseph, Rawbe and DaKid, thank you ever so much guys for the continued support, it means a great deal to me!

You know I consider myself fortunate compared to Nashville....WOW what a devastating record breaking tragedy...my heart goes out to all the lives that have changed from this terrible flood and of course to those that lost loved ones (the most important) and to those that lost their homes!

[d.dot]

It's been over a year since you posted on this John, but i'll assume and hope that you're back up and running.

Tonight I experienced my own water-based trauma. I've lived in LA for almost 10 years and have never seen it rain as hard as it did tonight.

Something told me to go check on things at the studio because there had been an issue with a leaky skylight in the hallway. The folks that I rent from seemed to have taken care of it so I wasn't too concerned.

However when i opened the door to my room i was met in the darkness with the sound of a wet slosh. My carpet was thoroughly soaked. Switching the light on revealed the horror. MY ceiling was badly leaking directly above my workstation. Every piece of equipment that I own was completely drenched. Hard drives, flat screens, tube gear, keyboards, guitars, speakers, outboard. EVERYTHING.

I made a mad dash to rip everything out of the racks as the water continued to pour in.

So now it's a few hours later and I'm sitting here contemplating my future (or lack thereof). I too don't have insurance. I'd been looking into it recently but never got around to executing.

This thread however has given me a ray of hope. Thanks to John and everyone else for sharing your experience and advice. My stuff was just severely splashed, not completely submerged and nothing was turned on so I'm hoping for the best.

One last thing: I have to give a tremendous thanks to my man Evan at Would Work Sound who came out during the storm to help me in my desperation to get my stuff out of the room AND who offered me the use of his studio until I can back on my feet.

[Mad John]

Originally Posted by d.dot

It's been over a year since you posted on this John, but i'll assume and hope that you're back up and running.

Tonight I experienced my own water-based trauma. I've lived in LA for almost 10 years and have never seen it rain as hard as it did tonight.

Something told me to go check on things at the studio because there had been an issue with a leaky skylight in the hallway. The folks that I rent from seemed to have taken care of it so I wasn't too concerned.

However when i opened the door to my room i was met in the darkness with the sound of a wet slosh. My carpet was thoroughly soaked. Switching the light on revealed the horror. MY ceiling was badly leaking directly above my workstation. Every piece of equipment that I own was completely drenched. Hard drives, flat screens, tube gear, keyboards, guitars, speakers, outboard. EVERYTHING.

I made a mad dash to rip everything out of the racks as the water continued to pour in.

So now it's a few hours later and I'm sitting here contemplating my future (or lack thereof). I too don't have insurance. I'd been looking into it recently but never got around to executing.

This thread however has given me a ray of hope. Thanks to John and everyone else for sharing your experience and advice. My stuff was just severely splashed, not completely submerged and nothing was turned on so I'm hoping for the best.

One last thing: I have to give a tremendous thanks to my man Evan at Would Work Sound who came out during the storm to help me in my desperation to get my stuff out of the room AND who offered me the use of his studio until I can back on my feet.

Dear d.dot,

I am really so sorry to hear your studio got hit with all of that water from your ceiling! That must of given your heart a real jolt, like it did mine when I discovered all the water! My heart goes out to you big time!! If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to PM me!

The good news is you are most likely better off than you think, since you said the equipment and or power was off! You may be surprised to see a very small amount of damage to your equipment and instruments, but I can't obviously say for sure without seeing or knowing the level of your damage to your studio.

Please d.dot, keep us posted on this thread or start a new one. I am sure you will get all the help and advise that you require...I got so much love & support from the good folks here at Gearslutz and I could not of made it through my own tragedy with out all of them...I was falling apart and they came to my rescue and bailed my out of a very serious studio disaster...so we are all here for you!

Hang in there. Take a deep breath. Make sure all the water that is running is stopped...that is of dire importance! Get all your equipment and instruments out of the studio and to a dry place...check them thoroughly and make sure EVERYTHING IS SUPER DRY!! Then make sure your floors are wiped clean. Cables will probably be in good shape, once there dried as well (I had high end cables completely submerged in water for over 8 hours and they came out fine and undamaged!

Again d.dot, anything at all that I can do, just let me know..I am at your service!!

Cheer up good mate..the worst part is over! It took me three weeks to dry everything..so it can take time, but I am quite confident with out knowing your extensive damage, that you will be alright in the end! (I hope your keyboard is not too hurt by the water!!)

Again, try to stay calm...I know how hard that is to do in this situation, but it is important that you take care of all the drying that needs to go on, before you do anything else.

I wish you a fast recovery from this awful event in your studio!

God bless!

[d.dot]

John THANK YOU so much again, man! Things are looking up already. The management has already started working on repairing my room and said they could have it ready as early as Friday. They also offered to pitch in on repair cost if necessary. You're a total stranger but your words of encouragement mean a lot and are greatly appreciated.

[Mad John]

Glad to hear that you have people helping you d.dot...that is very important to have the help!! thumbsup

How bad are your instruments? Does anything seem damaged or broken?

If you have fans...use them and if you don't, get a couple for drying out electronic equipment. You may need to take everything apart and open up the electronic units for them to dry properly.

How is your studio doing right now?

Did you get all the water cleaned up?

Wishing you a speedy recovery from this water tragedy!

[d.dot]

I am a very fortunate man. My lab is back up %100. The ONLY thing that was DOA was my $35 apple keyboard. All of my hard drives, some of which I literally poured water out of, all mounted with no issues. My flat screen has what looks like some type of grease stain at the lower right hand corner. But even that is not very noticeable and seems like its getting smaller.

Thank you very much John for you're advice and kind words. You are well aware of the stress and feelings of hopelessness that accompanies a situation like this. It was nice to hear from someone that's already lived through it.

My Life-Lessons from this event are:

1. INSURE YOUR STUFF!
2. BACK UP DATA SHOULD LIVE OFF SITE
4. THINGS MAY NOT BE AS BAD AS THEY INITIALLY APPEAR SO WAIT A BIT BEFORE YOU JUMP OFF A BRIDGE.

Thanks again John!

[Mad John]

Excellent d.dot!!!

I am so happy to hear this great news about your studio! I can imagine what it must of put you through, but it is all over now and like you said...there are lessons to be learned in a horrible tragedy! I am glad to hear that there was no real extensive damage to your equipment or instruments...that is a huge PLUS!

I am pleased that I could comfort you when this flood first hit your studio. We all need support and if there is anything I can help you with, just ask!

Keep the fires burning...keep your spirit intact...the future is yours to make music in your studio and no one, or nothing is going to stop you!

I wish you musical ease and creativity in your pursuits!