Manifold Recording - Studio Construction Thread

[EduardoApolonia]

This is what I call a studio construction from the START!!!!!

[Jules]

Originally Posted by Clueless

This is a great thread.

But for a second I thought you had started building a very badly designed and built holiday resort complex.. until I realized I misunderstood the scale of the photo.... a lot..

I was like.. dude, where is the beach?

[Clueless]

*Phew*

I just finished 22 pages @ 36" by 24" of shop diagrams for the masons, plus a schedule listing every block in every wall, by size, type, material, etc. Talk about a detail-oriented project!

Here are images of the shop diagrams for the western wall of the Music Room, inside and outside:





By my count there will be approximately 15,000 blocks at screed or above, plus another 1,000 below. If stacked end to end, they would stretch for four miles. For more info, you can read my latest blog posting.

[Clueless]

Here are two of the photos now posted to the blog:





The masons are off to a good start--good people, good plans, good tools, and a great design. The complexity of the masonry plan was the contractor's greatest fear, but it seems that so far, although it is quite complex, we have a good handle on it.

My focus will be shifting from cement to wiring as we prepare for the pouring of the slab. Our basic wiring panel will have 64 discrete jacks (XLR, BNC, RJ-45, etc), and with 10 panels, that's 640 wires just flowing from the panels to the patchbays! Figure another 640 wires from the patchbays to the equipment, plus a few hundred wires here or there for connections not expressed in the patchbays and I figure we've got a wiring plan that will have more than 1500 wires! But that's a post for another week...

[Farout]

Heck - you're a more patient person than I am!

I would've already started putting a console desk together, and placing it where it will goes in the new building!

[Clueless]

I posted some new photos to my blog, plus I added a draft wiring conduit plan that shows where we're planning to run $21K worth of cables (just raw wire):



Enjoy!

[Clueless]

Updated my blog with photos showing the strings and nails we put into the ground to guide the plumbers as they lay the PVC pipes.



More photos on the blog.

[Farout]

Kewl beans!

[Clueless]

I posted two new weekly updates with detailed photos. Here's a shot showing half the conduits that will ultimately be going into the audio machine room:



Yo!

[Farout]

What is the diameter of the conduit?

Thanks for the update!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by Farout

What is the diameter of the conduit?

4" PVC.

[Farout]

... and whoever said size doesn't count?

[Sounds.is]

Looking great Michael! I can´t believe I missed this thread up to this point, going right on my subscription list now

[Clueless]

Rain has slowed the construction crew, and the complexity of the wiring plan didn't help, either. We had to do a lot of engineering around the footings that I had not anticipated (because I didn't put the footing outlines into my wiring diagrams before I started drawing conduits). Nevertheless, our talented craftspeople have worked around the problems, and we're just about done with the technical conduits. Here's a picture of a few of the many fat pipes coming into the audio equipment room:



Many more photos on the blog...

[avare]

I'm keeping my comments to Gearslutz to avoid confusion.

Fantastic build and thanks for sharing the experience with us here and on your blog.

Andre

[Tetris]

What a setting!!!

How much land is it on?

Are you installing PV panels for your energy needs? (Sorry if that has been posted elsewhere and I missed it)

[Clueless]

The studio is situated on nearly 17 acres of land. And yes, since we are looking to build a carbon-neutral recording studio, we are looking hard at PVs. That will probably be something we buy quite late in the process, as progress in that domain is pretty fast right now.

Glad you like the environment!

[Tetris]

17 Acres....WOW!!!!!! Forget solar panels, build a solar furnace and supply the whole States electricity

What a great, inspirational setting to record in. Are there going to be any residential buildings/log cabins for bands to stay over in?

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by Tetris

17 Acres....WOW!!!!!! Forget solar panels, build a solar furnace and supply the whole States electricity

What a great, inspirational setting to record in. Are there going to be any residential buildings/log cabins for bands to stay over in?

Already there:

Up the hill lies the Windsong Bed, Breakfast, and Retreat Center. Windsong features a beautiful Meadow Room (34'x36' floating plywood floor, 1,224 sq ft, 50 people max capacity), a rustic Sun Room with an adjoining and equally large and rustic sun deck (16'x48' total, ~700 sq ft usable), a kitchen, three additional "living rooms", and three upstairs bedrooms, the largest of which is configured to sleep 6 in bunk beds (or 8 in a pinch). Windsong can be booked through the studio to provide additional facilities for workshops, catering, client accomodations, or it can provide additional services and amenities to further enhance the studio experience: Yoga classes, meditation rooms, holistic health therapy, etc.

Excerpted from the studio page...Here's a photo from the blog that shows the house in the background:

[Clueless]

I'm happy to report that construction in the virtual world is also progressing. The old website was definitely Plain Vanilla. The new one is Crème brûlée.

[5thString]

Your new website is... delicious!
Very clean, a real pleasure to surf on!

[Clueless]

Half the gravel that's been sitting at the construction site has now been conveyed to the foundation. This means that ground level is now minus 8" instead of minus 2'.



Lots more photos on the blog.

[Clueless]

I posted a new series of construction photos to my blog showing the latest progress: electrical conduits:



Will we pour the slab by the end of the month? Stay tuned!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by TroyTempest

This project is amazing, but if I was you I would have built it in this pre existing structure. ^_^



Seriously though, never tear that thing down. I like shacks like that, ultimate history. I hate when they tear them down around here.

We have no plans to tear it down. On the other hand, we have no plans to keep it standing, either. If all goes according to plan, it will collapse under its own weight some time next spring.
Then we will remove/recycle the materials and enjoy our beautiful site.

[Clueless]

...and the clean power conduits are now all out of the ground. More info on the blog.

[Farout]

Good lawd!!!!

[PDC]

Did you hire an acoustician or a consultant? The layout makes me nervous for you.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by PDC

Did you hire an acoustician or a consultant? The layout makes me nervous for you.

I hired Wes Lachot. What part of it makes you nervous? Have you had a bad experience in any space like this one?

[PDC]

Your floor plan doesn't look like something he has done traditionally.

The symetry of your tracking room is what gets me. Maybe it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wouldn't think that a guy would want so many angles and across from each other like that.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by PDC

Your floor plan doesn't look like something he has done traditionally.

The symetry of your tracking room is what gets me. Maybe it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wouldn't think that a guy would want so many angles and across from each other like that.

The symmetry is a feature of the space, not a bug. Non-parallel walls have the feature that they make room modes much more difficult to calculate and predict, but they don't change the laws of physics: all rooms have modes. Because of the scale of the tracking room (31 x 44 (average of 36 and 52) x 24), all the fundamental modes fall below A0 (the lowest note on the piano). Thus, while we have not eliminated room modes, we have pushed them well below the typical levels you'd find in smaller (20x30x14) tracking rooms that need to compromise other acoustical properties to make up the difference.