Manifold Recording - Studio Construction Thread

[Greg Curtis]

How are you dealing with floor isolation?

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

How are you dealing with floor isolation?

First of all, the slabs are isolated. This was verified when we had to do some concrete demolition. I stood on one slab and felt nothing as the chisel did its work. Then I stood on the slab most connected with the concrete in question, and I could feel the chisel all day. So the slab isolation works.

Secondly, the building is a good 100' from the nearest road, which is a dead end street with only about 6 houses past where the studio is. So, not a lot of road/traffic noise to begin with.

Were those your questions?

[Clueless]

The builders spent this week getting the framing into place for the North wall bond beam. This beam will be over 34' long, 2' high, and 18" deep. It will consume a fair bit of steel to establish its three-dimensional strength and rigidity.

To see the progress pictures, check out my latest construction blog posting.

Here are some pictures not on the blog, just for you...

Tons of steel:



The shims used to achieve 1/16" tolerance from level across the 21" wide 34' long bond beam:



and



Finally, the scope that helped us find the level:



Enjoy the weekend!

[Clueless]

For those who want their latest fix, I've put some pictures up on my blog showing the latest progress on the South wall. If we get (enough) good weather Thursday and Friday, I'll provide an update on the North wall bond beam.

In the mean time, here's a photo not on the blog that shows a dam we built to form the concrete wall that will abut the control room window. For info on what's behind the dam, see the blog.

[peat]

Michael,

Cant say it enough, everytime you update this thread with some new pictures it has the power to turn a bad day into a good day

I eagerly await any news at all of this beautiful place you are building.

even scrolling down through the photos on your blog, I look over at the scroll bar to see how much there is left, not wanting it to run out!!

you have me addicted!!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by peat

Michael,

Cant say it enough, everytime you update this thread with some new pictures it has the power to turn a bad day into a good day

I eagerly await any news at all of this beautiful place you are building.

even scrolling down through the photos on your blog, I look over at the scroll bar to see how much there is left, not wanting it to run out!!

you have me addicted!!

Thanks! I'm happy to make your day!!

I just put another update up for the week...progress on the north bond beam.

Here's a pair of summary photos not on the blog:





My wife complains that so many studio shots show no people whatsoever...hence the first photo including a person. But convention is just show the studio by itself...hence the second.

I like them both

[Kayo]

Wow! That's a big motha of a studio there, son..
Geezz .. Well done. Space shouldn't be an issue there..

Cheers,
FD

[xaMdaM]

Originally Posted by Clueless

My wife complains that so many studio shots show no people whatsoever...hence the first photo including a person. But convention is just show the studio by itself...hence the second.

I like them both

OK, so I'm not the only one to hear that comment from their "boss"?!?!?!

The fact that you indeed have a real person in the 1st shot helps establish the scale of the building. She's gonna be a hoss!

The mason's are really kickin' it up there. Kinda' surprised how fast they're moving, considering how much rain we've had... ooof. (Glad I'm dry at this point)

I know your building is just "slightly" on a larger scale than what mine is, but any chance you might be willing to give me the name of your finish carpenter? I'm at the point of serious frustration with trying to find and hire help that actually wants to work.

Otherwise... congrats on the progress!! Lookin' good!

[mastermix]

Nothing like a good studio construction thread!

Will be peeking in regularly... best of luck and may Murphy stay far far away...

[HookedOnHardware]

With all due respect sir. Hurry up already. I watched the VR tour again today but it's just not enough

[5thString]

Please, please, HIRE ME WHEN THE STUDIO IS DONE!!

[teo]

This is really great stuff mate! Keep it coming, it definitely made my day better...

[Clueless]

For those who like a lot of photos...the latest blog posting contains a lot of new photos. Enjoy!

I'll throw some photos up here, too, but I'm being called to dinner, alas!

[Jaques Beraques]

Boooooooooooooyakaaaaaaa





Looking Good!

I hope, you will continue your detailed blog till the end of your build!
Its soooo interesting to follow!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by Jaques Beraques

Boooooooooooooyakaaaaaaa

Booya indeed!

I know you all want to see photos, and you'll get your chance...but I want to point you to something you may have missed, either because it became to noisy where it was posted, or because it was moved to a place that I think few people will read it. A few days ago there was an interesting thread started in So Much Gear, So Little time titled "We are living in a Golden Age". The OP said:

Originally Posted by days

There are a lot of complaints about music and the audio industry on this forum, and at some point in most of these discussions someone (usually an old-timer) is going to lament, “It just ain't what it used to be.”

That's for sure. It's much better than it used to be.

There is more good music out there than ever before (you just have to know where to look). Gear has never been cheaper (after adjusting for inflation) and more easily available and better (especially at the lower and middle price points), which, in turn, has made it easier for people to record great-sounding music at home and in small studios. Thanks to the Internet, information about recording and audio has never been more accessible and plentiful. The web has also made it ridiculously easy to distribute music, especially internationally. (Based upon my web site download stats, my music has more listeners in Europe than in my native US. How would it have been possible before the Web for a non-touring guy like me, with no record label deal, to make music in a room in his house, and then to have it listened to around the world?) Also, a music enthusiast no longer has to turn on a radio and endure commercials, inane DJ patter, and dozens of bad songs before he finds something he likes. Instead, he can go directly to MP3 blogs, Internet music services, customizable on-line radio stations, and listen to only the stuff he likes, including niche and subgenre music that would have never gotten played on the radio before. Or, for the price of a medium-sized pizza, he can get a monthly subscription to something like Napster, where he can play about 80 percent of the music that's been recorded over the last forty years. It's almost too good to be true.

Of course, there are some qualifications to the above, such as the demise of the big studio paradigm (but is that really such a bad thing?), the difficulties in marketing non-label music in the Internet age, and, perhaps most conspicuously, the absence of really great music. While it's undeniably true that we are being inundated with lots of good music (almost all of it coming from indies and almost none of it from the mainstream), we don't see Beatles/Hendrix/Wonder/Dylan/Clash/Drake-level music anymore. (And I don't think that it's because of the demise of big studios and big labels, although I'm sure many of you would disagree.)

An lively discussion ensued, with many agreeing (about different aspects or from different perspectives) and some (mostly anti-filesharing/anti-piracy types) dissenting. I saw enough different ideas that I decided to try to summarize them and also annotate them with postings I've written to my blog that are not about construction.

The summaries are here and here (split because of arbitrary GS post length limits). Yes, they are long, but I think there's a lot of insights to be gained, which is why I wrote them up.

Then a whole bunch of people steered the discussion to "the music business sucks because nobody can play" joined later by "...and anybody who can play are just wankers." Even John Lennon was disparaged as a lousy guitar player, using his own self-deprecating statements as "proof". Anyway, after several pages of complaints about "wankers", the whole thread was moved to the Moan Zone, which I'm sure is the wrong place for it, but I guess that's what happens when a whole bunch of frustrated GS members decide to wank all over something.

So...do check out the guided tour to the context of the studio, and then feast your eyes on the latest progress, either at the blog, or below (which are not on the blog)...

All the lower blocks are shrouded to protect them from the grout:



The actual bond beam, still wet:



The bond beam revealed:



And the other side...no drips, no runs, no errors!



Here's the bite taken out of our brand new sand and gravel piles for the grout. Combined with the cement, it was enough to fill 120 buckets!



Enjoy the weekend!

[Clueless]

I can't let mwaegner have all the fun...here's the day's progress:

The steel beam is integrated into the outer wythe:



A view from the other side showing yet another half-finished bond beam:



By the way, the black stuff you see attached to the steel side is a double layer of #30 felt (the kind of stuff you put on a roof under asphalt shingles). Without the felt the beam rang like a bell when you hit it, and I was worried that even if it was embedded in the wall that a resonant frequency could excite it into full-throated song. With the felt, it sounds like I'm hitting a 12"x12" post--no ringing at all. And no fear that we'll have to tear apart the wall when the studio starts to rock and roll.

[speakercoil]

Let's hope it rock's and doesn't roll... A rolling building might not be so fun... That's what a foundation is for! Don't want your ceiling ending up as your floor!

-Grant

PS: It's looking sweet!!!!

[LeMauce]

Just wondering what the "deadline" is for this stellar project (big respect btw!)
Really, I was wondering to visit your studio in the beginning 2010. I'm doing a big tour (6months) true USA interviewing music recording studio's (Video and Pictures) all over the country and North Carolina is on my path. Its a semi-project with SAE and personal project.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by LeMauce

Just wondering what the "deadline" is for this stellar project (big respect btw!)
Really, I was wondering to visit your studio in the beginning 2010. I'm doing a big tour (6months) true USA interviewing music recording studio's (Video and Pictures) all over the country and North Carolina is on my path. Its a semi-project with SAE and personal project.

I am hoping that we are passing signal through the studio by the end of this year, but it might be several more months before things are fully ironed out. If you can put North Carolina more toward the end of your trip, you'll probably see more stuff working then if you show up in January.

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by Clueless

I am hoping that we are passing signal through the studio by the end of this year, but it might be several more months before things are fully ironed out. If you can put North Carolina more toward the end of your trip, you'll probably see more stuff working then if you show up in January.

WOAH... Just noticed this was in NC... I am from near by! Well, not now, but I grew up in Pinehurst/Southern Pines... Any chance you hear of a musician by the name of Nathan Davis? He was my mentor when I was a kid. My first big project was recording his debut album "Out of My Skin". Just curious as he is pretty popular around those parts... Sadly he passed away in 2006.

Man North Carolina REALLY needs this. Most of the tracking rooms in the area are pretty lame to be honest. The few that are set up well are owned by overpossesive engineers with bad ears who think their hot shit. I heard some stuff come out of these places that sounded worse than what I achieved as a teenager with one TLM 103 in my mom's house. It's pretty sad... So this is MUCH needed for the area!!!!!!!!! Now I am twice as excited to see this progress.

-Grant

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by speakercoil

WOAH... Just noticed this was in NC... I am from near by! Well, not now, but I grew up in Pinehurst/Southern Pines... Any chance you hear of a musician by the name of Nathan Davis? He was my mentor when I was a kid. My first big project was recording his debut album "Out of My Skin". Just curious as he is pretty popular around those parts... Sadly he passed away in 2006.

Actually, I had not heard of him (I've only been in the state since 2000), but I checked out the liner notes at CDBaby and found this tidbit:

After he returned to the Carolinas in 2000, Nathan Davis began a long, arduous search for the right musicians to back him up on songs he had written about his own life. Davis released his first live album, The Holly Show, in the summer of 2000. Immediately following his first album's release, Davis began working with a 17-year-old fan and self-taught producer named Grant Walker to produce his first studio album, Out Of My Skin, released in 2002.

And as my blog makes amply clear, my vision for the studio is to serve as a direct connection between the intention of the artist and the experience of the fan, up to and including the concept that sometimes the best possible producers will be the most passionate fans and that the best possible productions will be the collaborative results of artists and fans discovering each other and working together.

Thus, the fact that you've already done this is great encouragement to this vision!

Man North Carolina REALLY needs this. Most of the tracking rooms in the area are pretty lame to be honest. The few that are set up well are owned by overpossesive engineers with bad ears who think their hot shit. I heard some stuff come out of these places that sounded worse than what I achieved as a teenager with one TLM 103 in my mom's house. It's pretty sad... So this is MUCH needed for the area!!!!!!!!! Now I am twice as excited to see this progress.

-Grant

I'm not sure I want to slag too many of my neighbors, but I do believe that the whole world needs this--everywhere. To me, this kind of process is what makes music live, as opposed to the current reductio ad absurdum that defines the music industry today. Thankfully, North Carolina is a great place to live, and blessed with both real musical talent and a growing creative class of fans who hunger and thirst for something real.

Thanks for writing!

[Kris]

[Clueless]

We now have blocks cladding both sides of the steel beam:



Each of these blocks put into place across the steel beam required several cuts with the concrete saw, some as many as 10 cuts per block! I asked the masons after they had cut the blocks, but before laying them all in "are you tired of cutting block yet?" and they said "YES!". I think they are looking forward to grouting this bond beam and then enjoying the work of mostly laying block rather than constantly engineering block.

Also, you can see that because of the 16' wide impenetrable steel beam, we double-up on our soffit steel where we can penetrate the wall across some length: at the shear wall.

With good weather expected, we're going to let the mortar in these blocks cure one more day, grout the bond beam on Friday, and then we can begin in earnest the building of the walls up to 24 ft. There are a few small complexities on the way (which I will of course point out when we get there), but nothing like what's been happening at this level.

[Blind]

that's impressive... just took a look around your homepage!

I would love to know more about your financial plan for this :D

it's so sick

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by Blind

that's impressive... just took a look around your homepage!

I would love to know more about your financial plan for this :D

it's so sick

My financial plan is simple: don't spend more than I have, and keep my wife enthusiastic about the project.

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by Clueless

My financial plan is simple: don't spend more than I have, and keep my wife enthusiastic about the project.

lol... the last part is soooooooo key. I have lost girlfriends in the past, because I was spending too much on music, recording gear, and instruments... I tried to explain them as business expenses... That didn't really fly. Really I think they just didn't want excuses for why I had to cut down on taking them out to dinner, etc.

I really need to find a girl that understands the importance of it all... They just see buttons and knobs and don't understand why I spent a grand on a microphone when I could have purchased one for 20 bucks from Radioshack. "It sounds better" just doesn't register somehow... Same with guitars... They didn't realize that a 1,000 dollar guitar is worlds better than a 100 dollar gig pack guitar.

I guess i need to find a girl who is excited by recording, and loves music as much as I do... So they realize it is not a waste of money, but actually a good investment.

-Grant

[Clueless]

Since I provided some sneak peaks earlier this week, and since I'm needed to help out in the kitchen, I'm just going to post this link to my latest blog posting and call it a wrap for this week.

Lots of progress!!!

[Jaques Beraques]

It gets better every week!


I am always excited when I see that there is a new post

[Clueless]

The crew was off for the US Memorial Day national holiday, and couldn't work Tuesday because of heavy rain early. They did get some good weather this morning, and here's what they had to show for that morning's work:



Looking at the back side of that wall, it looks like the end of the shear wall is in sight, as the pour-through cut-outs stop at the 16th course, and this continues on up to the 18th course:



You can see in the photo above the plastic protections on the east wall. They planned to grout the outer wythe in the afternoon (and perhaps lay another two courses of block I would imagine).

[judah]

The attention to every small single detail is absolutely mind blowing. It would be cool to see more updated or faster progress on the building, but I understand that this is not the usual home studio made of plaster and wood.

Congratulations for your incredible project.