Manifold Recording - Studio Construction Thread

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by ryancork

looking great. It's exciting to see those walls keep rising.

Alebit slowly. The masons evened up the progress between the inner and outer wythes, but I was disappointed there was not a new section started.



Off to the right you can see that our bobcat is being given some attention...I think it's mechanical problems the past 2-3 days have slowed us down. Hopefully they'll figure out why there were metal filings in the fluid, fix that, and we'll be back up to speed.

[mastermix]

Looking good!!!

[Clueless]

For those who like the long story, my latest blog posting is full of the latest developments. They include the start of the upper diffusion pattern in the Music Room, and some cool displaced blocks now coming out of the outer wythe. Check it out!

[flute player]

Originally Posted by Clueless

For those who like the long story, my latest blog posting is full of the latest developments. They include the start of the upper diffusion pattern in the Music Room, and some cool displaced blocks now coming out of the outer wythe. Check it out!

Man oh Man, This is realy by far the best studio build thread i've seen here.
Every time my mouth falls open when you post some new pics.

greetz,

Paul

[Clueless]

Today we got three courses of blocks up on one wythe of one wall, but we also got one course of scaffolding up on three walls. The block progress may sound small, but it's very noticeable from the inside:



Here's a view of the new scaffolding:



Way in the background you can see the yellow refrigerant lines heading up to the air handlers above the Music Room.

[Rossome]

Beautiful.

[Clueless]

I hope you all don't mind a slight detour from the photo thread to talk for a moment about acoustics.

The original concept of the Music Room (explained on the website) is to be the acoustic instrument that perfectly complements whatever instrument is played within it (whether a solo voice, a choir, solo piano, classical guitar, jazz combo, power trio, etc). We scaled the room to be the largest sensible room for a solo voice, and yet have enough breathing room that we can easily record a chamber orchestra or a full jazz band. That's how we wound up with 24' ceilings and a 1380 sq ft floor plan.

One thing you might notice about the design is that the walls are parallel, which is very uncommon in studio design. I talked with Wes about this, and he explained that yes, when building smaller rooms, parallelism can lead to all sorts of modal buildups. But he assured me that once the room is large enough (and this one is), parallelism can work to one's advantage by creating a more uniform acoustic response, and allowing one to move mics around to change how the instrument is being recorded without radically altering how the room itself sounds. All well and good, but how will it sound?

As the walls started going up, I'd do a clap test, and I remember that very early on (when the walls were maybe 2' tall) you could hear a distinct echo. Moreso when the walls were 4' tall. When the walls were about 6' tall, up through about 12' tall, a new "feature" came into play: if you stood dead-center in the room and clapped, there was the very distinct decay pattern of echos spaced 50ms apart. The room had a ring to it! If you moved a few feet off center, you'd get just one echo, but dead center, it had a real RT-60.

Don't panic, I told myself: when the room is finished, there will be 10 6'x2' RPG T-fusor diffusors on the West wall and 10 12'x2' RPG T-fusor diffusors on the East wall, and those are surely going to go a long way toward spreading out the ring. But I noticed something new when the second diffusor pattern went up: no more ringing anywhere in the room! It's just a "live" room. Uncanny!

I'm sure the acoustic response of the room will continue to evolve, but it is encouraging to see that it is evolving toward our goal of acoustic excellence, one block at a time.

[polloymedio]

neat! it would be nice to hear the effect of the room, since i am a little skepticall on good acoustic on parallel walls.

im really really anxious on hearing and seeing how it all turns out! i have been a regular visitor of this thread for some time now, hope everything goes well :D

[Clueless]

I just checked the sub-forum stats, and this thread had exactly 50,000 reads. I guess this is #50,001. Keep up the good work (exciting new details to be revealed next month).

[justwanderedin]

Absolutely fantastic project! I've been following since day 1.

Thank you very much for your detailed progress reports!

[wilesto]

Awesome thread. I've been following along for a few months now and your project already looks unbelievable. Can't wait to see it finished!

Best of luck to you with your construction schedule!

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by Clueless

I hope you all don't mind a slight detour from the photo thread to talk for a moment about acoustics.

The original concept of the Music Room (explained on the website) is to be the acoustic instrument that perfectly complements whatever instrument is played within it (whether a solo voice, a choir, solo piano, classical guitar, jazz combo, power trio, etc). We scaled the room to be the largest sensible room for a solo voice, and yet have enough breathing room that we can easily record a chamber orchestra or a full jazz band. That's how we wound up with 24' ceilings and a 1380 sq ft floor plan.

One thing you might notice about the design is that the walls are parallel, which is very uncommon in studio design. I talked with Wes about this, and he explained that yes, when building smaller rooms, parallelism can lead to all sorts of modal buildups. But he assured me that once the room is large enough (and this one is), parallelism can work to one's advantage by creating a more uniform acoustic response, and allowing one to move mics around to change how the instrument is being recorded without radically altering how the room itself sounds. All well and good, but how will it sound?

As the walls started going up, I'd do a clap test, and I remember that very early on (when the walls were maybe 2' tall) you could hear a distinct echo. Moreso when the walls were 4' tall. When the walls were about 6' tall, up through about 12' tall, a new "feature" came into play: if you stood dead-center in the room and clapped, there was the very distinct decay pattern of echos spaced 50ms apart. The room had a ring to it! If you moved a few feet off center, you'd get just one echo, but dead center, it had a real RT-60.

Don't panic, I told myself: when the room is finished, there will be 10 6'x2' RPG T-fusor diffusors on the West wall and 10 12'x2' RPG T-fusor diffusors on the East wall, and those are surely going to go a long way toward spreading out the ring. But I noticed something new when the second diffusor pattern went up: no more ringing anywhere in the room! It's just a "live" room. Uncanny!

I'm sure the acoustic response of the room will continue to evolve, but it is encouraging to see that it is evolving toward our goal of acoustic excellence, one block at a time.

That's extremely interesting about the parallel wall thing. I guess it makes sense though. A couple of rooms in Blackbird looked like they had parallel walls... Like A and D. I always wondered why that was, but they are both pretty damn big rooms. So I guess it makes sense.

-Grant

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by speakercoil

That's extremely interesting about the parallel wall thing. I guess it makes sense though. A couple of rooms in Blackbird looked like they had parallel walls... Like A and D. I always wondered why that was, but they are both pretty damn big rooms. So I guess it makes sense.

-Grant

As does Studio C, which has parallel walls in all three dimensions.

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by Clueless

As does Studio C, which has parallel walls in all three dimensions.

True, but I mean with those diffusers it's hard to call it parallel! Though the corners always surprised me... They have nothing, and I would think they would be HELL for low frequency build up, however surprisingly they aren't. That room is so cool.

-Grant

[Clueless]

The inner wythe of the west wall just made it to 20'8" in height. The outer wythe is down at 19'4", but things continue to take shape.

I've got a new, detailed, weekly blog posting, as well as a photo that's not on the blog, speaking of diffusors:



See you all next week!

[peat]

awesome!

great stuff michael

the second row of the diffusor pattern looks fantastic!!

[EduardoApolonia]

And I thought that I had a lot of work in documenting my studio built

This is a monstrous thread!!!!!!

Great work!!!!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by EduardoApolonia

And I thought that I had a lot of work in documenting my studio built

This is a monstrous thread!!!!!!

Great work!!!!

Hey, I'm just trying to keep up appearances. Nothing is too good for you, the good readers of this thread!

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by Clueless

Hey, I'm just trying to keep up appearances. Nothing is too good for you, the good readers of this thread!

Man those computer generated images do not do this justice... That mortar work is unbelievable. It is going to be gorgeous!

-Grant

[johndykstra]

yeah, I've never seen concrete block look so great.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by dykstraster@gmai

yeah, I've never seen concrete block look so great.

Thank you! When I started this whole project I got a lot of flak from folks about the material, less so as the walls start to take shape and define their own warm vibe.

[Clueless]

I was out of town for a week, so no blow-by-blows, but the inner walls have all risen another 4-6 courses and are all at least to the 26th course (of 36). As you can see from this photo, the outer walls now have to play catch-up, which is what will probably happen this week.



Progress on the outer walls is always slower because they have to be grouted (filled) with cement every 3-4 course, and because two of every three blocks must be threaded with #5 rebar, a tough stretch when the blocks weigh 40+ lbs and the top of the rebar is 5' above where the block is going to be placed.

More photos in my latest blog posting.

Enjoy!

[peat]

always inspiring,

[Clueless]

Monday was all about grouting. Tuesday morning, too:



Each bucket carried about enough cement to fill a single hole however deep they were grouting. With 102 holes along the wall, it's 102 buckets of grout, give or take.

The carpenters also finished up their work on the window frames. Each pair of these is going to hold up the blocks that will ultimately encase the windows that ring the top of the Music Room:



Finally, Tuesday afternoon, the masons were able to get back to the task of laying up more blocks. Here the South outer wythe rises by another three courses, to the 27th course:



Good weather is expected the rest of the week...good news for us!

[David-Morpheus]

Oh man this is huuuugeeeee The place I'm building now is like a double garage compared to this

Wish you good luck and further progress !!!!

[Clueless]

Two tons sounds like a lot, until you realize it's just two courses on the inner wall and one on the outer wall:





Maybe we'll get another four tons up by the weekend...

[sevendaysoff]

this is insane. very inspirational. good luck, congratulations, and thanks for posting!

[Clueless]

Here you can see that we completed another course on the South outer wythe, and we went up four courses on the half of the East wall shown in this picture.



I noticed that for the third day we seemed to be down one mason, and so I asked what was up. Turns out his wife had a C-section, everything went well, and now he's the proud father of two. So I'm guessing he's going to have a pretty good 4th of July holiday this weekend!

[Clueless]

Dear patient and enthusiastic readers,

Another excitement-filled blog posting awaits you this 4th of July weekend. It even contains blackberries!

Here's a bonus picture, not on the blog, showing the mechanical pipes that will connect our condenser lines between the building and the attic:



They are at about 10' high and will be covered by the lower roof.

All the best!

P.S. If you are a newsletter subscriber, I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek of our latest new plans. More will be revealed in good time...

[Clueless]

Our masonry team is back to full strength, and they're bringing up the East wall now:



Earlier in the morning when the weather wasn't so good, they graded and staged the blocks that will next go up on the North Wall:



I think those pallets represent about four courses of blocks, which is about 1/3rd of the remaining height but 1/2 of the remaining blocks for that wall. The windows will make up the difference.