Starting my studio build.

[seven]

The floor is in! It came out well I think.

I'm going out there tonight to put the final coat of paint on the desk. I'll snap some pictures when I'm out there.

[seven]

Putting the speaker stands in.


First sound check (it needs a treatments)

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by seven

Putting the speaker stands in.


First sound check (it needs a treatments)

When you block a door like that you add mystique... Now it's like... Oooo I wonder what's beyond that door... Is he hiding a body in there? Is it a gateway to narnia? Maybe it's just a dead possum....

That desk is looking great.

-Grant

[seven]

Originally Posted by speakercoil

When you block a door like that you add mystique... Now it's like... Oooo I wonder what's beyond that door...

Heh .

It's the door to the outside.

[speakercoil]

Originally Posted by seven

Heh .

It's the door to the outside.

Well if you have a sweet studio and desk like that filled with gear, who would want to go to this "outside" you speak of.

-Grant

[seven]

I think I'll put a sign on it that says something like "Nothing to see beyond this point"

[Colonel Blues]

Aren't your speaker stands a bit too high ? You should have the tweeters at your ear level when you sit at the desk... is this the case ?

[seven]

They are pretty close in height at the moment, but yes, I think they are a bit tall. That WAS for a reason. That picture is right after I assembled the stands and ran a quick test of the room.

I'm not going to secure the stands until after all the equipment and acoustic treatments are in and I run a few more tests. At that time I'll make the final hight adjustment.

In fact, I don't even know if they're going to stay in that location in the room. I might bring them closer together and have them sit right behind the desk.

I won't know until everything is in and I can do some serious listening.

For now, it is close enough. I do know the monitors themselves will end up being a few inches higher because I'm setting the entire stand on a slab of rubber and there will be isolation foam between the monitor and the stand. But.. It will be easier to pop the top off the stand and cut it down 4-5 inches than to cut them too short and raise the whole thing 4-5 inches.

[seven]

You know what's funny. That picture is a little deceiving.

When I set up the test mic it was pointed right at the back of my head when I sat on the stool in front of it. But it looks like it would shoot right over my head in that picture.

Weird angle.

[Colonel Blues]

OK ! Keep on your nice construction ! And pictures, of course !

[seven]

Acoustic Treatments: I figure I'll start with the basics before I shoot the room again. These will be Superchucks in the four corners, two clouds, and a few panels in the first reflection points.
My base panel will be a 1x6 spruce frame, covered in fabric, and stuffed with rockwool. The dimensions are around 17"x47" - which is about the size of a 16" on center rockwool slab. The clouds will be several of these panels tacked together.




5 panels put together for the first cloud. I'm attaching some rope lights and testing them before I hang the panel.



Ohhhh. Pretty lights.



I make a few final adjustments.



And the first ceiling cloud is done. With the flash you can't really see the funky backlighting. Trust me, it looks cool. The fabric smoothed out by the next day so it isn't rough looking like it is in the picture.

[seven]

I got all the (vertical) corner superchunks in as well as a couple more panels on the ceiling. I hooked the monitors back up and gave it a listen. MUCH better. I might get a chance to shoot the room tonight to see how it responds.

I can still hear some echo in the back of the room between the ceiling and floor. I think the area carpet I have will help this. I also still have my first reflection treatments to build/install. Those are going to wait until I get the gear moved in.

Tonight or tomorrow I'm building my keyboard rack for the back wall.

[seven]

Acoustic Treatments: After hanging the main acoustic cloud, it was time to work on the superchunk treatments in the four vertical corners. I used about 250 square feet of Roxal Safe N Sound 24" OC insulation for these. Each insulation panel was cut in half into two 2'x2' sections. These were then cut diagonally. I built a frame on the wall with 2"x2", stuffed in the triangles, covered in fabric, and trimmed with silver painted 1"x2". In all, it was a fairly simple process.

Front superchunks.


Rear superchunks. Oh look, more junk on the back wall. Why does all this crap end up there?


I still need a handful of acoustic panels for first reflection zones and scattered around the room in various places. I have some Auralex 2" wedge foam from the old studio which I did not really plan to use in this studio. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste though. One thing foam has going for it - it does look cool. I decided to use it to cover a handful of panels. I built a frame out of 1"x4", drilled some holes in the sides, painted it silver, covered the back side of the holes with red fabric, stuffed the inside with Roxal Safe N Sound, and covered with some of the wedge foam. I think these look pretty cool. Very sci-fi tech.

Sci-fi tech acoustic panels. I have enough material for 6 of these. I'm still not sure where in the room these will live. I think some will be on the ceiling above the console.


Here is a shot of the back lighting on the first cloud. The back lighting is blue in the front...


..and red in the back.


Equipment Room: The equipment room is coming along nicely. I'm really going to enjoy standing behind the equipment racks to swap cables around. Of all the designs in this studio, I think the wall racks were one of my best choices. I get tired of reaching behind racks with cables in one hand and a light in the other. No more.

I only have a couple things to finish in here. I need to pop two holes in the wall to the outside for the air conditioning unit and drop the carpet. I have about 20 square feet of damaged Auralex 2" wedge foam (stupid cat). I'm going to hang this around the server room to help absorb the white noise from the computer fans and AC. Any Roxal I have left over from the main room panels will also hang in here.

In the picture below, right above the server rack, there is a round vent. This is my fresh air in vent. I can spin that vent cover to fully close it or adjust the amount of air in I need. The AC unit will live in the back left corner.

Equipment room.


The rest of the room: As you can tell by the pictures, I've started moving some stuff into the studio.

I still have the keyboard stands to build and I need to piant and lower the speaker stands. The area I've been calling "the keyboard nook" is no longer going to house keyboards. Instead I'm going to treat the crap out of it and turn it into a vocal booth type space. I'm going to get a heavy curtain which can be pulled shut to close out the rest of the room a bit.

Stuff in the racks. Synths are in the left rack, effects and other junk in the right.


How does it sound? I shot the room again after the superchunks were installed. They really helped smooth out the rough edges. Acoustically the room isn't there yet,. but it is getting closer. It sounds pretty good but I can still hear some flutter in the back section. MORE TREATMENTS!

I'm getting close now...

[LeMauce]

First all. Damn dude nice setup and studio build! Flutters?! time to build Skyline's my friend!

[mentat]

Any new photos?

[seven]

No.

I've got the console in, keyboard racks up and full, and the electrical connections have been run. Tomorrow I'll start the audio connections.

I'll take some pics over the weekend - and that might be the last of the pictures because I think I'll be finished.

[gollumsluvslave]

Lookin great mate!

You've given me a few ideas on how I'm going to lay out my room once it is finished!

[mikahanau]

I like the look of your sci-fi pannels.

verry sexy design
Your desk is also damm sexy

cheers
Mika

[seven]

I have audio and MIDI cables to run, but everything has power. There are a few more treatments which need to go in.

The studio is, for the most part, finished. (There are a few fiddly bits, but tonight I'm calling it DONE! Yippee!)

[seven]

Oh yeah, I decided to rebuild my speaker stands.

[Colonel Blues]

WOW !

I love the last pictures ! Nice lighting plan !

[Nolan Walker]

Looks like a very nice work-space, with a good atmosphere to roll out the tunes.

[seven]

Thanks guys.

It took a bit longer to complete then I expected but I'm pleased with it.

[seven]

Bumping this thread with a little video walkthrough.

[rodreb]

Studio looks great! Nice job. I noticed you're using the Echo Audiofire 12's..... I'm thinking of getting one of those and was curious as to how you like yours.

Thanks, Rod L. Short

[seven]

I'm really happy with the Audiofire product.

I had a small glitch when I installed them. It was a clean install of WinXP 64 bit. The drivers wouldn't install and I kept getting errors. As it turns out all I needed to do is install another multimedia device (in my case the MOTU midi interface) after that, they dropped right in. I'm not fully sure where the error was with that, but they've run stable ever since.

I plan on getting one more.

[rodreb]

Thanks, I have to say, Echo is the only interface I've looked into that almost nobody has anything bad to say about.

[seven]

Well, I still use one of their 10+ year old PCI Darla cards and they still provide drivers and it runs like a charm.

[rodreb]

seven, Do you have a link to anywhere that I could hear any of your stuff? I'd love to give a listen.

[Chauvin]

Nice Studio thumbsup