New Studio Construction - Franklin, TN

[mistervenable]

We are working with a relatively small area, but still plan on tracking drums here. The image of the current layout displays how everything was when we acquired the property. The total area of the "house" is 800sf. The tracking room is 11x16, and the control room is 11x14.5.

We plan to remove that partial wall completely, and replace it with a new wall that will be angled (so we don't make a perfect rectangle) and completely close off the tracking room from the control room. This new wall will be a double wall and will contain parallel sliding glass doors so we can pass from one room to the next.

We are also creating a 5' or 6' doorway (without a door) in the wall between the control room and the "mix room/lounge" so it will create a more open control room with additional seating for band members, etc.

This house was built in 1914 and still has original plaster walls with old hardwood floors (with carpet over them, for now).

Photos coming soon. I'll also try to get another sketchup of what we plan on doing with it.

[mistervenable]

The first picture is the front of the studio... basically the tracking room is on the left, and the control room on the right.

The second pic is looking at the partial wall, which we are ripping down, while standing in the tracking room, looking toward the control room.

The third pic is from the control room, looking into the tracking room... the other side of the partial wall (with a drawing desk installed)... say bye bye.

[mistervenable]

The 1st pic is of the "mix room B/lounge" room. That wall will soon have a walkway into the control room.

The 2nd pic is the console (Trident T24) sitting on the floor in the kitchen.

The 3rd pic is some of the mineral wool for making Ready Acoustic traps.

The 4th pic is the same stuff, but you can see a trap we just made, on the right.

I still itch from that stuff. The mineral wool was relatively inexpensive, and is the perfect size for our traps. We got 2'x4' 8lb 4" mineral wool, and some 2" as well. We put a 4" and 2" together to make 6" for the traps.

[mistervenable]

We just got done ripping up the carpet in the tracking and control rooms only to find a TON of carpet adhesive stuck to the wood floor. We knew we'd have to remove it, but we didn't think every inch would have glue. Oh man.

Pic 1: Lester is not looking forward to this. (tracking room)
Pic 2: Me either. (control room - the wall behind me will be gone tonight.
Pic 3: Contractor starting to demo the partial wall. Good... bye.
Pic 4: Same.

So, the $20 per bottle adhesive remover we bought doesn't do a thing to the glue on the floor, so we are renting a sander and we'll take care of it that way.

[mistervenable]

Our sliding doors are here!

They are dual-pane thick glass sliding doors we found on clearance at Home Depot - got the last 2. These things are usually $750 a piece, and I was dreading the cost of buying sliding doors... I'm so happy we found these so discounted.

Now, gotta find a heavy duty regular swinging door. Fun.

[Brenton]

Excellent, looks like a nice setting.

[mistervenable]

Thanks, I think it'll be great!

[mistervenable]

Here is a rough sketchup of what we are looking to do. The absorbtion panels on the wall in the tracking room will be angled towards the wall with the sliding doors, I just didn't know how to illustrate that. We plan on putting clouds in both rooms (tracking and control), too. The far left wall in the tracking room will have vertical wood slats of different depths for some diffusion, with insulation behind it to help absorb.

[mistervenable]

Got the dividing wall framed today (pic 1), looking from the tracking room into the control room. And, we got the hole cut in the wall that was formerly separating the control room from the 3rd back room (pic 2). The hole is now 2x that size, they misinterpreted my wish for a double sized open doorway.

By the way, our contractors consider 5 hours a long day. Grrr.

Tomorrow, we are going in to do some manual labor ourselves while the contractors finish hanging the walls, and installing the doors. We are going to sand the hardwood floors to remove that glue from the carpet, replace some of the boards with new ones, and we are planning on sanding and staining the console to give it a refreshed look. If we finish that, there are some holes in the drywall that need patching, and a whole lot of sound panels and frames that need to be built. We'll see.

[Tonio Ruiz]

it looks like a great project... congrats and best of luck

[Jonesfromindia]

wow cool. i wish i had a whole "house" to put my studio in.

good luck with the build.

[mistervenable]

Originally Posted by Tonio Ruiz

it looks like a great project... congrats and best of luck

Thanks! Don't be too surprised when you see that we are using one of your ideas on one of the walls in the tracking room. Vertical wood slats, here we come!

[mistervenable]

Originally Posted by Jonesfromindia

wow cool. i wish i had a whole "house" to put my studio in.

good luck with the build.

Thanks! We initially started looking into renting a room at an existing studio, but for a small fraction of that cost, we found this place. It is coming together... more pics in a few minutes.

[mistervenable]

Pic 1: The console is taped and protected, and partially sanded.

Pic 2: Finishing sanding the board.

Pic 3: One of the contractors installing the sliding glass doors. You can see where we had to replace some of the hardwood floor boards because the old ones were not going to cut it.

Pic 4: One coat of stain on the console. Still sitting in the kitchen, waiting for us to finish the control room for it.

Pic 5: Another view of the new wall and sliding doors. This pic is taken from the control room, looking into the tracking room.

Pic 6: Tracking room floor. That glue is thick, and the sander we rented would not take it off... it simply heated the glue and jammed the sand paper so it would do nothing. The partially cleared part of the floor is where I manually scraped the glue off with a hand scraper and some solvent. It's gonna be a long week.

[mistervenable]

We're getting close. We canned the contractors, they were terrible and slow, so we took matters into our own hands.

Pic1: After manually scraping the glue off the floor for 3 days, we rented a sander to finish up.

Pic2: The control room. The wall is complete and ready to be painted.

Pic3: Another view of the control room.

Pic4: Standing in the control room, looking back into the connected "lounge" section.

Pic5: Tracking room.

Pic6: Sanding the mud on the new wall in the tracking room.

Pic7: The floors have been sanded, and here they have just been stained.

Pic8: Looking into the control room.

Pic9: Same.

Pic10: Prepping wood slats for the "reflecting wall" which will soon be in the tracking room.

[mistervenable]

Pic1: The control room with stained floors and some paint... in progress.

Pic2: Some more of the wood slats, drying on the floor.

[goldenlotus]

Cool build!

[mistervenable]

Pic 1: We built the frame for the diffusion wall.

Pic 2: We inserted high density mineral wool into the frame and then covered it with a breathable black fabric.

Pic 3: Installing the wooden slats onto the frame. This part was fun.

Pic 4: The wall is up! We are putting bass traps by Ready Acoustics in the corners on each side of the wall.

[mistervenable]

New progress on the studio:

Pic 1: Installing the Ready Acoustics bass traps in the corners of the room.
Pic 2: Screwing hooks in the ceiling in the control room for the clouds.
Pic 3: Cloud 1. You can see the new thermal blackout curtains here.
Pic 4: It's cloudy in the control room now
Pic 5: Another shot, looking into the lounge area
Pic 6: Completed wall in the tracking room
Pic 7: The lounge, currently a junk room.
Pic 8: The new rack, with the patch bays installed
Pic 9: Putting the gear in the new rack

[LeMauce]

Aaah men.... A studio with the size of this and the allure is just porn for me. Classic and beautiful! Really like have you guys took up the job and thumps up for the floor!

[Tonio Ruiz]

Originally Posted by mistervenable

Thanks! Don't be too surprised when you see that we are using one of your ideas on one of the walls in the tracking room. Vertical wood slats, here we come!

COOL!!! do i get royalties for that??? kiddin!!!

it's looking great mate... great job!!!

[dylusion]

amazing job you guys are doing. love the whole feel to that room with the vertical wood, looks like it has a great vibe to work in. good atmosphere.

[asplashofcitrus]

Subscribed!

Amazing Robert. Congratulations!

[mistervenable]

Thanks everyone! It's still a work in progress, so stay tuned for more (better) photos.

Here's an update: We built a stand for the computer monitor (a 32" flatscreen tv) out of 4" PVC and plywood. It was relatively inexpensive, and since we used the solid core PVC, it is pretty sturdy! After we assembled it we spraypainted it black, after all, that's the studio way. We used the height of the console as a guide and fashioned the stand so that the tv would rest right at that level. I think you can see it in a photo or two.

We brought in the audio monitors and got them all phase aligned and calibrated, as well as the sub which is behind the console.

Now that the clouds are up, the bass traps and absorbers are in place, and some strategically placed Auralex are doing their thing, the room sounds great. We got all the gear in the rack(s) and the patchbay is connected with Planet Waves Dsub snakes with various end connectors (xlr, trs, etc.), and we went through every patch point on the patchbay to make sure it worked. We hit one or two small snags, but I think we've got them figured out.

The Mac Pro, hard drives, monitors, and other key pieces of gear are all running through a surge protector/battery backup system.

The Furman headphone system works like a charm. We ran cables for that and the snake through the wall by way of a hole we cut and completed with pvc in the corner behind bass traps.

Sorry for the lower quality images, I've been using my phone to take pics, so I will bring in a good camera soon to do more updates as we progress.

Pic1: Lester checking sounds!

Pic2: Ditto.

Pic3: We took a cereal break around midnight. Trix are also for tired engineers and producers, not just kids. Apparently, I blur easily.

Pic4: It was only fair.

[tmrstudio]

Looks great guys!!

[synthdood]

Looking good! I love the vibe of it all, great inspiration for when I am going to redecorate my own little home studio.

BTW: Is that a drink on top of the rack? ouch...

[The Beatsmith]

this looks exactly like what i wish i had e. congratulations!

[Myriad_Rocker]

Hey Robert, it's Brandon B. The studio is looking great! Congrats!

[mistervenable]

Thanks guys! Thanks Brandon!