Rock of London Studio

[Steve Honest]

HI Chaps
so thursday, and the builder is booked to come in and do a mdest little adjustment to our live room,
LAst year when i moved COntrol rom A and we cut the wall open into what was the drum booth, we left the 30 degree angles that served as soffits , and i reutiliesed one in the mid summer to lose the corridor alongside te live room to widen it, and on the other side , we made that an absorber.
Well today im bore of not having the little bit of floor space that eats up, so the little triangle return is coming out,
Benifits?
even though its about 2 sq meters of floor space it will feel like 20 sq meters , because the far wall will run un broken,
also the panal that was facing the kit on the ride cymbal side will be gone and i feel that this will reduce refelctions back onto overheadmics,
Im concerd becasue we do have a great drum sound, but i havnt knocked a wall down in nearly a year!!!!
and also im envious of trev at circle and the guys at Analouge baby, who are doing amazing builds,
here are a couple of pice this morning where i have removed some facing panals, the mic box, and the power plugs , cos im here an hour before the bulder and im bored!!!!

steve

[Steve Honest]

CHaps
while Paul , my new builder is smashing that triangle of wall and old speaker soffit down,
here is a picture of my just finished 59 bassman Clone, built from a Torres kit supplied by Barry Vyse.
SOunds amazing , Sparkling clean hi s , and also down right dirty when you push the 2 cascaded gain stages,
Rock and Roll the old fashioned way.

steve

[Blast9]

Steve, would love to check that bassman out some time!

[Steve Honest]

Hey there fella
you would be most welcome to come and have a tnker with it, bring your guitar and pedals , or use some of ours, im quiet all today till 6 and tomorrow im busy but the other studio is quiet so you can play about in there,
or just let me know by phone or email when you free and ill see if we have an open slot for you to come in and hear it,
its great value,
doner amp a broken Blues deville, £190, keep the box , the 4 x 10 s and the chassis and transformers, throw away everytig else
Kit from barry vyse £285
Frank cooke to build the kit , £200 though i had recut chassis holes yslef , and started the pcb and also fited all the new pots and also fitte the new reverb transformer.
great value methinks compared to about 3 grand for the real thing ,if you can find anybody daft enough to sell theres!!

steve

[Steve Honest]

paul the new builder is working out fine,
he is starting to get used to me butting in all the time and telling him exactly what i want and how i want it, which means he will be back!!!!

here is a 2 hour progress photo,

i have a drum session in at 6pm , so need the wall s out , the new frame installed with Rock wall in place and me hoovering and washing down , by 4 30 pm!!!
love a deadline
steve

[Steve Honest]

here is the half way mark , everything torn out,
paul will now start to make a frame that is closer to the outer wall, and the room will look huge (er ),
orderd fabric coverings for the new wall absorbers they will be here for monday when paul is in next to FIt them and also do a bit more stuff around the building

again and as always uncovering scary build techniques , from the previous occupier, and the electric's are particularly gonna need some TLC, but the more i do of this the less we have of there stuff



steve

[Steve Honest]

HIya
So one of the engineers nipped round at 4 30, and we managed tog et the live room cleaned up and ready for its first drums session by 6 pm!!!

all the construction part of this alteration is done, the builder comes back on monday to do finish s,

its a great change , the far wall of the studio is now running end to end, so even though i only added about 2.5 sq meters of floor space, it feels like 20 sq meters, just as i hoped it wood,
Also the large absorber on the side is now built within the frame of the wall, so we gain 4 inches of width from that, dosnt sound much , but it looks neater and you feel the space.

I was already at the studio for 11 hours when we started yesterdays drum session, so i can't say if the drum sound has got better, i do know it hasn't got worse, but today after a night sleep ill listen to yesterdays takes and see what i think,
but ill need to hurry we have 2 sessions int here today and this evening !!!!

steve

[Steve Honest]

HI Chaps

so we have had 7 sessions with drums in that live room since last thursdays work.
and i must say i can tell if the room sounds any better for the drums, but what is good , is it dosent sound any worse!!!!

the real benefit here is the room feels larger, much larger and how the customer perceives the room is all importnant,

Paul the builder is in today , im having him open up the inner walls and fitting our hung absorbers int the wood stud frame, this gives us 3 inches more space, which again is not much , but feels like much more and reduces the number of lines in the room, makes it feel larger and less cluttered

again we are in a hurry as i have a session in there at 6 pm!!! live to air radio session , full band
its all go

STeve

[Steve Honest]

So before i repaint te place, i thought i should cut more holes in the walls and expose more reflective surfaces , in one last corner where we have a bit of a Zing,

Oh, and i bought a Fairchild 660 !!
steve

[TjTminds]

this is looking great man, have any sounds for us to listen to fresh out of the new room?

[Rolf Ebitsch]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

Oh, and i bought a Fairchild 660 !!
steve

Hello Steve,

I'm happy for you !

R.

[Steve Honest]

Originally Posted by TjTminds

this is looking great man, have any sounds for us to listen to fresh out of the new room?

if you dial into Simon Raymond's radio show on the internet station Amazing radio , we do all the live band sessions for his show,
some great bands and performances right there

steve

[Steve Honest]

Originally Posted by Rolf Ebitsch

Hello Steve,

I'm happy for you !

R.

CHeers mate
this a life ambition filled,
on to the next one
steve

[Steve Honest]

HI chaps
sorry for the radio silence, i bought a fairchild last week and of curse i havant stopped playing with it!!!

SO back int he live room, i cut some more holes int he inner wall lining and restuffed them with denser Rock wool, as i want to damp the room a bit more,
and today im cutting the last 4 holes before the decorating kicks off tomorrow,
I must say this is a massive improvement to the sound and feel of the room ,
I just need to start getting it looking a bit better,
steve

[DaveUK]

Have it Steve !! you busy b'stard :+)
Where did you get the 660 ? Bound to be a story to it. Keep up the passion.

[Steve Honest]

The fairchild came thru a dealer in Paris
I was talking to them about 3 Pultecs i wanted to buy and we got a price and everything all worked out nicely, great exchange rate, ready to go, we we're casually chatting and i was going there the rest of my wish list , and he mentioned , oh we have a fairchild coming in tomorrow,
i immediately cancelled the pultecs and bought the fairchild on the spot,

Im the 3rd owner from New, the first owner was a noted French studio and Producer, and then the 2nd was a highly regarded pianist and studio owner in Lyon, and now me,

i have tried it on a few things, it sounds amazing ,
Im hoping it will pull in more work.
steve

[Steve Honest]

HI Chaps

So i have had to bite the bullit and install Air con, not a sophisticated nor pretty system, but wel thought out and i got a great deal on the best kit from Niel Blake,
its going in monday ill post pics
steve

[Arthur Stone]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

...Air con...

That's really cool Steve

Great to see the studio taking shape; also the range of signal paths...lots of bases covered.

[Steve Honest]

hi Arthur cheers for your kind words,

So chas this morning the Aircon units all got delivered and are waiting to be installed on monday morning,

The carpenter is on his way in to build a frame for the COndensers to sit in,
as we are not allowed to put them outside, we have to arrange them in a window withen a frame and casing, pain in the arse, but thats our building management committee for you.

Steve

[Steve Honest]

Day 1 of Air con install
and the guy were on time, polite, clean in there work and just got on with it,

We cant pt our condensers outside, local planning adn the people who run the building , wont even listen, but i took out 2 panes of glass and built a rabbit hutch to put them in and they are gonna work just fine, we lose a little bit of Kitchen space, but the control rooms will be comfy.

we got as far as the SSL room system being gas tested over night and will be run up tomorrow,
and the Neve room system, needs it pipe work, but they expect to finish both by tomorrow home time

Our electrician cant get in to run the power out till tuesday eve at earlisit so it may be a couple fo days yet, before we can run the both systems, but there you go
steve

[Steve Honest]

NOt much to report
added a Pultech meq 5, sounds a lot better then the plug ins i have heard,
about to add a Pair of ATC 100slm actives to the neve room to replace the atc 20 s we have in there
bought a DBX compressor and old one, sounds great on kik drum
other than that no build news , though i have an idea im talking to the landlord about , that wi be amazing if we go ahead with it
Steve

[DaveUK]

As long as you're busy :-)

[Steve Honest]

SO
got a couple of those fairchild optical comps the 663 s , having make up amps made for them, so let you know what they are like,
bought a U47, amazing , on kik drum and vocals, but you knew that.

And next job is to take down the back wall of our SSL control room, its cramped in there, so the corridor outside is used as an ISO booth, im taking 2 thirds of te wall down to leave a smaller iso booth, but adds 3 feet to the depth of the room, and now the desk restore is all done i will push the desk 2 feet forward, so im adding 5 feet in total,
perhaps then we can do a bit of decorating and improve the ook of the whole place

Steve

[Trev@Circle]

Look forward to finally seeing the place!

[Syncamorea]

Can we see more photos?

(of the rooms AND the gear!)

[Steve Honest]

SO
11pm Saturday Guitar session Finishs
8 am Sunday 2 builders arrive to tear dwon he back wall of the small SSL control room and convert the hall way out there in to part of the control and new back wall and also a small iso booth/air lock to the live room

6 pm SUnday Drum session in this same SSL room

I like getting things done quick

Im running out of alterations , i may have to decorate soon

Steve

[Steve Honest]

SO regular readers will remember a while back i bought a pair of ATC 100 actives.
they were dropped into the control room and sat there happily facing the wrong way, well today they are going in to the soffits,
As usual we are in a hurry, Andy the builder cam at 7 30 this morning, and im hoping he will make risers for them and recut the facing of the soffit to fit them in time for a 6 pm tracking session this evening,

I know, but its a consequence of being very booked.

Steve