stardustmedia studio upgrade

[deft_bonz]

Hi dear gearslutz

Thanks to all your experiences and wisdom you share here, you all helped me much.I highly appreciate this community with its openness and frankness. Gearslutz.com made this upgrade possible for me. So I'd like to give something back to you: foto diary of my next studio upgrade.Although it's not a real build, as many others do and who I really envy for, I hope you might be still interested in my goal: full analog mixing.

I was planning for 3 months now. The finances and gear wish list mile stones just ended and I placed my orders. Thanks a lot to Robb from Alto Music, Ryan from Vintage King and George Necola for their efforts to send me quotes and quotes over and over again and for their service. I finally decided to do the deal with Andreas from Flyline. He always lent us gear for free, we already bought gears from him and he's a great, friendly and reliable guy.

So... let's start with the slutty phtos

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That's how my studio looked like in April.



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WSDG already made some acoustic treatments, that were installed in April. Just the empty space above the booth will be also filled in November.

There are now 4 absorbers, 2 at the back of the screens:




and 2 on the ceiling above the sail:




...oh yeah... you may noticed it already, I got 2 new screens. Upgraded from 22" to 47" why buying glasses, if you can have 2 huge screens for less


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This is the gear I'm going to buy:

1 Apogee DA16X (a second one for 32 channels)
1 API 2500
1 API 525
2 Rupert Neve 5033
1 BAE 11 Module Rack
1 API 500 VPR 10er (wanted another BAE, but this one is for free when buying more than 8 new modules, sooo ... )
1 A Designs EM-PEQ
2 Chandler Germanium Comp
2 Chandler Little Devil EQ
2 Great River 32EQ
2 Purple Audio LilPEQr
2 LaChapell 503
1 JDK Audio V14
1 Little Labs VOG
1 SSL X-Desk
1 SSL X-Panda
1 Bricasti System 1
8 Alesis 3632
1 Funk Logic Palindrometer
plus 16 Mogami snakes for the SSL mixers



The Apogee, API 525, JDK V14 and Funk Logic already arrived:







**********************************


Stay tuned!

[deft_bonz]

PS: This is the installation plan. Not yet fixed, so I'm open for suggestions

[jnurp]

deft bonz, that is just an amazing setup, congrats.

[deft_bonz]

Thanks, hope everything will work out according to my plan


PS: The curtain stays... for the 70s vintage flair

[DR Music]

wow.... you must be doing very well!!
nice gear and new gear coming!

[deft_bonz]

Thanks.
Yes I'm doing well and I'm the happiest man on this world.

I got today my first delivery. My first born sweet baby girl... ok it's a "little" OT












I got an email, that my 2 Harrison 32EQs arrived today too... what a lucky day

[DR Music]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

Thanks.
Yes I'm doing well and I'm the happiest man on this world.

I got today my first delivery. My first born sweet baby girl... ok it's a "little" OT












I got an email, that my 2 Harrison 32EQs arrived today too... what a lucky day

Congrats!!!!!!!

[jrakarl]

Wow, what a great series of upgrades and changes! :-)
I have some sumilar outboard to you: PCM70; H3000 and my beloved DP4. The only issue I have with the DP4 is that it's unbalanced.
How have you got yours set up, integrated with your other gear? Is it hooked up to a balancing amp prior to attaching it to a patch bay? Straight to an aux send... or keyboard mixer?


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[Colonel Blues]

This Palindrometer is really a must !!!

[Scott LaChapell]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

Thanks.
Yes I'm doing well and I'm the happiest man on this world.

I got today my first delivery. My first born sweet baby girl... ok it's a "little" OT ...

WOW, Congrats! My wife and I just took home our first baby girl too! In fact, she's crazy right now, better go feed 'er

[kranku68]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

Thanks.
Yes I'm doing well and I'm the happiest man on this world.

I got today my first delivery. My first born sweet baby girl... ok it's a "little" OT

yeahhhhhh !
congrats man !...

and now you've got to savor every single day that will pass...believe me they're too fast...
i've got two of these girls...
for me they 're born just yesterday...one is nearly 18 and the other is 15...
too fast, too bad...boyz 're coming 'round the house and i'm waiting with a baseball bate !

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by jrakarl

Wow, what a great series of upgrades and changes! :-)
I have some sumilar outboard to you: PCM70; H3000 and my beloved DP4. The only issue I have with the DP4 is that it's unbalanced.
How have you got yours set up, integrated with your other gear? Is it hooked up to a balancing amp prior to attaching it to a patch bay? Straight to an aux send... or keyboard mixer?


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My DP/4 is balanced. But it shouldn't make any difference if it was unbalanced. You need to hook it up right. Mine is integrated thru the patchbay. Had no issues.

Thanks to all for your wishes. We'll see if I'm going to wait with the baseball bat Hopefully she will be religious and live chastely

[deft_bonz]

According to my installation plan, I wanted to put all the 500 racks in front of me into the console. Then I noticed, that due to my modification to the Argosy console (replaced the space for my old Mackie 8-bus with 2 racks) I would be able to put in gear only with a depth of 4-5 inches



So I checked how I can mod the console and found out, that I can take out the mounting support, that was intended to protect the Mackie 8-bus, when placing heavy stuff on top of the shelf. That's not needed anymore, because I bought to 47" screens, that will be placed behind the console. Besides, the 2 extra racks in the middle already work as a mounting support, so I disassemled the original mounting supports.

*phewww* lucky me

[jrakarl]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

My DP/4 is balanced. But it shouldn't make any difference if it was unbalanced. You need to hook it up right. Mine is integrated thru the patchbay. Had no issues.

Wow, yours must be a rare model, as I thought all DP4's were unbalanced. The DP4+ is balanced. Maybe I didn't look close enough at the photo.

Great upgrade and all the best with it.

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[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by jrakarl

Wow, yours must be a rare model, as I thought all DP4's were unbalanced. The DP4+ is balanced. Maybe I didn't look close enough at the photo.

Great upgrade and all the best with it.

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Now you get me worried. Made a cable and plugs overview and looked at the DP4's rear. I think I saw it labelled balanced... but I'll check that out again.

[jrakarl]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

Now you get me worried. Made a cable and plugs overview and looked at the DP4's rear. I think I saw it labelled balanced... but I'll check that out again.

Sorry to worry you. It's been a issue for me in the past and if you can integrate it into a balanced patch-bay we'll continue via PM as I may have got my wiring wrong.
I purchased a DP4+ because of the balancing, but they do sound different (probably familiarity, but I like the sound of the DP4 more) and the amp sims are so good in the DP4+ I left it in my guitar rack.

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[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by jrakarl

Sorry to worry you. It's been a issue for me in the past and if you can integrate it into a balanced patch-bay we'll continue via PM as I may have got my wiring wrong.
I purchased a DP4+ because of the balancing, but they do sound different (probably familiarity, but I like the sound of the DP4 more) and the amp sims are so good in the DP4+ I left it in my guitar rack.

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Easy

It's not that I have sleepless nights. I'll just have to recheck it for my cable guy. Anyway it shouldn't be any issue to hook up balanced and unbalanced gear on a patchbay. I don't know how, but my cable guy should know

[DanDaMan]

Congrats on having a baby The studio looks like it's really coming on too. Congratulations all round sir!

[deft_bonz]

Checked the DP/4 again. You were right, it's unbalanced. Don't know where I got the balanced thing from

Today I got my power cables and plugs, so I can make them custome length. I hope this will be enough.

[jrakarl]

PM'd ya

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[deft_bonz]

Came yesterday, my 16 Mogami snakes for the SSL X-Desk and X-Panda. One end has the DB25 the other are prepped for the patchbay. Plus some straps and cable ties. From the first look, Redco made a good job.

[deft_bonz]

Last week the new Argosy 9283 rack enclosure arrived and I couldn't wait for my studio mate, so installed it alone this weekend

The package arrived and filled the whole room.
Opened the first smallest box, as instructed with a bright yellow sticker
Argosy packed everything pretty well. Just found 3 small scratches, after it went from US to Switzerland. You won't see them *wow*
Decabling and cleaning the space.
Put all the stuff to the other side of the studio and layed all the parts on the ground ready for assembling.
Last pic: almost done...

[deft_bonz]

And then I couldn't resist to fill it up with gear, just to get the feeling how it's going to look like. There are still some gear missing. They'll arrive soon, maybe this week. But the cables will be ready end of november. The planned grand reopening is 3rd December

[skyshooter]

Looking good there!

[jrakarl]

Wow .. that looks terrific!!!

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[deft_bonz]

thanks guys. was quite a hard work. especially installing the gear after building the rack, all alone. kinda work out: with one hand holding the akai sampler and with the other trying to put in the screws

Today at 8pm I'll get some of the new gear I ordered.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

thanks guys. was quite a hard work. especially installing the gear after building the rack, all alone. kinda work out: with one hand holding the akai sampler and with the other trying to put in the screws

Today at 8pm I'll get some of the new gear I ordered.

I assume you had a screw gun....doing that handscrewing them in deeply sucks.....lol

Congrats on the daughter and fab studio!

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

I assume you had a screw gun....doing that handscrewing them in deeply sucks.....lol

Congrats on the daughter and fab studio!

You assumed wrong... handy man me
Thanks

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

You assumed wrong... handy man me
Thanks

lol....no wonder you hated it. All this gear and you don't own a screwgun? I would question your manhood if you hadn't just had a daughter....

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

lol....no wonder you hated it. All this gear and you don't own a screwgun? I would question your manhood if you hadn't just had a daughter....

Kinda true, I just have a pro drill, that is too strong and heavy just for screws. My studio mate has a screwgun at home, but he was in Amsterdam