DIESEL24062, New control room

[judah]

Hey all,
back from a very long hiatus. Me and my partner are gonna rebuild our old and fairly useless (just kiddin') control room in a few days.

Picture show the current state of affair. Door on the back wall (from entry hall), windows to both sides. Left window looks into tracking room, right window looks outside.

We're gonna demo 3 walls, left right and front. They're made of hollow core bricks, plastered on both sides (or maybe just on the inside, can't remember, too long ago).

More details to follow.

[judah]

Here's a brief sketch to show the job.

After demolishing the whole lot (3 walls and something), we'll turn the control room 90° to the left, with a front window facing the tracking room. Monitors (Tannoy System 15) will be flush mounted, front wall will be angled to create an RFZ zone all around the mixing spot. Old window on the right wall (now the back wall) will be plugged and a new wall made of wood studs and a couple layer of gypsum will be erected in front of it to bring the outside noise down a bit. Unfortunately we'll loose natural light but that doesn't concern us very much.

We'll use old corridor wall as left side wall of new control room and the old front wall as new right hand wall.

Sounds easy. Works start this coming Monday.

[judah]

BTW, last picture show the bare new control room. No acoustic treatment. We've been working in this studio for quite a while (some 10 years) and amassed a good chunk of info about studios and acoustic. We're no expert by any stretch of imagination but hopefully we'll pull it off somehow.

I personally read a few books (Newell's and Everest's) and looked at most of the building thread here and on other forums for years. We would have been probably better off with a designer, a pro designer, but unfortunately this will not be the case for the usual reasons (money and money and mo' money). Nothing to hide here.

We'll have some helping hands from friends and clients (namely a carpenter and a couple builders) but 90% of the job will be on our shoulders.

No fear.

[judah]

Here we go.

Day #0.

Yesterday we had our last session at the studio. Some bass overdubs for an upcoming project we're gonna continue in London within three weeks.
Anyway, I wrapped it all up at around 8PM, rest for a bit and then started disassembling the control room. Ended at around midnight or so. Most of the stuff was packed in the tracking room except for ProControl desk, outboard rack and (the scariest part) all the acoustic treatment.

Me and Fabrizio (partner at the studio) got together right after lunch today and started demolition. Tons (well, more like hundreds of kilos) of rockwool after we got our control room nice and empty, ready for the demolition party (to start tomorrow).

It looks like we have all the rockwool we need, or very close to it. The wood I used a few years ago to build the acoustic treatment will probably be scraped as we'll start from scratch.
After finishing the light part of demolition we decided right there on the spot that because we were goin to plug the one and only window we would probably better be off with replacing the wood floor. Mind you is not laminate floor but engineered, glued to the concrete under it. Anyway, in less than one hour we had more than half the floor naked. We're gonna put down something lighter in color, to bring back some much needed life and light. Laminated this time, easier and much more affordable.

So, stop the talkin. Time for a video. We're gonna have a video diary of the whole demolition/reconstruction process. Hope you like it. Any comment? More than welcome...

[judah]

Tryin' to embed a video. Noluck.

[judah]

[judah]

I probably got it right this time. Hurray.

[judah]

[judah]

As you can see (you? who are you? nobody is replyin' to my thread so it looks like I'm talking to myself, nothing new...) we demoed all the walls up to the perimeter. 8 cubic meter of debris. 282 cubic feet. A whole truck. Today we're gonna move the control room door a bit (60cm) and fix up all the little details. Then it's time to bring the stuff back and start mixing....














Just kiddin...lotsa things still to do.

Another video update will come tonight. Or at least it should...

[AlexK]

Wow, that's a fairly major re-model! Any particular reason why you've wanted to rebuild the room, or just a general upgrade?

[judah]

Originally Posted by AlexK

Wow, that's a fairly major re-model! Any particular reason why you've wanted to rebuild the room, or just a general upgrade?

Yeah Alex, but unfortunately there was no way to upgrade (or at least it wouldhave been a major pain in the back) the old control room. The only way was to trash it all and restart from scratch. Let's just say that it sounds doable (so far).

Masons are off. Done their part. Now it's time to clean up the place, put down some exact measure, go buy some wood, gypsum, OSB, caulk, plaster, wood floor, fabric, nails, screws....

[judah]

BTW, the new door looks incredible. Tiny details make all the difference in the world.

[judah]

[judah]

[judah]

As you can see from the last video, we framed and filled the back wall. As I'm writing our friend Stefano (HVAC) is installing the new tubes for the split machine. We had a bit of a headache re the machine 'cause it is a bit old (10 years) and uses some kind of gas that is not available anymore. We had to take the gas off, put new tubes and we'll have to fill it all up with a greener gas. All sorted off as far as I'm concerned.

Today we're gonna start with the front wall. Matteo (friend and client) and Fabrizio (my partner) are off to buy some lumber.

Later.

[judah]

Too tired to post a video update. We finished the front wall and the back wall. OSB is officially over. I'll probably take the weekend off and be back at the studio on Monday. It's time to put up the last layer (gypsum boards), put the speakers boxes into the front wall frame and then the acoustic treatment will be next.


Hope to have a couple pictures or a video tomorrow.

[judah]

Day #5 finished. The control room shape is plainly visible. First OSB layer done. All wood framing done. We're gonna be back on Monday. Gypsum, caulk and screws. Then it will be time for acoustic treatment.

[judah]

Ok. Day #6's over.
We finished the gypsum boards layer, put backer rod and caulk all around. We also managed to build the boxes that will house our beloved Tannoys.
Looooooong day.

Plan for tomorrow:

Finish the boxes off and put them into the front wall.
Put the last OSB and gypsum patches to close the front wall off.
Start with ther rear bass trap on the upper corner.
Finish the upmentioned bass trap!

Let's see if we make it.

[thatdbrown]

Looking Good!

[judah]

Originally Posted by thatdbrown

Looking Good!

Thanks. Very mucho appreciated.

[JoaT]

Will follow this, as it promises to be awesome. I should be doing something similar myself, but the finances...

[judah]

Day #7's over.


What have we done today? We finally sealed up the front wall, including the installation of the speaker boxes.
We also build part of the rear trap and as far as the back wall is concerned we should be done with it. Unfortunately we ran off lumber about 1 hour ago, so we had to stop earlier. First glitch. First lesson learned. Oh well, at least I got to see my girls.


Tomorrow we'd like to:


Finish the upper corner trap (back wall and side walls), start (and finish? who knows...) the back and side walls wood structure.
If we're gonna make it it would be great 'cause I'm leaving on Friday for 3 gigs in a row (Rome, Ferrara and Brescia) so I'm gonna be back at the studio next Tuesday, hence leaving Fabrizio (my partner) all alone for a few days.


I so would have liked to post a video but my midget brain forgot the SD card on the desk (right in front of me). See ya all tomorrow.

[judah]

Upper corner bass traps done. Pics (or video) coming. Time for lunch.

[judah]

Ok. Here we go.


I'm proud to say that today was a very good day. The entire framing for the acustic treatment is done. More than that, we also were able to start putting up some rockwool (I was so looking for that...No!).
Anyway, the whole picture looks good (at least for us, standing in the middle of the room, looking at what we've accomplished so far...).


Time for a video update.





Scheduled for tomorrow:


Putting up can light boxes and wiring them all up.
Starting to fill up the back upper corner trap with our beloved material (rockwool again).
HVAC guy (Stefano) will probably pass by to see if we screwed up something along the line.


The weekend will be full of surprises. We got a plan for that damn front wall. And I'm sure we can pull it off somehow.



That's more or less it. 'Gnight.

[judah]

Pictures.

[judah]

Time for a small update. I got back last night (or shall I say this early morning) and am still a little bit asleep. Today we're gonna buy the new wood floor (to be installed in a few days). Fabrizio is almost done with the front wall and I have to say that it looks amazing. I can't resist showing it off to everyone so I think that within few hours I'll have to publish a video or a few pictures. Just can't resist. A small teaser.
Anyway, we're officially off timeline by one day. Nothing to worry about. We planned to have the room 90% ready before leaving for London (this Friday) and it looks like we're gonna make it.
Keep up for us.
Later.

[judah]

Hey all,
got back from London safe and sound.
Spent a very good and funny weekend. The studio we were working at was absolutely superb and our assistant Al the best of the bunch.
Check it out by yourself:


http://www.kore-studios.com


This is a short teaser from the sessions:





We've done a couple of things at the studio since our return. Speakers are mounted and wired. Floor is done. Today is ceiling cloud day. Almost done. Will publish something at the end of the day.


Later.

[judah]

Ok. To sum it all up, what you can see in the above video is:


A 90% finished control room.
All acoustic treatment done (including ceiling clouds)
Speakers flush mounted and wired
Front wall (with stones) caulked and sealed
Front window and entry door in place


Tomorrow we're gonna put up all the fabric and probably start
taking some measurement to get a grasp and see if we fu**ed it all up
or not.
Stefano (HVAC guy) is supposed to come on Tuesday to wire the split machine
and we hopefully will reach a decent temperature in the room (it's getting freezing
cold here by the way).


Lemme know what ya all think about it. So far it's been a very positive and good
journey, let's hope we can keep up for a few more days and be done with it before
the end of the week.

[judah]

Impressive. Almost 2000 views and only 3 replies. I fear we fu**ed up the whole project. Just a few days and we'll see. Will keep our fingers crossed.

[JoaT]

Stone wall looks ace! I hope you get the kind of measurement data you were aiming for.

I think the lack of comments could be because of the videos instead of the photos. At least I am somewhat reluctant to watch them, not only in your thread but in threads like these in general.

The quality of work looks very good, expecially within the time constraints.

I'm anxious to see it finished!