Pete's Mix and Overdub Room

[brrecording]

So today it started, digger arrived at 8am to start digging out the garden for my 18ft6 x 15ft6in (internal dimensions) small mixing and overdub room!

The room will also contain a small toilet and very small machine room (see picture)

Almost instantly we hit a very serious problem, the land we're building on is pretty much bog land. 1ft under the grass there is a layer of turf so we made the decision to put in a concrete base to build onto (i dont really understand much about building but i think i heard it refeered to as a "floating concrete base"!"

The concrete arrives in the morning and ill try get some more plans and actual pics up then!

Pete

[brrecording]

my pic didnt attach by the looks of things, i went into add attachment and uploaded it, is this the right thing to do?

Sorted

[amishsixstringe]

Your bathroom is a cube. It's gonna sound bad. Hope you like it that way. I kid, I kid.


I look forward to seeing your progress.

Neil

[brrecording]

Sorry I havent got to update this much! ive been away working everywhere in the country except at home!

Due to the extremely wet ground we went with a floating concrete base as the builder was afraid of the building sinking! not the best way to start

[brrecording]

Due to the weather, the building was a bit of a slow process but was helped by our decision to use 9" cavity blocks rather than solids as the cavities can be layed in less than ideal conditions!

After letting the blocks dry out for a week or so the roofer was in and got it up and felted in two days in gale force winds......a braver man than me!

[brrecording]

Then it was back to work on the inside with the batons there to leave a breathable space for the insulation.

Roof was slabbed and insulated on top with 3 layers of rockwool fiberglass insulation!

Since then the walls have been slabbed with 63mm insulated plasterboard and plastered. The electrics have also been finished and the plumber is in tomorrow to install the rads and the toilet etc.

Ill try load up more pics tomorrow but this evening ill load up a rough drawing of the room and mark where ill be setting up, if anyone could advise me on acoustic treatment thatd be great as ive changed my mixing position and im not entirely sure of what to do.

PS say hi to my gf and assistand pic taker

Pete

[brrecording]

attached is the rough plan and set up of the room. the idea of the gear and me in that position is to leave as much open space in the room for overdubbing and recording etc.

Im thinking bass traps in every corner and although i think a diffusor on the wall directly behind me would work really well its impossible because of the window there. Is there another ideal position for a diffusor?

Im thinking of putting reasonably heavy curtains on the windows so if i close them during mixing it will dampen the reflections a bit.

Im also thinking a bit of foam on the ceiling above the mixing position to stop rogue reflections and also on the mirror point with the speakers on the left and right of the mixing position.

Im a bit unsure as to what to do with the rest of the room as the last thing i want is a dead room as ill be recording mostly acoustic instruments.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated

Pete

[muziekschuur]

This looks like a great place.

[brrecording]

Originally Posted by muziekschuur

This looks like a great place.

Thank you very much, I was going to split it into 2 smaller rooms but decided against that as I prefer to be in the same space as the musicians!

It's really coming along now, plumber finished up today and tomorrow I'll be going and buying the insulation and wood to make the bass traps.

I'll post a few pics tomorrow

Pete

[brrecording]

A few more pics. Really I'm just giving the space a chance to properly dry out before painting and putting the wooden floor in.

These pics are as it is now! Notice the plug sockets in each top corner with the black wire coming out of them, black wire will be dmx for the LED par cans that will eventually provide the mood lighting.

Sorry about the phone pics!

Pete

[brrecording]

The painting has started!

Went with white for the ceiling and "just lemon" for the walls. Spent alot of time thinking about colours and went with this to keep the room nice and bright. I'm not a fan of the dark and dingy bat cave!

Also the last pick is of the computer cabinet to keep the fan noise out of the room.

Pete

[dbsanz]

It looks great, i like the environment and the house as well ;-)

[brrecording]

Painting the main room is finished and the wooden floor is fitted! Lots of DIY going on here! Skirten boards are stained too.

Condensation is becoming a bit of a problem as the light switches and windows appear to be sweating quite a bit!

[brrecording]

I also went and got the rockwool and wood to build corner bass traps. Have to get the fabric today and hopefully start building them tonight

[brrecording]

First corner bass trap done! Took a bit longer than expected but we got there in the end! Enrolled the DIY king (my dad) to help out and started. First we did the frame, then stuffed it with rockwool and finally covered the front with a nice red fabric.

It was quite simple to do but I still have to put some panels at the side and top and bottom to give it a better look.

Pete

[andreaeffe]

Hey Pete -

congratulations on your room & build.

I like the simplicity of the idea and the no-bull & no-fancy-pants approach to making it happen, no big words but common sense - and, also nice your dad is working with U at it.

Hope it turns out well & good sounding.

And - hope U get a nice analogue mixing console, big or small but just suitable, to best take care of your mixing/overdubbing and CR/comms/auxes/routing/listening etc needs.


Keep us posted - kind regards,

A
F

[brrecording]

Thank you very much! I was under no illusions that I needed to keep this simple as I had a relatively small budget and I really didn't want to over complicate things. It's the same with the acoustic treatment, I'll do what I know should make a difference at this stage and keep reading/learning/tweaking as I go.

As regards to the analogue console.....I wish! Unfortunately the budget isn't quite there at the minute and I don't want to waste money on something rubbish to leave it sitting there unused! I have a couple of decent pres (2 x Amek, a joe meek vc1q (the old ted fletcher one) focusrite octopre to cover any drums) and a few decent comps (ridge farm boiler, 2 x RNC's, DBX 160x) and a rock solid interface (rme fireface 800) so I'm going to stick with that until I can afford a small Neve or something similar)

I can also give up to 3different phones mixes so hopefully that's enough for now!

I will definately go the analogue route when I can afford some really good stuff though!

Pete

[brrecording]

All the bass traps are now finished, two at 2.1 metres high and two at just under 1 metre high ( for my position)

Tomorrow its on to damping down the reflection points and getting some gear in. Going to use foam for now as I've a few sessions booked in and haven't got time to build my own with denser rockwool!

Pete

[brrecording]

Got alot of work done today, took a trip to ikea and decked the place out! Also I'm reasonably happy with the basic acoustic treatment I have done but the room sounds.....slightly hollow.....when I shout in it. Going to try work that out tomorrow.

First pic is the mixing position and the second pic is behind the mixing position.

Pete

[brrecording]

so today i did some tests with REW and im not particularly happy! Theres a couple of grand canyons id like to get rid of centered around 80 and 250 hz. The rest doesnt look too bad but the more i can even it out the better! if anyone has any advice im forever in your debt!!

My room already has 4 bass traps (see above) and foam at the reflection points. Maybe swapping out the foam for rigid fiberglass would be a far better bet!

Pete

[brrecording]

So I've been working in the studio for a couple of months now but have also being DIY-ing some traps and stuff in the evenings. So here's the mixing position as it is currently! The cloud is 2" RW3 hanging about 6" from the ceiling, the wall panels are also 2" RW3 mounted 2" from the wall except the panels behind the speakers which are 4" RW3 saddling the corners.

To my ears the cloud made the biggest difference, the stereo imaging is alot better and has really opened up the HS80's. I thought I really didn't like the speakers but I'm starting to think I just really didn't like the rooms I was in!

Pete