New Studio Construction Almost Finished in Austin, TX - pics!!

[Mark Warren]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone here who had feedback along the way and share some photos as my new studio is now just about finished and ready to rock in Austin, TX!!

This studio was a converted warehouse that had been used by several previous tenants over the past years for various audio related endeavors. I was going to start one of those ‘studio build’ threads but as many of the interior walls were in place when we found the building, there wasn’t as much build out as there was repair of every facet imaginable, and not really exciting repairs. Instead of testing pres I was trying to figure out how to 'make a bathroom' in the early weeks.

At one time someone even lived here and had a put up a wall dividing the largest room, the live room, for purposes of their living convenience, and there were washer dryer hookups poking through the back wall into the live room!!

But 4 months and many dollars later in gear and materials, the place is finally looking and sounding really good! We had to finally pick a name and have christened the place “5am Studios” for all the nights we were in there trying to finish the place.

Thanks again to everyone here for all the feedback as well as all the vendors whose products I found out about on GS and who when contacted directly: provided first-class service and five star gear, many of whom are also named specifically below. Please feel free to contact me anytime with any questions about any aspect of the studio, its gear, construction, whatever!

(floorplan coming here)

[Mark Warren]

Control Room

These walls were in place when we moved in but nothing else. Oh, except whoever was using the place previously had a 2" thick piece of square non-lami glass (looked like from a large coffee table) put up over the rectangle size whole in wall, then they had filled in the gap with pieces of old fence post wood!

Totally hilarious. We fixed it with laminated glass of varying thickness and sealed it up all proper following many of the instructions put forth on the Auralex website - http://www.acoustics101.com/interior_windows.asp We're still experimenting with various acoustical treatments and are getting closer to a flat response in the room every day. Real Traps, Custom 703 Traps, Auralex, and others currently grace the room.

Of note are the Aviom cue system remotes, totally awesome, along with racks of gear porn, which I'll post pictures of in a minute. Unseen is a new G5 with ProTools HD3 and about a mile of Mogami cable, including the DB25 snakes and front patch cables too.

[Mark Warren]

Rear of Control Room

This shot is taken from where the chairs are in the previous photo looking backwards towards the rear of the room. As you can see there is a lot of room in here! We've had 10-12 people in the control room at times and you can still breathe comfortably. That a RealTraps mondo trap back there – special thanks to Ethan Winer and RealTraps for awesome service and a great product!


The window looks into one of the iso areas (actually a whisper room weighing half a ton) and that's in an area with a large section of open warehouse where we are currently finishing off into a B Room and cool lounge to contain a big screen and Xbox 360!!

[Mark Warren]

Live Room

The ceiling is a lot higher in here than the control room of course. The room is actually so 'live' that you could use it as a reverb chamber when there's nothing in it! We've got pads and paneling and roll-out carpet to custom tune it as needed. Gotta check out that Orange Rockerverb combo in the pic if you get a chance, that thing sounds insane!

We’ve had several bands in already while we've been finishing up testing everything and all the tracks done in here so far sound great. I’ll post some pics soon showing mic’d up drum kits (where we’ve got like 16 mics on the kit) and lot of other cool photos.

[Mark Warren]

Live Room Angle

That remote control on the drum throne next to the Aviom is actually a remote control that controls any of the lighting in the studio in whatever room you're in. Perfect way to 'set the mood' wherever you go. Remote dimmer unit is like $30 at home depot and you can mount it just about anywhere, including directly to the power supply on track lighting. Just aim at whatever lighting you want and shazaam!

[Mark Warren]

Gear Porn - Rack 1

So much of the gear here was demo'd, tested, and compiled based on the feedback and sharing of information here on GS. A personal thanks to anyone who has ever posted a review on anything here for helping in choices to assemble all this great stuff, it all works together perfectly, not a bad channel in the bunch. Also got a chance to hear a very wide selection of gear at Michael Wagener's WireWorld Workshop earlier this year where we tested out just about every combo of mic/pre/compressor you could think of! Was very helpful in sorting out what to buy and maybe what not to as well. Spending 10 days with Michael Wagener made permanent my desire to open a studio and devote my life to it, thanks Michael!

This rack sits in the desk itself, so that the pres are right at your fingertips. Super quick to get and adjust levels as needed, along with making it easier to read the LTD-1 and GML EQ's, which are a pain to read in a standard vertical rack in my opinion. Preamps sound great, and each has it own great flava. We love the Pacifica so much just got a second one that can be seen awaiting racking in the Rack 3 photo. Extra special thanks to Peter Montessi at A-Designs, Peter is one of the coolest guys on this planet as far as I'm concerned. The Pacifica is a new classic and wins over just about anyone who has come in and used it for tracking.

[Mark Warren]

Gear Porn - Rack 2

I'm including a 'now' shot on the left and a 'future' shot on the right (empty rack spaces bug me, they must all be filled!!) as we're waiting on a few pieces to arrive to fill in the lunchbox and that slot next to the LA-3A. Missing from the photo also is an A-Designs ATTY 2'D that's going in the very bottom but we just haven't racked it yet. Not sure if we'd actually get that many 560 EQ's, as now that A-Designs, Speck, and Daking have released their EQ's we'll probably get two of each of those!

All these comps and EQ's sound so great it's hard to choose sometimes. That Smart C2 is one magic box, and the Great River EQ is amazing. Anyone want to come over and check the place out sometime just send me a PM!!

The vast majority of the gear is new and several of the Austin area GearSlutz have come by recently for gear comparisons and shootouts. We’ve learned some very interesting things in the process and I’ll be posting some audio files in the coming weeks with the results from mic pre and compressor shootouts.

[Mark Warren]

Rack 3

Meat and potatoes here. Using a 192 i/o along with a Rosetta 800 for a total of ballpark 24 i/o currently. There's also the rack unit controller for the Aviom system at the bottom. That thing is so brilliant. Totally digital but basically no latency as it uses a different conversion than the kind used to record tracks, I think it's latency is measured in microseconds, not milliseconds. Each person gets their individual own control of up to 16 channels of audio bused to their control box for a truly personal headphone mix.

Dangerous ST monitor controller rack unit is shown at top and I pasted a shot of the remote at the bottom. Thanks to Bob Muller and staff at Dangerous, those guys are class acts as well. One of the best things about getting high end gear is the level of personalized support from the people that actually make the stuff.

That's our second Pacifica at the top, just came in, that might actually go in a mobile rack we're putting together, for Pacifica on the go!

[Mark Warren]

Guitars

There’s about 12-15 guitars usually hanging around, these are a couple of my favs. A Gibson Les Paul Supreme and PRS Custom 22 Artist Edition. Some cool amps too include that Orange combo pitcured above, an Engl Powerball head, a pristine 65' blackface Vibrolux Reverb, Bogner 4x12 cab, and some custom stuff as well.

[Mark Warren]

From Dump to Trump

This room was previously a storage room with nothing but cinder block wall and a rotting floor that had a mechanics sink in it and the whole room looked like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We decided with a few trips to Home Depot we could spruce it up and fashion a real bathroom out of it, and went with what you see here. Recent copy of Sweetwater catalog to read while taking a crap is included at no charge.

Missing from the photo is the other side of the bathroom with the urinal, and I now know more about bathroom plumbing and various facets of toilet selection and installation than I ever thought I would in this lifetime. If you need any studio plumbing tips just let me know!

[dwdrummer]

Hey man, Awesome studio! Next time I'm down in Austin, I'll definitely come check it out. I live in dallas, and I'm in austin a lot. I'll bring all my stuff and we can do some shoot outs. I've always wanted to hear how good the C2 sounded on my mixes. But yeah man, looks great! Where abouts in Austin is this?

[Mark Warren]

Oh yeah! Should mention where it's at!

The location is excellent IMO - the studio is located right on South Congress Ave. near Oltorf, roughly only 5-10 minutes south of downtown. It's in that hip 'SoCo' district where all those restaurants and shops are.

In fact there's no less than 20 restaurants with 5 minutes of the studio, plus an HEB supermarket, Blockbuster, Radio Shack, assorted hotels/motels, and Guitar Center is 15 minutes away as well.

So if there's anything needed in a session it takes no time at all to make it happen.

Thanks, and anytime you're coming down from Dallas just give me a shout!

[Kris]

[Dan]

cool place! congrats on the new studio!

[orange]

looking good

[Reag1502]

Beautiful studio My family has a ranch in the hill country and I go to Austin a lot, so would love to come by and check it out. Also on another note, is it a requirement to always have a black couch in every studio in the world? Is that in the written contract that there MUST be a black couch, or it will never get built? LOL Every studio I have ever gone into has a black couch, not white, green, purple, black.

[djui5]

[Mark Warren]

Thanks guys!!

Originally Posted by Reag1502

Beautiful studio My family has a ranch in the hill country and I go to Austin a lot, so would love to come by and check it out. Also on another note, is it a requirement to always have a black couch in every studio in the world? Is that in the written contract that there MUST be a black couch, or it will never get built? LOL Every studio I have ever gone into has a black couch, not white, green, purple, black.

It's funny on the black couch. We were pretty much set on the side walls being that beige color as it's fairly neutral, and some of the treatment I already owned was in that color scheme incl Real Traps and some Auralex.

So we had the opportunity to pick up the black couch, and in wondering if that was an okay color seeing as how the walls were beige, we started looking online at pictures of studios and back of control rooms/lounges etc. Almost every picture HAD A BLACK COUCH no matter what color the place was! So we said, 'Well there ya go, one black couch comin up!'

Also, I've gotten some PM's from folks that had a question about wanting to intern, and yes we are actuvely seeking interns, both for now and the future. Please PM me or email me at:




In regards to prospective clients of the studio, we are positioned to work both with aritsts and bands that would like to record, mix and/or master here. We are also actively seeking outside producers and engineers who would like to come and use the studio for their own bands/artists/projects. We are going to offer rates both with and without engineer, i.e. if you just want to book the room and use the gear for however you'd like. There is always a technical assistant onsite regardless, if there are any questions about patch bay points, where a certain mic or piece of gear is located etc.

We just want to make great records in here no regardless of who's pushing the buttons. There's nothing cooler than having a band come in who just has their song ideas and maybe some basic demos sketched out and they leave here with a finshed record and a big smile on their face. It's like wow, we were instrumental in helping to bring an artistic vision to life. Very rewarding this studio thing.

[HudHudson]

Congrats again, Mark. It was nice to see (and hear) the completed room during our 1176 shootout last week. Let's do it again soon!

[George Necola]

you own only ONE GERMaNIUM preamp?

sorry man, you are not a professional

congrat! looks very nice!

[Mark Warren]

Originally Posted by George Necola

you own only ONE GERMaNIUM preamp?

sorry man, you are not a professional

congrat! looks very nice!

LOL!

Yes, I ordered it when they were only like $800 or something, and was buying it mostly on the hype, and then for some reason it took forever to get it. Once I got it and realized how awesome it was - I wished I'd bought two!! Especially now that price was way higher.

Also I had one Chandler power supply with two outs, one for the LTD-1 and then for the Germanium. Now I'll need to get another power supply...

[Mark Warren]

Originally Posted by HudHudson

Congrats again, Mark. It was nice to see (and hear) the completed room during our 1176 shootout last week. Let's do it again soon!

Right on man!

Thanks and we should definitely get together again soon. That 1176 Rev D you brought had such a nice tone to it. I'm realizing now that vintage studio gear is no different than vintage guitar gear, etc. - If you get a nice piece in minty condition it's totally the shit yo!

If you need a safe home for it while you get your place going there's a couple spaces in the rack here to fill, maybe we can work out some 'rent' on it

[Peter Montessi]

Originally Posted by Mark Warren

Rack 3

Meat and potatoes here. Using a 192 i/o along with a Rosetta 800 for a total of ballpark 24 i/o currently. There's also the rack unit controller for the Aviom system at the bottom. That thing is so brilliant. Totally digital but basically no latency as it uses a different conversion than the kind used to record tracks, I think it's latency is measured in microseconds, not milliseconds. Each person gets their individual own control of up to 16 channels of audio bused to their control box for a truly personal headphone mix.

Dangerous ST monitor controller rack unit is shown at top and I pasted a shot of the remote at the bottom. Thanks to Bob Muller and staff at Dangerous, those guys are class acts as well. One of the best things about getting high end gear is the level of personalized support from the people that actually make the stuff.

That's our second Pacifica at the top, just came in, that might actually go in a mobile rack we're putting together, for Pacifica on the go!

Congrats Mark

The place looks great!!

Peter Montessi
A Designs Audio
www.adesignsaudio.com

[pan60]

very cool Mark, congrats!

[mwagener]

cool place Mark. Now go and get that second Germanium...you know you will sooner or later

[Mark Warren]

Thanks Peter and Michael!!

And yes I'm going to have to grab another Germanium. I'd really like to get a Vipre, I think those sound outstanding. I know Michael you have two of them, well two of just about everything, or at least one of everything for that matter!

Here's a pic of the back of the patchbay rack. We're at the point where all the patch points have been tested and all gear is 100% functional. We got an insane deal on the finished TRS Mogami Quad cables so we went with TRS patchbays instead of doing a giant solder job.



Out of probably at least 90 Mogami TRS interconnects I think we had just one dud, and it was failing somewhere deep inside the tip of the connector, weird. And out of all the gear the only problem thus far has been one channel on the Portico compressor crapping out, but Rupert fixed us up right quick, so thanks to y'all up in Wimberly, Rupert.

At this point now that that's squared away we're bundling cables together, and the power cables have been routed separately from the audio cables, although it might be hard to see that from the picture, leading me to...

I think the next step would be to then encase the cables in some kind of conduit or plastic wiring loom or wrap?? This would probably be for neatness and cosmetics rather than sound as the whole system is completely silent as it sits.

But I haven't seen the back of many peoples' racks since most posts here are from the front side, and any studio I go into usually isn't too keen if I say 'hey, can I take a peek behind your racks?' So is there a final 'finishing stage' to the wiring at bigger studios??

[Rogervandeberg]

How awesome!

Fisrt thread for me to open this early morning, and i know i have a smile on my face the rest of the day, just by looking at your studio! If i had to make a studio, it would look very much alike this one. Amazing job!

oh, btw that Les Paul (supreme?) is just killer looking!

Keep up the good work!

[turk sanchez]

I have done a bunch of days over there and I allways enjoy it...great people/place. Nice job Mark!

[Tom H]

Originally Posted by Mark Warren

Gear Porn - Rack 2

Wow! This picture freaked me out when just saw it, i was like "what a slut! two nearly identical racks!"

Then i started reading ...

Anyway: Congrats with the studio Mark

[whoriental]

Wow, that is truely amazing. I come down to Austin every once in a while, I stop by if I can.