John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Awesome!!!!!!

"Make my day", do ya wana............punk!

Your posts make my day mate.

Thanks

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www.myspace.com/gmortimer

www.myspace.com/mustardseedstudio

Looks amazing Lou!! I'd like to have such a flat response, too *sigh*

I'm a bit concerned about the subwoofer right underneath the desk, hope it won't cause any vibrations of the desk and console, it looks pretty tight down there!

Enjoy and cheers
Roman

I'm so very jealous Lou

That has just turned out ace brother, congrats all the way

MOSHON
DAVE

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Gentlemen,,,Start your Wallets.

this is too nice guys. too nice!!!

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Mike Masemola
CEO: GoodLine Records/ CruzzBeats/
Good Line Trading

www.cruzzbeats.multiply.com

Bump.

It's been a month since your last update, Lou. Ya gotta give us our fix, mate.

Any new pics or progress to report?

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www.craftedrecordings.com
Quality on-location audio recording in Northern New England

www.realtraps.com
The acoustic treatment experts

Hi Lou,

I just came across your thread yesterday and have read the lot. Absolutely brilliant work you've done there - it's a real inspiration. Can't wait to see your 'finished' pics.

I'm in the planning phase for a much smaller project but I'm going to call your design and building guys to see if I can afford them. They did a top job by the look of things.

As i'm in the UK might i badger you for a bit of supplier info once i start ordering materials?

Once again, great job and i hope it's all nearly sorted!

Dave

We want to see the final pics! I have been staring last updates many times, they look so good.

Any new info?

SIC, sic, sic thread!!!! Amazing!!!!!

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Mr. Meoff
[*-*]

ok Lou
lets see the final pictures or

_________________
Having a loving wife to support your studio
Yul

one of the best and most informative reads ever!! i am truly in awe

thank you for sharing and i look forward to your final posts

Iain

Lou? Lou??? LOOOOUUU ????

















































(it's all so quiet .... ain't nobody home)

Well chaps – Firstly, massive apologies for not updating earlier, but there is good reason. Not much progress on the final stages but a couple of things to show you, some sort of final pics, and then the schedule for the rest of the month.

Before any of that though, the replies to some very kind comments.

Joey – Many thanks my friend, when are you coming down? I need witnesses!

Gareth – Much appreciated. The gtr cables are 2 x 10m (for live room), and 2 x 5m (for iso booth) they are from Studiospares and are ideal for the job.

DH – Thanks my friend, your place is turning out great too!

DDDD – Nice one dude and thank you.

Sillybird – Thanks mate and the sub is just fine as you’ll see.

Mosh – No need to be jealous at all dude!

Mike – Ha ha!

Ragman – Definitely give Peter at Studiopeople are ring. He’s totally down to earth and is more than aware of working to tight budgets. I think you’d be agreeably surprised.

V.K. – Nearly there, but the pics you’ll see of the control room in a minute pretty much reflect the final look.

Mr Meoff – I can tell you that this project has made me sick with worry on more than one occasion.

Yul Rarse – These will have to do for the moment.

Padded Cell – That was a very kind thing to say buddy, and Bolton is only 3 ½ hrs from me! Hint hint. Remember I need witnesses.

Ro – Sorry dude!

I think that’s everybody so here comes the update. A bit off-topic but still related to the studio. The control room was starting to look great, but it was still lacking the finishing touches. Sarah said you need some cushions for the sofa. What follows is an account of how to make a couple of unique items that really do tie in the visual appearance of the whole room. Now like most blokes, I wasn’t known for being particularly good at needlework at school. So, with Sarah’s supervision, first take some off cuts from the fabric you have left over, and carefully cut long parallel strips of random width.



Then arrange in a random combination and sew them together – Yes, I did do this!





Then iron them so that the seams on the back are ‘open’ and flat.





Then comes the ingenious bit. Accurately cut them at 90° to give you 8 multi coloured strips (4 for each cushion).



Finally, arrange them as follows: Put the strips side by side in the order in which they were cut, take strips 2 and 4 and swap them for 6 and 8. Lastly turn strips 1 3 5 and 7 through 180° and sew 1 to 4 and 5 to 8 together!
Hey presto a whacky but unique random patch work cushion.



Here’s how they look on the sofa.



Next it was on to the wall boxes to house the panels. I decided to make these in solid ash as frankly anything else would have looked daft.



The edges were rounded for a better look.



Then the steel brackets were added. These were fixed about 1mm inside the wood so that they would pull the boxes nice and tight when screwed to the wall.



Then B&Q’s clear satin varnish to give them the look.



Time for accurate placement on the walls. With these plasterboard fixings you only get one chance!





The pre-drilled holes make sure the panels will sit in the center of the rebate. I used 2 match sticks to support them when fixing them back on the boxes.

Iso panel finished.



Live Room panel finished. Neither of which are wired up yet!!!



Then I cracked on with my cable hangers. Two in the live room and one on the back wall of the control room. Both were first mounted on some of the skirting board we had left over. This gave a much stronger fixing to the wall as well as a far better visual appearance.





Then I had to admit that whilst I loved the 'no cables about' gag, I was concerned about my ‘bowing’ Trinity tray.



This is not a design fault, but the trinity is just too heavy for that span. Add to this enthusiastic playing when the tray was in its fully out position, and with the whole lot bouncing up and down it was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. This is how I fixed it.



A simple breakfast bar leg from my local Magnet which I cut down to size. The foot at the bottom unscrews as much as needed for adjustment. The result? Solid as a rock, and my legs sit comfortably either side. I would have preferred it in a brushed aluminium finish rather than chrome but hey!

Right then guys here are the sort of final pics of the control room as to be honest; this won’t look any different once all the wiring is complete.

General front view – 2:1 session going on hence the TFT’s being side by side.



The view that was my dream at the beginning of the thread is now a reality.



Right hand rack with the two Focusrite Voicemaster Pros.



Left hand rack with my TwinTrak Pros. The top 3U is for my Line 6 X3 Pro which is currently on its way from the States.



Two weeks ago I had the regrettable realisation that my P4 2.4 PC was just never going to be man enough for the job so I took a massive gamble and replaced it with this. 3.2 dual quad 8 core Mac-Pro, 10 GB ram, 3 x 500 GB hard drives, NVIDIA 8800 XT 512mb graphics. What a machine.



It was always my intention to have a ‘cable free’ studio. This is how it’s done. My midi interface and 8 port USB hub velcro’d to the underside of the console.



More detail of the nerdy fixing of all cables so far. The big straps are screwed into position, and will hold the snakes firmly in place which will connect to the wall boxes plus all runs to and from the desks to the gear.



Especially for Sillybird – A proper view to show that my sub isn’t really coupled to anything other than via its rubber feet, which incidentally are in turn, sat on a seperate neoprene backed floor section that doesn't touch anything either!.



The last one for this update with my Nightfly M on the left, and my Variax Acoustic on the right. I have two acoustics either side of the sofa hung on the rear wall. The gtrs all look great, are all readily to hand, and really finish the room off.



Now at this point, all would seem to be just fine, and, to a certain extent, it is. However the last three weeks have been a complete nightmare. My previous kit was two Korg 168 RC’s the cruddy PC I’ve mentioned and Cubase VST 32! I now of course have two Tascam DM 4800’s, Cubase 4, and a sod-off Mac-Pro. Guys if there’s any truth in the idea that the best way to learn new kit is to throw yourself in at the deep end, then this end is so darn deep, I feel like I’ve been cast in the lead role of The Abyss! I have never felt so damned incompetent in all my life. It has been like starting all over again as if I’ve never played or recorded anything before – I’ve been doing this for a living for 23 years. The frustration has often been total despair. It’s basically one hell of a steep learning curve, but I am getting there. I love the kit and can already see its capability; I just can’t wait until I really understand it all properly.

On a positive note to close, I have a training day here all day tomorrow on the desks, and a Cubase guru with me on Tuesday, so this time next week I hope to feel much happier about my engineering skills on the new gear.

Wed will probably see the introduction of a guy who, for national security reasons, (I kid you not), must only be named as ‘J’ Now that’s gonna’ be fun to explain but the wiring starts this week! Hooray.

That’s it guys, thanks as always for reading, more soon (won’t leave it so long this time),

Warm regards to you and yours,

Lou.

Well Lou, it was great to finally get an update from you, and as usual, it was done in your famous laid-back style!

Love the pillows, hate the couch! Haha! The place looks great my friend, and the attention to detail is really impressive. Here's to 23 more successful years of recording and playing!!! Cheers!

As far as the learning curve... WOW! You are certainly in deep! I used to use Cubase VST 5 as well, but switched to Cubase SX 1 right when it was released, and upgraded to each version as they came out. Now that I am up to Cubase 4, it was a natural progression, one version at a time. You on the other hand are in deep doggie doo-doo!!! Ha! You will get it though. It will be easier getting your head around Cubase than it will be to master those mixers.

I am jealous of the computer, that is one MEAN machine! Are you running the Mac version, or are you running the PC version via Boot Camp? I have heard great things about running the PC-version of Cubase on a Mac under Boot Camp, like it is most stable setup out there.

One of these days, I am going to show up on your doorstep, bottle of wine in hand, so be prepared!

All the best Lou, you have done an amazing job, and have been through a lot of ups and downs. Things are definitely on the "up" now!

_________________
James

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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Napoleon Bonaparte

I use SAWstudio for my perils, cant stand cubase, but my son swears by it (and often at it ). very very tempted to drop by, next time i am down at my mothers i might take the wee trip further down, my Son would also love to see somewhere decent!!!

your attention to detail is awesome, rather than a sticky this thread should be required reading!!!

With respect and regards

Iain

look who made his way to JLS again.. finally
it's been boring here without your superthreadupdates, Lou!


Now, there's a studio essential! great work

I LOVE them panels, exactly what I had in mind for mine too. Expensive but sooo worth the money. They look brill. Cheers mate!