John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

I'm preparing for conversion of a two car garage into a multi-purpose control room, and ~100 Sq/ft isolation room and an small air lock (which may double as a vocal booth). I'll be using a double wall for at least the partition walls, and I'm still trying to decide between Isomax clips on existing frames and a full double wall for external walls. Leaning towards full double stud construction per Rod's book.

Can someone point me at some info (or answer directly) for the following:

1) I would like to run conduit for low voltage wiring, and if possible, simply deal with low voltage wiring later, once the studio is basically built. I'm finding the number of decisions needing to be made a little overwhelming, and if I could push this off (while allowing flexibility for the future), that would be ideal for me. I figure I might even limp along just threading a few cables through the conduit so I could start using the studio as soon as it's built, then let the wiring evolve as needed.

Is this possible / advisable? Can I mount wall panels or snakes or whatever with mic inputs, Cat5, line inputs, etc. later, after the walls are constructed (assuming conduit is in place in the walls)?

2) Assuming 1 is possible, can someone describe (or point me at relevant info) on the best (or at least a good) way to go about this. What does the conduit look like in the wall? What kind of conduit? Issues with isolation between double stud wall assemblies? Things to avoid to make sure conduit will meet future wiring needs?

3) If 1 is not possible, or not advisable, can someone describe (or point me at info) for the whole process of designing/implementing the low voltage part of the wiring for a small studio?

4) Are there alternatives to wall panels that work well? Snake cables going to patchbays outside the walls? How do people generally deal with this?

Thanks!

I personally think you are over analyzing the situation. But it's okay, because when you have a lot of time and money invested it tends to be a normal thing.
I have a few years of electrical experience. When it comes to piping for future, PVC conduit tends to be the norm. What size should you use?? That depends on how many features do you plan on adding in the future. Every conduit size has a general rating of how many wires can be run through it (based on conductor size). Since you are using low voltage, I'd say a maximum of 1 1/4". But remember, it's okay to go bigger (just incase), but not okay to go smaller (based on ratings).
I would just run a pvc pipe from point A to Point B, leave a string inside of it or use a fishtape later. Make sure both ends are accessable and away you go.

I think what you are planning to do is very reasonable.

My view would be that you do not want to reduce the isolation between the different areas of your studio - you definatly don't want your conduit to become the week link in you isolation.

Are you wanting to eventualy terminate your cables into wall boxes? or just have the cables loose? I would recommend termination, but choosing the size to buy and what connectors to purchase will limit your future expansion.

Hope this will be of some use...

Tom

Thanks for the replies.

I found detailed answers to my questions here:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... ht=conduit