#46

Nick Simpson, who has done so much for the project, and his father dropped off the beautiful walnut reception desk they built for us.

Finally found time to make some labels for studio 2’s patchbay, shown here mid-labeling.

We started a month long project in studio 1 with The National Parks. The large studio is just so great for drums. With so much diffusion, the decay on the cymbals is just so smooth and detailed.

The National Parks in control room 1.

Another big test of the new space was a live recording and film shoot for John Legend.

Trailers for the film shoot on the side of the studio.

…and finally a live session in studio 1 with many players, this one for Sarah Sample. I’ve always loved how the bleed in a great room only adds to how good things sound, and the bleed in studio 1 is no exception. Wes’s designs have resulted in truly great sounding rooms.

#45

how could i have made it this far and then suddenly become so flaky when it comes to finishing up this build blog? work in the new studios has certainly taken over and we are also prepping for our grand opening party, so it’s hard to find a free minute.

Soon after we got things up and running we had a problem with the plumbing so we had to remove the toilet and have a guy come out and make things happy again.

The barn doors for the instrument room being built….

…and then installed.

The couch for the lounge arrived in June but sat in my garage for months before we finally took it out of the box in the new space only to discover that the arms had been damaged in transit and were broken in the middle. Luckily I have a good friend who is an upholsterer and took the couch and had it fixed right up in a few days.

Sessions for I Don’t Know How but They Found Me continue in Studio 1. Stuart Maxfield here playing some guitar, with Jed Jones engineering and iDKHOW lead singer/bassist Dallon Weekes.

Good friend Nick Simpson and his brothers came by with another drum rack.

The Daking console gave us fits for weeks. We kept having the strangest problems and the deeper we dove to try and fix them the more confusing things became. I’m sure I must have completely torn the thing apart at least 4 or 5 times by the time we figured out what was really going on, which was simply a mislabeled panel leading to wiring things backward in the master section.

Now that it is up and running it’s hard to remember just how stressful this was, but we were running sessions and having to basically work AROUND the console until we finally solved the problem.

I took this video on our first dual-session day, a string quartet in one room and a drum kit in the other really tested our isolation and luckily things worked perfectly.

#44

Continuing to catch up on this build blog.

Setting the glass in the iso booths of studio 1.

Our first session in the new space was for a commercial and had us recording a drum kit, a string quartet, piano, a horn section, a choir and then ending the day with lead vocals and mixing. It was fantastic to have the space to have mics set up for all of these instruments and not have to tear down one to record the next. We heard many compliments from the musicians about the rooms and how great it was to play in them.

The next day we started working on an EP for the band I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.

The problem, however, was that construction wasn’t quite complete. Finally the new sheet of glass for studio 1 had arrived. So we kept recording drums and asked them to do their best to nail on beat, that’s true.

Final cleaning of the glass for the tracking room of studio 1.

Setting the ATC150s in control room 2. We went with the same monitors in both control rooms to hopefully make mixing as compatible as possible between rooms.

Getting the instrument room closer, still need to get another drum rack set and some more organizing.

Setting the trim for the studio 2 window.

Studio 2 glass going in.

#43

I’m back. Took a few weeks (months??) off - things just got way too intense to try and keep this up. I’ve worked harder over the past month and a half than I ever have, and it has been really tough. Once the old studio was shut down it was important to get up and running as quickly as possible, but it has been a bumpy road with a lot of detours.

At this point (October 6) both studios are up and running. Many days we have sessions in both rooms, and as long as we can keep that up we should be good. The work of getting equipment running and computers online is being replaced by the work of getting systems set up for a whole new space and handling twice as many clients in and out each day.

In order to catch up on this blog I’m going to continue to take it week by week, so this post will basically cover the last week of August.

All of the glass showed up, these pieces are for the control rooms. 3/4” laminated sheets for the control room side, 5/8” tempered for the tracking room side.

Getting the control room side glass set in studio 1.

With one of the glass sheets set, work on the stops and the casing can begin.

Getting the outboard gear racked up in Control Room 1.

Trying to find a way to store and move cymbals around was proving difficult. We had them stored in multiple cymbal bags but we wanted a solution that would be mobile and hold all the cymbals. Ryan and Dan took our old rolling drum rack apart and got to work on a solution.

A few hours later the cymbal car was finished.

The crew from Brett Acoustics left, driving one of the trucks back and taking our old API 1608 with them. One week later Tony and his brother Bryan flew back out to help finish up a few odds and ends like the soffit facia they are installing here.

Adjusting the many Overly sound doors we have ended up being quite a task. Lots of playing white noise on one side and listening for gaps on the other as well as using flashlights to find gaps.

2 days before our first session in Studio 1, piano movers brought our old Bush and Gerts upright from storage and moved our Yamaha C7 from the house into the new space. The upright was the biggest challenge as it is incredibly heavy and wouldn’t go through the doors and around the corners right side up.

Although much larger, the dimensions of the grand made its move into the studio quite simple comparatively.

Trimming out the window in control room 1.

In comes the huge sheet of glass for the tracking room side of studio 1. Something about this sheet being tempered and so large meant that it had to come from another state, which took weeks, so this was a long awaited moment.

…and then we heard the installer on one end say “you need to come my way a lot” and then the installer on the other side said “no, it needs to come my way a lot.” As you can see, somewhere along the way one of the measurements was wrong and the glass was cut incorrectly. It fit great on top but was ten inches short on the bottom. So our first session in the studios didn’t have total isolation, or a trimmed out window, but it was a lot easier to leave that huge piece of glass in that spot than take it out and find somewhere to put it while we waited for a replacement.

Using the laser to get the console centered in the control room.

This is a blurry phone photo of the rack in machine room 1 showing the API power supplies, the McIntosh amp for the NS-10s, and the Burl converters. The Aviom headphone system is racked on the backside.

With our session coming up we asked for some help from friends to get things cleaned up and ready. One of the great things about our local music scene here is just how much support everyone shows to each other and in this case to us. We were really lucky to have a lot of help.

Maren, Dan and Ryan digging into the back of the API and getting everything connected.

Our studio manager Emily started hanging some artwork in the hallway.

These are all of the concert posters from the 10 years of the Provo Rooftop Concert Series, which is an event started and run by my wife and three other founders. The concerts got to the point where so many attended that the rooftop where they were initially staged was no longer safe for the crowds. The latest concerts were held on the street around the corner from the studio and would regularly have 10-15,000 attendees.

Artwork begins on the other side of the hall. I found Scott Iulianelli of Analog Prints from the awesome Tape Op magazine covers he has drawn. Scott was on board with doing a piece for the hallway and we decided that he would draw it and we would find a local artist, in this case Jake Reedy, to paint it.

Jake printed the drawing out and then used a pounce wheel to perforate along the lines. Then the prints are hung in place and a pounce pad is used to beat chalk through the small holes on to the wall. You can see the chalk lines to the left where the paper has been removed.

Next, Jake would paint over the chalk and wipe away any chalk residue.

The final mural is basically an elevation of the entirety of Studio 2, so to the left is the small booth, where you see the three mics on stands, then the wall, then the tracking room where the guitars and amps are pictured, and then all the way down the wall to the window and the control room, everything lifesize and laid out where it is behind the wall.

Jake painting the outline of the Daking console and monitors on the meter bridge.

#42

I finished mixing the last project to be completed in the house and we immediately set to tearing things down. As of today we are 2 weeks into our transition to the new studios and probably 2 weeks from being up and running again. We have all been working long exhausting days doing everything from building and re-wiring cable to painting and caulking. We have a great team here and have also been lucky to have a lot of help from friends outside of the studio team. I hope we will continue to be so lucky as we near the finish line.

The 1608 gets torn down. We bought this console when we first moved into the house, 3 years ago, with the plan of moving it into studio 1, but then API introduced the 2448.

Packing things up feels pretty good after all this time, but the next few weeks will be a lot of work.

Getting the Burl Motherships configured for the two studios. Studio 1 will be 32 in 32 out and studio 2 will be 24 in 24 out.

John from Brett Acoustics working on fabric in control room 1.

Laying out the frames for the clouds in the iso booths.

We had the alley alongside the studio, and the parking for the church next door resurfaced as a thank you for letting us use their parking occasionally during construction and dealing with all the disruption.

I have a good friend who has access to all kinds of advanced cutting machinery and in addition to some metal logo plates in the studio he cut one for the front gate.

Moving the guitars from the house to the new instrument room was a big job full of multiple trips up and down the narrow old staircase of the house and the new metal staircase in the storage room.

A few days before Brett Acoustics left the site they started setting the credenzas and building the desks for the consoles.

Tony Brett using the laser to plot hanging locations for the cloud in control room 2.

Clouds being hung in the studio 1 isolation booths.

The cloud in control room 2 going up. This cloud is similar to the cloud in tracking room 2 except instead of using four foot lengths of the grid metal, the plans call for 3 foot lengths. Tony had to cut and re-rivot all of the cross pieces from four foot to three.

Maren Belnap, one of our engineers, wiring a cat 6 patchbay in machine room 2.

The time finally arrived to open the crate that had been sitting in the truck for weeks since the Brett Acoustics crew arrived, revealing our new API 2448.

Setting the custom made desk for the 2448.

Maren, Ryan King, Thom Canova and Tony Brett working in control room 1.

The 1608 on its way out of the house to be crated and taken back east.

Months ago we ordered a custom leather couch for studio 1 and when it arrived Ryan had to jump on and try it out.

Ryan and Maren took on the job of organizing and arranging our new mic cabinet.

Assembling the beautiful custom made desk for our Daking 1112 console.

Jed Jones, another of our engineers, begins putting the Daking back together.

We added a center producers desk to the console, but we had to lose one of the buckets that used to house 8 compressors in order for the console to still fit in the room. This means we have to consolidate the master meters to one panel instead of 2, hence the cardboard mockup.

The Daking is such a great sounding console, but its former frame and trim left something to be desired. Brett Acoustics did an amazing job with the new desk.

Years ago when I toured Manifold Recording in North Carolina I noticed they had a cart to store their mic stands, so I stole their great idea and made one myself.

The finished microphone cabinet.

The time finally arrived to head down to the storage unit and bring things back, beginning with the ATC monitors, still in crates that have yet to be opened.

This Argosy desk has been in our storage unit and will now be in the house control room to be used by our friends who will be renting the space.

In addition to the ATCs, on our first trip to the storage unit we brought back one of our EMT 140s. These things are so incredibly heavy and burdensome to move but its hard to argue once you have the chance to hear them in a mix.

On our second trip we picked up the 2nd 140 and both are now ready to be wired up. We need to figure out some isolation system for them to sit on, but for now Im just happy to have them back.

#41

We’ve started to book studio 1, although I’m not totally sure we will be up and running in time for our bookings. We are waiting for glass to arrive and the timing isn’t working out great. Brett Acoustics is nearing the end of their work and without the glass the consoles can’t be set which means wiring is being held up. We will see how this week goes and hopefully learn more about when we can get back to work.

705 going up in the control room 1 soffit returns.

The speaker soffit boxes are mounted in both control rooms.

Cat 6 lines run and wired in machine room 2.

The control room in the house begins to be torn apart, I had to finish mixing an album but some of the outboard gear was moved out even before I was finished.

The birdseye maple front wall in control room 1. The speaker soffit boxes are behind the maple ready to be routed out.

Fabric going up in one of the studio 1 isolation booths.

Fabric going up on the control room 2 soffit returns.

Control room 2 will have a soft front wall, seen here with all of the 705 hung.

Control room 1 ready for fabric.

Fabric in the soffits of tracking room 2 as well as the finished cloud.

Control room 2 front wall fabric going up.

Soffit returns in control room 1 with fabric installed.

Every day for 8 to 9 hours Thom Canova of Canova Audio, as well as Ryan King and Maren Belnap, two of our engineers have been prepping, soldering and arranging the cable. We are re-using much of the cable we already owned from our previous location, which saves on materials but most likely not on labor, hard to say if it was a good idea or not.

#40

There is so much going on in the studios now, and things are changing so quickly, that it is hard to keep up. We have started booking time in Studio 1, as we anticipate it will be finished first, not sure if we will make our self-imposed deadline, but I’m hopeful.

The back door of the house / passage between the lounge and the lobby is nearly finished.

Measurements and markings were made for the large pieces of glass between the tracking rooms and the control rooms.

Maple window stops were installed in the openings between the three booths in tracking room 1.

The electricians worked on installing outlets and switches in the newly framed rear walls. They have also been helping with lighting in the soffits and clouds.

Our engineering crew has been helping Brett Acoustics this week, providing some extra man and woman-power with the 705 installation in addition to other tasks.

This booth is ready for fabric now, two walls are absorptive and the rear wall is both absorptive and diffusive.

The soffits in tracking room 1 have their maple trim pieces now.

705 is installed under the soffits.

Ryan King became a master of cutting and fitting 705.

Ryan finishing up the soffits in tracking room 2.

Maren and Nathan, both audio engineers, are placing batting insulation in the upper soffit of control room 2. They have to be careful to fill as much of the cavity as possible without compressing the fiberglass.

The front wall of control room 2 will be covered with 705 and fabric instead of a hard front wall like in control room 1. The framing on the sheetrock will have track installed which will hold the fabric in place.

The wheels were installed on the gobos making them easier to move around and out of the way.

Thom Canova flew in and set to work on the mic / tie line panels in the tracking and control rooms.

One of the finished panels in the iso booths and track for fabric being installed above.

A local cabinet shop was hired to build our speaker soffit boxes which are huge and really heavy.

Work on the mural continues.

Most days the artist, Ainsley Romero, works 12 hours.

Jake Reedy, another local artist began work on the lettering for the back of the building. He used a projector to transfer the image.

A few late nights and the painting is almost finished, and it is really big.

The frame for the cloud in tracking room 2 is hung as well as the soffit trim.

Diamond panels for studio 2’s clouds with light cans installed.

Some of the diamond panels have now been installed, awaiting the electricians to connect the lights.

One of the most exciting changes this week was in tracking room 1. The studio 1 clouds are pretty complex and, in order to get them hung correctly, marks and measurements were first laid out on the floor. I put the arrows in to show the marks, they cover the entire floor.

The marks were then transferred to the ceiling with a laser and screws with eyelets were installed in those locations. Then one by one the hexagon shaped clouds were hoisted and hung.

Tony Brett told me that this Genie lift was a real game changer when they found it. CO2 or compressed air powers the lift and helps hold each cloud while it is leveled and hung.

The lights in the cloud really brought it to life, this design is all Wes Lachot’s so I certainly take no credit for it. It is stunning when you are standing beneath it.

A view of tracking room 1 from the sound lock into the control room.

The cloud in control room 1 is missing two pieces, they were left off to allow room to work while installing the birds-eye maple front wall.

Tracking room 2 from the rear corner near the iso booth. Half of the cloud is in place now, the rest will be installed once the electricians are back on site.

The 4th birds-eye maple panel being installed in control room 1. Great precision is needed to cut this really expensive wood at such crazy angles. Tony Brett and his crew have definitely earned their reputation as excellent craftsmen.

It had been a while since my last walk through so I pulled out the go pro and filmed another.

#39

I spent a lot of time this week working on logistics and plans for the new studio. Moving from one studio to two brings a lot of changes, including adding a studio manager, inventory changes, new calendar needs, etc etc. Suddenly things have changed from “the studio will be finished some day in the future” to “we have 3 weeks to get everything ready!” It’s looking like we will have at least one studio up and running in August, if not both.

It took a number of weeks but we finally got asphalt. It’s great to finally have a rear parking area and to have things cleaned up around the edge of the building, but even more important it means that the HVAC condensers were able to be placed.

A large part of the work and expense in the studio build is the HVAC system. Making sure that things work properly and most importantly quietly takes a lot of preparation and work. We have yet to really run any detailed tests, but we were able to get the units working and so far everything seems to be great and very very quiet.

Provo City has a mural program that helps pay for outdoor murals. Most tend to be fairly small but they really wanted to make something large on our building. The artists are pictured here working on the background.

Brett Acoustics continued inside with more framing work and installing the track that will hold the fabric in the studios.

Brett Acoustics also installed the bifusors in tracking room 1. As you can see these have been built for years waiting to be shipped and installed.

The bifusors are about 11.5’ tall, diffusive on one side and absorptive on the other.

The bifusors sit on an aluminum L bracket with a similar bracket holding them on the top. They are then free to be turned from the absorptive side to the diffusive side which will dramatically change the acoustics in the room.

This is the diffusive side, with Brett Acoustics / Wes Lachot’s propriatary stepfusor design.

….and the absorptive side.

Next project will be hanging the clouds in studio 1. The clouds Wes has designed are just amazing looking and I can’t wait to see them hung.

Getting the clouds hung and arranged correctly and neatly takes a lot of math.

The rear of one of the hex clouds showing the four hanging points and the hole in the center for the can light.

#38

Brett Acoustics has been working hard on changing these rooms into studios. It’s looking like we are about one month out from having this place online.

First the membrane absorber was framed out and covered.

Finishing the membrane absorber in control room 1.

Framing for the custom built Brett Acoustics/Wes Lachot Design Slatfusors.

Slatfusors set in place in control room 1.

Measuring for fabric track layout in control room 1.

Framing for the side wall treatments in control room 1.

More prep work for the fabric track in control room 1. The entire area contained in the soffit will be filled with insulation soon.

Beginning to build out the window between control room 1 and tracking room 1.

Once the window was built out it changed the look quite a bit. There are other layers and trim to go, but it’s exciting to see this take shape.

Framing for the wall treatments in studio 1 iso booths.

The rear parking area has been prepped and is ready for asphalt.

It took a while but I finally got all the guitar hangers up in the instrument storage room.

One of the side trim pieces for the new API built and customized by Tony Brett and his crew.

#37

Things moved slowly over the past few weeks, a few small items were completed but things should start to change more rapidly starting today.

The polished concrete floors were covered to protect them through the remainder of the build and the rubber base was put in.

Our Durham Manufacturing microphone storage cabinet arrived and lucky for us our neighbors at Jones Paint & Glass were willing to help us out with their forklift.

Tile work in the new bathroom is finished now.

I was up in the space above the studio 2 iso booth and thought it was really interesting to see the studio 2 ceiling hung on the spring isolators from this side.

Saturday night two of these trucks arrived all the way from Durham, North Carolina driven by some of the guys from Brett Acoustics.

7 of us spent about 4 1/2 hours unloading one of the trucks. There are few thing as nerve-racking as unloading a bunch of finely crafted finished wood work and fragile fabric covered insulation panels. Here we are unloading one of the 6 beautiful gobos Tony Brett and his crew built for us.

Stacks of diffusion panels.

The instrument room that seemed so spacious quickly filled up with the wall panels for studio 2 and stacks of 705.

I did manage to get another row of guitar hangers up in the storage room, one more row to go.

It is pretty exciting after so long to help unload crate after crate of cloud panels and acoustic materials all meticulously crafted.

Diamond shaped cloud panel for studio 2.

One of many hex shaped clouds for studio 1.

The other truck is still loaded completely full. One particularly exciting crate has one of my favorite logos painted on top.

#36

Some progress was made this week, but we are essentially in a holding pattern as we wait for the crew from Brett Acoustics to arrive.

Tony Brett sent some photos over of some of the things he’s working on. This is the producers desk that will be in the center of our Daking console.

Producers desk for the API 2448.

The concrete floors in the common areas of the studio were polished this week.

The lobby with finished floors.

My friend Nick, who can basically build anything, came by to install some custom drum racks he designed and built.

The steel support bars were wrapped in neoprene to protect the drums.

We brought a floor tom and a snare in to try out the racks. It’s looking like Nick will build a 3rd unit for smaller toms, so that should be installed in a couple weeks.

#35

I skipped an update last week as the progress didn’t make for terribly interesting photos.

Painting is pretty well finished now, as is the electrical, at least what can be done before Brett Acoustics arrives and can lights need to be installed in the clouds. HVAC is ready for the compressors to be placed out back. Tomorrow the concrete floors in the lobby, hallway and instrument room will be polished. We expected the asphalt out back to be completed last week but a miscommunication between the excavator and the asphalt company has set them back a week. We were also hoping that Brett Acoustics would be out this week but it sounds like it will be next week before we see them.

So here is what has been done over the past two weeks.

The glass for all of the Overly sound doors arrived. We had a few pieces break in transit, but most made it in tact and are now installed. Each door gets one of the 3/4” laminated panes as well as one of the 1/4 laminated panes.

The glass for the iso booth doors in studio 1.

Installing the seals and the bolts to hold the “inactive” door closed.

The windows are sealed on both sides with neoprene strips.

Looking into studio 2, the baseboards have been installed as well as the glass in the doors. I can’t remember if I covered this here before but we were expecting these iso booth doors to have full glass instead of half glass, but a miscommunication somewhere in the process had them labeled as half on the plans. We asked about exchanging them for full glass but the company makes every door custom and will not exchange so we decided to save the $4k and stick with half glass.

Looking from the hallway through the sound lock into control room 2.

Studio 1 with baseboards and glass installed in the iso booth doors.

Looking toward control room 1 from the iso booths.

Behind the studio the excavators began preparing the alley for asphalt.

Getting the west side of the building prepped.

We’ve been working with our neighbors to join together and pave most of the back alley which has been in great disrepair for years.

Installing exterior lights along the west wall of the building.

The hallway was sanded again and painted again. To be honest I never had that much a problem with it as it was, but it does seem much smoother now.

Here is the hallway looking south from the house, toward the studios with the track lighting and pendant lights installed. Still hoping to have murals done in this hallway but having a hard time knowing what to do and how to pay for it!

The lobby with track lighting installed.

Looking the other direction in the lobby.

Finishing up the lighting in the instrument storage room. As soon as our concrete floors are finished this week we can start moving things in and figuring out how to store all of our instruments and amps.

Looking toward the hallway from upstairs in the instrument room.

#34

Things are still moving forward, we anticipate Tony Brett and his crew will be back in a few weeks, followed by Thom Canova, so our contractor is working on making sure everything is prepared for them.

This week brought with it the culmination of a dream I’ve had since I first owned this house 20 years ago, rain gutters.

Isolated ground outlets going into tracking room 1. You can also see the audio lines coming out of the wall waiting for the mic/tie line box to be built.

Track lighting going in the lobby.

The electricians sorting through a delivery of lighting fixtures in tracking room 1. The floors have been covered to protect them through the completion of the build.

Track lighting hanging in tracking room 1.

It feels official having our own exit sign at the end of the hallway.

The painters prepping the metal in the instrument room for paint.

After two coats of paint the metal is ready to be covered up so the walls and ceiling can be painted.

We had an unusual session this week which required more lounge space than is available in the house, so we did some serious cleaning in the new lobby and brought in some old furniture.

This is most of the crew from the session - not the studio crew but the podcast crew as well as comedian Louie Anderson who was flown in for the recording.

The floors in studio 2 are finished now.

Covering the floors in control room 1, the parts for the Overly doors are painted and standing against the wall, the off-white ones for studio 1, the grey for studio 2.

Work on the hallway continues. A crew came and skimmed the entire wall with mud.

After the first coat was sanded a second coat was applied and sanded. Hopefully this will be the last drywall work.

The security company began to install the exterior cameras.

#33

It might be a mistake to update this tonight, to be honest the past few days, especially this weekend, have been tough with new problems popping up as well as a pretty big speed bump coming from the bank. Nothing to do but keep moving forward, but the magnitude of the business change we are heading into, as well as just how long it’s taking is wearing. I wish I was independently wealthy and the build was something we could fund ourselves and not have to worry over quite so much, but the truth is we got a loan, a big loan, and we still are having to come up with a bunch of money to finish this outside of the loan. When the asphalt out back is going to cost $3000 more than expected, or we need to buy another $800 patchbay, coming up with that money is getting really difficult.

Ok, enough complaining, things are moving forward and surely someday this will be finished, right?

Painting continues with the (now interior) exterior walls of the house. The dark color in this photo, which is a Benjamin Moore color called French Beret, is supposed to be the same as what is on the entire exterior of the house, at least that is the color it was supposed to have been painted when we did that two years ago. You can see the color as it is on the outside in the photo below.

I don’t know if the paint has just faded over the years or if the wrong paint was used originally but regardless the colors don’t even come close to matching and now I’m a bit stumped as to what to do. I used that same color through the building for all the metal beams, doors and mezzanine in the instrument room so it can’t really be changed, but I don’t love the way it looks and I really don’t want to introduce yet another color to the lobby area. I know it must sound trivial but it’s important to me and I really want to get all the colors right.

It turns out that we didn’t really end up with the greatest drywall crew when the hallway down the middle of the building was done. The painters did what they could by painting 5-6 coats and trying to even things out, but our contractor is still very dissatisfied with the way its turned out and at this point there is a plan to have the drywall contractor come back, re-skim the entire hallway, sand it all and then paint it again. Honestly Im not sure I really care, but of course if it could be better and doesn’t cost more I suppose we should do it, but I’M REALLY SICK OF DRYWALL DUST!

The most exciting thing this week was definitely the arrival and installation of the hickory flooring in studio 1. This photo is looking out of one of the iso booths in studio 1 toward the control room.

Studio 1 toward the iso booths.

Control room 1

Control room 1

Tracking room 2 painting is finished with the exception of the iso booth. The flooring has just been started here but will most likely be finished in a few days.

Wish me luck, I feel Im going to need it for the last few months of this project.

#32

The past few weeks have been mostly filled with painting, which seems a bit boring to post about, but things are progressing and we should be ready mid-June for Brett Acoustics to arrive for the installation of the finish acoustic materials, followed by Thom Canova to wire up the place and get things turned on.

We had a visitor arrive this week, we named him Rabbit Redford. We also named him Rabbit DeNiro and Rabbit California, we had a hard time finding consensus. I have no idea where he came from or where he has gone to since. Regardless, I posted this photo on instagram with the sarcastic caption “Upgrade for the new studio” which actually prompted a visit from some local Peta chapter who came to let us know that we shouldn’t have a rabbit as a mascot for a downtown business. This actually happened.

Sealing the concrete block for moisture.

The metal work on the three outer door canopies was completed.

In order to keep the building level, and due to the slope of the lot, the rear of the building is a few feet high. Things will rise a bit with the new asphalt, but we still need a ramp for loading gear in the back. We thought about the longest piece of gear that may need to be loaded in on a semi-regular basis and came up with an 8x10 bass cabinet. We measured how long a person pulling a cabinet like that is, from feet to the rear of the cabinet, and tried to make a landing and slope that would make that kind of load in as easy as possible.

Painting has been the bulk of the work done over the past weeks. This is the sound lock between the hallway and studio 1.

The door from control room 2 into machine room 2.

Painting the iso booth doors in tracking room 1.

Doors are taped up and now painting the walls and ceiling begins.

Out in the lobby the metal work has been painted. Believe it or not the beams were painted with the same color as the dark stripe on the house. We are still trying to figure this one out, but we think it comes down to the different materials the paint is on, as well as the weathering that this side of the house has endured over the past few years. In any case the house will be re-painted, so fingers-crossed everything should match in the end.

The lobby looking back toward the bathrooms and the studios.

Control room 1 painted - the only drywall surface that will show in here is the ceiling, so although it doesn’t look it, this room is nearly complete and ready for Tony Brett and his crew. The front wall will get a wood veneer and nearly everything else will be covered with fabric.

Control room 1 from the other side.

Control room 1 from where the couch will sit.

Tracking room 1 with paint complete.

Looking out of one of the iso booths in tracking room 1.

Looking back toward the control room from tracking room 1.

Tracking room 1 will be much darker in color. Here the ceiling and above-soffit wall are painted, the walls below the soffit will be painted tomorrow.

#31

One week has made a big difference around here. It’s really exciting to see the changes that happened this week and things really seem to be headed downhill toward the finish line now.

Tony Brett from Brett Acoustics arrived on Monday for his second trip to see how things are progressing and direct the construction of the studio soffits. We were happy to hear that the work so far met with Tony’s approval and we were good to move forward.

Tony will be back once more before things are finally finished, next time with a crew and all of our acoustic treatments and furniture.

Tuesday morning began with setting the laser to find the center line of studio 2 and start pulling measurements for the control room soffit.

Tony, on the right, has worked to implement Wes Lachot’s designs many times and it shows. He is a master of angles and the math behind the measurements and is able to explain things and get the crew on the same page quickly.

Top plate and wall ledger set in control room 2.

Wall ledger set in tracking room 1, the soffits here are much smaller than those in the control rooms and largely aesthetic.

Tuesday morning also brought the crew from Clegg Steel to finish the trim around the opening between the house and the new space.

The verticals going up in control room 2.

The soffit in control room 1 is huge and serves as a large bass trap while also hiding the hvac ducts.

Looking at the booths in tracking room 1. The simple soffits do so much to break up the boxy nature of the room and add architectural interest.

There were many fits and starts associated with getting the upper hvac soffits finished up. There is so much building going on in this area that most of the sheetrock crews that showed up would promptly leave in favor of simpler jobs. The soffits are finished now, and with the exception of some simple touch ups throughout the facility, the drywall is finished.

Soffit in control room 2 finished up.

The soffit in tracking room 2 wraps the entire room.

On Thursday the Overly acoustic doors arrived. The doors are so heavy that the installers - three big guys, have a hard time lifting them and getting them on the hinges. The solid slabs are 51db doors and the doors with windows are 47db.

Doors hung for the booths in tracking room 1.

Control room 1 with finished soffit and doors hung. At this point doors are hung through studio 1. Studio 2 doors will be hung tomorrow.

The fire pit area has been a great place for gathering and talking. Here Tony, Nick (contractor) and Jared (superintendent) plan the next few weeks and what needs to be completed before Tony’s final trip.

Tony and I took a trip down to our storage unit to have a close look at the Daking console that will be in control room 2. Brett Acoustics will be building a custom desk to surround the Daking and give it a more finished look, as well as a producers desk area in the center for a computer monitor and keyboard. After looking things over for a bit we decided that breaking the console down and shipping it to their shop in North Carolina would be better than having them try to get things right from afar based on measurements.

Friday and Saturday we took the console apart, it’s a very simple console but it still took a while to get done.

By the time things were finished the whole thing will fit in a few boxes and a few long shipping tubes. Next time we see it I’m sure this console is going to look really amazing.

#30

I skipped a week of updating because honestly, how many photos of drywall do you want to see? Well drywall time is pretty much over and we are on to more interesting things.

An unusual package arrived on a freight truck one afternoon, turns out it was our trellises from Terra Trellis.

These things were so well packed it took us ages to get them unwrapped.

The trellises mark the way to the new studio entrance, now we just need to get some vines growing on them.

We got the fire pit up and running along with the lights on the house.

The trellises, the bike rack and the landscape lighting really came together to make the yard look great. It might not make a lot of sense to some to do this much outside of the studios, after all it could be hard to draw a line between landscaping and great recordings, but the truth is that I want people to expect something extra from our studios as well as know that they are entering a place that really cares about every detail. I also think/hope that clients who spend a lot of time here will appreciate some outdoor spaces to retire to after being in the studio for hours on end.

My good friend Nick brought our window frame back and now with the extra trim around the inside. This really helps finish it and hide the rough brick opening.

This will get the same metal “picture frame” treatment on this side. The old foundation and basement opening will remain exposed although painted of course.

More drywall finishing, here in tracking room 1. Most of this will be hidden behind the cloud but the guys finished all the ceiling spaces very nice regardless.

Starting to run the ductwork in tracking room 2.

More ductwork in tracking room 2.

Tracking room 1’s ceiling finished and duct being run.

Framing the hvac duct soffits. Most of our rooms have upper soffits for the hvac duct and lower soffits which have yet to be framed. Tomorrow Tony Brett arrives again for his second trip to instruct on how to frame the lower soffits.

HVAC soffit in tracking room 1 framed and sheet rocked.

#29

I’m really getting sick of drywall dust. We did our best to put up plastic and keep the house safe from dust, but there is no escaping it, it is everywhere. Luckily we are getting really close to the end of this stage.

We are about a week from having most of the drywall done, with the exception of the soffits that will need to be built around the HVAC duct.

Getting the new HVAC run into the house, upstairs and down.

Our metal railing for the instrument storage room arrived and was installed this week.

We also got the railing for the stairs into the lobby from the house but they have to re-do something about it due to it not meeting ADA requirements.

The instrument room with the railing installed.

We removed the metal grid that fills this opening between the house and the new space in order to have some metal trim installed, expecting that to return tonight.

Tracking room 2 with the ceiling grid hung and ready for sheetrock.

First of three layers of sheetrock going up in tracking room 1.

First layer going up in control room 2.

Tracking room 1 layer #1 finished and starting layer #2.

Tracking room 2 ceiling complete minus final taping/mudding.

Power for lighting in the tracking room 2 soffits above the door into the sound lock.

Control room 1 sheetrock complete minus taping and mudding, and my son Truman.

#28

Are things getting closer to being done? I think the end is in sight but the extra costs are mounting and I can feel that it’s going to take some real fortitude to get through these last few months. Not sure how to better explain, but at this point we just keep moving forward and hope for the best.

We got the fire pit back from powder coating and got it placed. I have the burner and rocks and stuff for inside but just can’t find time to get it all installed.

We made the decision to upgrade the hvac in the house as part of this whole process, so this week they started installing mini-split systems on both floors. The original system was quite old, noisy and very inefficient.

Setting the compressor for the house mini-splits on the roof above the new lobby.

Sheetrock in the lobby is nearly finished and ready for paint.

Lots of sheetrock sanding this week. Despite our best efforts the dust is everywhere, not just in the new building but in the house as well. Looking forward to this phase being complete.

Sheetrock ready for paint in the hallway.

The Muta hangers finally arrived from Kinetics Noise Control. These isolators are what the ceilings in the studios will hang from.

Starting to install the Muta hangers in tracking room 1. After figuring things out the guys moved pretty quickly.

The grid set up and suspended in tracking room 1. Three layers of 5/8” sheetrock will be screwed to this grid forming the ceiling of the studio.

Tracking room 1.

The crew started by hanging tracking room 1 as it was a rectangle and level, now they are moving on to control room 1 which is a sloped ceiling and not quite so full of right angles.

Setting the grid around the hvac has proved to be a bit of a hassle for the guys.

#27

Things are continuing along, mostly landscaping and sheetrock again this week although they made some strides with HVAC as well.

Definitely one of the highlights was getting to see the new entrance without an outhouse in the way. I’m really happy with the way this is shaping up, we still have some trellises to install as well as some patio furniture to dress things up.

Still waiting on the gates and some more sod but the landscaping is nearly complete.

To make myself feel better about our progress I’m including some photos of the same area from last September.

Jared (superintendent) and I have been discussing how to clean up the large opening between the new space and the house. We had pretty much settled on the idea that we would need to bring in some sort of masonry saw and make a huge mess in order to clean up the brick around the edges and make it so we could trim it out. One day the masons happened to be around and told us that with this adobe brick a simple chisel and hammer would take care of anything we needed done. Much easier and also a little disconcerting.

HVAC duct coming into the space above control room 2. It’s a very tricky space to maneuver the ductwork through as they need to stay clear of the wire hanging from the trusses that will hold the ceiling structure.

It took a few days of working and re-working, not to mention a very close call when the scaffolding fell over and took one of the workers down with it, but they got things routed and ready for the ceiling to be built. You can see the feed and the return ducts as well as smaller ductwork coming off up high to feed the studio 2 machine room.

The same basic ductwork seen above control room 1.

Duct work leading in to tracking room 2 with the smaller lines feeding isolation booth 2.

The drywall company ran out of iso clips twice and they can be a bit tricky to come by. Once the second shipment arrived the final track was installed in the isolation booths of studio 1 allowing the final sheetrock to be hung.

Track and sheetrock going up in studio 1 isolation booths.

Drywall finished in the studio 1 iso booths. You can see the 2 layers on one side of the wall and the clips and 3 layers on the other side.

Looking out of the iso booths back toward control room 1.