Introduction:

I've always had the pleasure/privilege to have a "studio" in my home, regardless of the various locations, for the last 15 years.  Mostly, it has been confined to a bedroom plus a walk in closet, which of course is crude but with heavy blankets pitched around the perimeter and an additional layer of carpeting on the floor, one can get by.

Now that my fiance and I have acquired our first free-standing home (complete with grass to mow!) the opportunity to build a "real" studio cannot be ignored!  The space that will be the "console room" is most of a 2-car garage loft, which is a rectangular room with an annoying slant in the back of the room, which is the eave of the garage roof.   The perimeter measurements (including the 36" wide stairwell) are 20' long x 13' wide.  In order to maximize space, we chose to build 19" racks at the back of the console room for equipment, since we cannot stand near the back wall due to the angled ceiling.  We were able to build six 19" 18U racks across the back (bottom of diagram), that are 8" off the existing floor, and about a foot below the slanted ceiling immediately above.  This ensures that the equipment in the racks can extend the full 22" back, based on the angle of the slant.  The racks start 1' from the right wall (same wall the door is located) and extends across to the other side, leaving 17" of space between the 2x4's.  Bass absorbers will be installed in front of both ends, with the left side having a door to give access to the 17"x22" space behind for storage of cables, microphones and other items.

At the front of the room, there is an existing stairwell that provides for outside access and is a good point to place the console table against.  The back of the console table will be a virtual "wall" for the stairwell, since there was no wall prior.  This wall will extend to the top of the console table, but be open above that point thus our monitors will not have a wall immediately behind them.  This should cut down on resonance and other interesting acoustical problems.  We made soffit enclosures to house our monitors, but haven't built the wall to the ceiling yet nor installed the soffits - we want to test without the wall first.

To the upper right of the diagram you see a vocal booth.  Our original design (depicted here) is a 4'x3' booth, very small indeed.  After some engineering exercises, we redesigned this space so that the vocal booth will be 5'x5', however when not in use, can be collapsed against the right wall in that "cove".  The booth will collapse with the sound treatments, wiring, etc, all contained.  This allows us to have a larger vocal booth, but when we need access to the stairwell the booth folks up, and we can bring large amplifiers and other items up and down the stairs with more room at the top.  We haven't started constructing the booth yet, so look for future updates.

What is not depicted in the diagram is immediately behind the wall next to the vocal booth (top right) there is an opening in the second floor of the house which is asphalt covered deck with a railing, that's 10' long and 7' wide.  Immediately below that is a bathroom (with a slanted ceiling) which is also to the right of the door on the right-hand wall.  In order to walk from inside the house into the console room, I have to walk through a strange bathroom.  What we're going to do down the road is move the bathroom forward into the 10' x 7' space, and the console room will expand into the where the old bathroom is, which will be a lounge with a sofa, a small fridge, and other creature comfort type of things.

The entire design (to the left) are the inner walls after we shoved in two layers of 1/4" rubber seperated by 3/4" MDF.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of that part of the construction (I hadn't found the digital camera at that point).  The paneling is 3/4" tongue and groove paneling we found in the attic when we moved in.  I had enough paneling up there to cover the entire room, twice.  Of course, we only covered it once :)

The back racks were constructed out of 2x4's mounted vertically upon a horizontal 2x4 sill.  We used douglass fir for strength and mass, hoping to avoid vibrations and sub-frequency resonances.  Underneath the 2x4" sill is a 1/4" thick strip of vulcanized rubber, providing additional isolation between the racks and the existing floor.  In the above picture you can see the slant of the ceiling.  Notice the wood paneling.  There is paneling on all of the walls and the ceiling.  Underneath the paneling is 1/4" of rubber sheeting, a layer of MDF, another layer of rubber, then yet another layer of MDF.  This is all laid on the existing loft structure.  The only aspect of the room we didn't modify was the floor, because its our intention to build a 1.5" thick grid on the floor, then place hardwood over that to give the console room a little bit of a live feel to it.  The ceilings and walls will be painted with Benjaman More "super white" with 2' square foam tiles covering the surface, with 4" gaps between each tile.

Here you can see the completed wood structure across the back wall.  What you cannot see is behind the brace that goes across the vertical pieces, is supported by shoots of 2x4 off the back wall.  From this angle they are hidden, but their purpose is to ensure the racks stay vertical even with heavy gear installed.  Originally we wanted to build this out of steel or aluminum, however 2x4's are much easier to work with and obviously doesn't require welding.  The problem with the initial construction phase of the console room is lighting, and power, was a major problem.  Neither the loft nor the garage had any electricity in it whatsoever.  To make things even more complicated the fusebox is only a 100A unit and fully loaded as far as breakers - everything was maxed out.  So welding in the loft was definately out of the question until the service could be upgraded.

Another poorly lit photograph, but we're making progress.  This is the foundation of the homemade console table.  It will have a flat surface with inverted carriage bolts to support four digital mixers - (1) Tascam 4000 and (3) Tascam 1000's.  All the way to the right there will be 19" rack rails installed so that certain important gear (patch bays, a foldback analog mixer, the 4U PC and a few other items) could be at arms reach.  On the right of the console will be power switches which will operate four circuits.  The first circuit powers up the computer, the ethernet hub and the two video monitors.  The second circuit powers up the mixers and related equipment in the front of the room, as well as the racks along the back wall.  The third and fourth circuits will operate overhead halogen dimmers as well as halogen lighting dimmers for the vocal booth.  Everything but the lighting will be on one 40A circuit that will be filtered, surge protected, and on battery backup to a unit mounted in the garage immediately below.  This assure good clean isolated power, as well as an opportunity to save data in case the power goes out.

Here is a picture of the console table with some of the equipment mounted.  Ignore the really sloppy wiring, we were just testing the placement of equipment as well as testing the electrical work.  Notice there is a 19" rack all the way to the left on the floor - this is where the midi computer (4U), the "other" computer (2u) and eventually a samson MPL2242 analog mixer for foldback.  Once we unpack the Samson that is :)

Here is a preliminary fitting of the equipment.  By using the aforementioned inverted carriage bolts, we were able to make a smooth line across the front edge of the table, even though the Tascam TMD1000's and Tascam TMD4000's are different heights off the edge of the table.  Sorta like table-mounted adjustable feet.  The underside of the console table is completely open, so ventilation is not a problem for these mixers.  To the back of the picture immediately to the right of the coffee cup you can see the loaded 19" racks.  Originally we put our Akai DR8 recorders into this upper rack, but since we acquired another unit, we decided to put all three at the back of the room with longer toslink cabling.  The two computer monitors are in the center of the table, and to the right above the TMD-4000 mixer there is the JL Cooper Cuepoint autolocator.  To the right of that are the switches for controlling the computer circuit, the equipment circuit, and the two dimmers.  The rightmost switch turns on the outlet immediately below.  I've found I've always needed "one more outlet" for a guitar amp (or such) so this was a lame attempt at fixing that ahead of time.

Here is the completed table (less painting and moulding), which shows most of the gear installed, and the computer up and running.  Overhead we mounted four halogen lights which connect to the dimmer, which is nice for a quiet mood.  I find if I turn them all the way up I can't see in the room - the reflection off the mixers is incredible.  So, 50% brightness is fine.  I'll probably replace the 100W bulbs with 25W or 40W halogen bulbs to make things much easier.  Also, much past when this picture was taken, we made a wide keyboard drawer that holds the computer keyboard and the trackball, so we don't scratch the TMD1000 mixer it was resting on during initial fitting of the gear.  We made this out of ordinary Home Depot drawer slides and a piece of thin plywood.

While I inserted pictures of the console table, progress for the back racks was moving in parallel.  Its tough to see, however there are aluminum rail with threaded holes mounted on the verticle 2x4's for the equipment to screw into.  These rails were made from an eight foot high aluminum computer relay rack that had threaded holes on both sides - so I cut the rack into 18U sections, then cut these pieces lengthwise so I had two rails per section, thus making the rack pieces twice as useful.  The large piece of wood laying on boxes in front of the rack is the top facia panel being tripped and prepped for installation.  This piece of wood will hide the slant and the ugly 2x4's, the metal brackets, and other such fitments.  You might have noticed I am into vintage gear. The left most usit is a Korg EX800.  Underneath that unit are two Akai S700's and one roland MKS100 sampler(s).  The next rack has a Roland S550 and a composite monitor.  As you look more right the gear gets more and more recent.  And yes, thats a Simmon's drumpad in your view!

Here is the other side of the racks, with more gear mounted.  All of the gear has been rearranged several times since this photo, and right now all the gear has been removed from the room so we could prime and paint the room, ready for foam treatment.  Pictures of that step will follow shortly.  Here you get a better shot if the Simmons drumkit.  In the lower left corner you can see a stack of pads that haven't been hooked up yet.  My partner in construction (who is a drummer) kept trying to set up the drumkit while we're constructing around it.

The next step, Phase II, will be the wiring.   We've already run a few midi cables between the Akai DR8's and the console table for the Cuepoint to use, as well as a null modem cable between the PC and the Emagic Unitor interfaces(s).  The next step (once the spool arrives) is to install  288 TRS pairs front to back to a pair of ADC 144-pt patch bays (TT).  Then, a third 144 pt TT patch bay will be installed in the console table for all the mixer connections.  A lot of the midi gear we own has multiple outputs, especially ont the samplers and drum machines, so having the patch bays will be beneficial.  Including all existing midi gear, plus outboards, we will need 271 jacks on the patchbays.  PLUS what the mixers need (56 analog ins).  I think I will be spending the next four months soldering!

Phase III will be the installation of central air conditioning, as right now we have a cheap-o Goldstar window unit we tossed in just to make construction during the past few summer months bearable.  Window treatments will be hinged MDF shutters covered with more tongue and groove paneling, with the appropriate foam treatments installed.  For composing and such the windows could be open and allow sunlight/fresh air in, and for recording/mixing they could be closed up for acoustical reasons.

We did some preliminary tests of the soundproofing, which produced more than satisfactory results.  We ran a sine wave slowly varying in frequency from 50hz all the way to 22,000hz at 90db.  While we have some standing wave problems within the room (because it has parallel walls and not covered with foam yet) the pleasing factor was in the bathroom immediately to the right of the studio, as well as outside, the audio was barely noticable with the windows closed, untreated.  Even in the garage immediately below the console room, very little audio seeped through.  This is due to all the different materials we used in the layering of the ceiling and walls, as well as the fact we chaulked every stud, every board, every panel - everything.  The new raised floor will follow the same methology, and will have a cable trough front to back on the left side of the console room so all the cabling can be buried under the new raised floor.  The framing of the cable trough is completed, and right now sticks up on the pre-existing floor.  Once this is completed, we'll hinge hardwood along the cable trough so the contents are protected and out of sight, but still have reasonable access.  We still are astounded at how few acoustical problems we have considering the shape of the room, as well as the complete lack of treatments at this point.

Cheers Frederic

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