AudioGrotto Build Diary

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:24 am

Now that the drywall is all installed and the inner HVAC ducts are placed, we create soffits around those inner ducts which will be insulated thus helping with isolation and air noise.

Straight to the piccies.....

-ashley

PS more piccies in next post.... ran into the limit

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:28 am

More HVAC inner duct framing etc....

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:40 am

OK, now for some finish fun!

My carpenter who is absolutely the best and has helped me do this whole freekin' project (including the two 1700 sq ft apartments above the studio) had the grand idea to use the pews from the church as frames for the studio glass. The backs of the pews have a rounded bullnose that made for a perfect trimmed frame for windows.

Ever since I bought this building, I have wondered what to do with the darn pews. They are solid oak and well made but I tried to sell them without any luck at all. The good news is now we have re-purposed them for all of the trim and details including my desk for the main control room. I simply could not have afforded the wood to do this and with all the pews I have, I'm saving many thousands of dollars and getting high quality oak trim for the studio! Plus the added vibe of church pews and historical value makes this a no brainer.

Check it out....

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:53 am

Right, frames installed and prepped for stain etc....

Now to figure how to trim out the gap in between wall frames. We've all seen various methods for this and it gets tricky. I wanted black fabric to cover the gap and we had to figure how to upholster this to the frames without coupling them together. Wrapping 703 is really tough to make look nice. Plus mounting that resiliently is another conundrum to overcome. Our idea is to simply staple the fabric to the frame on either side and use the glass stops to cover the staples. The frames are only coupled by fabric and the look is nice. Still a PITA but not as much as making a bunch of 703 inserts for the gaps.

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:59 am

Let's do this.....

Upholstery is a bitch :horse:

Glad that Roy is good at just about everything. You can see how getting the fabric to stuff in just right takes some skill and time. But we ain't coming back to this so it's gotta be done right.

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:11 am

Well, I did learn a lesson on installing the glass and should have had Rod's book in front of me but one of my old horrible crew guys has absconded with it. Gee thanks dude.... :finger:

So, when we first installed the glass, we only used silicone to set it in the frames. This works about as well as brushing your teeth with a garden rake. :mrgreen:

Had to order some custom neoprene to make seals for the windows. Got some squishy 1/4" thick by 3/4" wide quality neoprene with sticky stuff on one side for the job. Now this works great and makes a mucho better seal for sound. The silicone did not even completely seal the glass at all. I did some isolation test and was almost suicidal after the results. :cry:

Seals are everything once you've made a massive wall. Right now, the doors still have holes where the locksets go and no seals on the frames. I also had not yet stuffed and caulked the window frames so the test was moot. Once we installed the glass with the seals and stuffed the frames, the same test was much better.

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:23 am

While the windows were going in, we also started framing in some of the acoustic treatment including soffit walls for the main control room and false rear walls for bass traps in both control rooms. There are also some corner traps in the two live rooms as well.

Piccies....

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:05 am

Well, onto the floors!

I had always wanted to use an acid stain on the concrete for a floor finish. This won't work since the drywall is already in and the acid needs to be neutralized by a water wash.

So, next best thing is water based dye....

Here's the rub. Regardless of how you finish concrete, you must first prep the concrete with grinding. This is labor intensive and time consuming. My contractor had just taken possession of a new grinding machine with a vacuum system and this was its maiden voyage.

We did some test spots with the dye and sealer to see how things were going to look. Its really interesting how the sealer affects the color.

PICCIES

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:11 am

Floors are ground. Time for the color. Water-based dye sprayed on and tooled by hand with towels and whatever works.... It pools and runs around to create cool patterns and such. Emerald green is for the second control room.

PICS

-ashley

mika · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:53 am

This is a very intressting floor colour :wink:

Looks very cool and unique

I'm waiting for more progress
cheers
mika

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:34 pm

MWWWWWUUUHAAAA HAAAA HAAA!!!!! Color.

Well, I hope that "interesting" really does turn out to be cool. When the acrylic sealer goes on the concrete, it really changes the look in a good way, making it pop and gleam.

Here are some pics of the finished look. It took several layers in the lava room to get the right texture and color. the yellows really soaked in and it was hard to get a bright yellow out of it. As the concrete guys kept saying, each concrete slab is different and takes the color in unique ways.

I was most pleasantly surprised by the ocre color in the hall, vocal booth and main control room. It has such a deep variety of color and turned out better than I ever thought. I still dig the lava, but knew what that was going to be like mostly.

Onto the piccies........

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:43 pm

Here's some more of the lava room, big red booth and the main control room floor.

Some comments on the process:

•Its expensive! :cop:

•But lasts just about forever as far as my life is concerned.
•The sealer is death in a can. :inn:

Don't be there when they do it.
•You can't predict exactly how its going to turn out but that's usually a good thing.
•No issues with laminate flooring or weird acoustic effects of layered flooring. This was the best option for me.

Right. Onto the f- :cen:

piccies!

-ashley

bassman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:56 pm

So, that brings us up to date on the project. The painters are in there priming right now and should have some new pics in a few days.

The only other thing going on is the construction of the ceiling panels. I had to really sit down and do some design work to figure them out and also get a handle on the lighting, which will be entirely mounted on the ceiling clouds. All that is installed in the ceiling is outlets connected to switches. I installed several circuits in the rooms to provide some mood changes without using any dimmers.

The main task lighting is 5" cans mounted in channels in the clouds. Then, for accent lighting, some panels with have track lighting on the sides that can be aimed for indirect light. Here's the overall plan and a couple shots of the frames in the shop being made.

-ashley

xSpace · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 1:28 pm

It certainly is a grand view! There doesn't seem to be any one color in any one area that doesn't enhance the uniqueness of the room it is in. Especially the Lava River, that looks like you could walk into the room and fall into the void!

Real nice indeed.

Much continued success to you in this build,

Brien

Soundman2020 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:46 pm

Gotta agree with Brien there: The other rooms are pretty cool, but Lava is spectacular! It's going to look great when it is all completed.

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