It's a Race!........

between completely losing my mind versus producing the first note of music!

We have made tremendous progress since our last update on mostly all fronts with regard to the studio build.

The entrance/lobby/lounge area is the most complete for obvious reasons given less complexity relative to the rooms in the studio itself. It's shaping up very nicely with our very bold navy blue accent wall. This room is the gateway to it all so we wanted to make a statement and have it be comfortable, functional and, most importantly, a cool 'hang' space.

Entrance/lobby/lounge area

There is still a lot to do in here and, actually, the casing, trim and baseboard work is almost complete. That leads us to the double doors you see in the distance. Wow is all I can say. I am very pleased that ALL of our steel doors are at least in place. The double doors from the lounge to the live room, the doors from the live room to the iso room, and a door without glass insert from live room to our gym/fitness room. Now, I thought that carting around Hammond organs and Leslies for the last 40+ years was a lot (it was) but the density and weight of these custom made doors make a B3 look easy. I'll leave it there, but it took four of us to move each door and that was still incredibly difficult. The glass panels for the double sliding door from the live room to the control room are on site and the tracks are installed. I kept them out of the frame until I get the SSL console into the control room. Then I'll put the panels in! (that wont be fun either).

From the back of the control room looking towards the live room and iso room.

You can see the 4 glass panels on the lower right and the installed double track (one in each wall of the double wall assembly). They are also incredibly heavy. You can also see where the double windows will go to the iso room and an exterior window (towards right of picture) in the outer wall of the structure. The double windows are here and will be installed soon as per Sam's specification. The exterior window will be cased and it will be nice to have some daylight available as well as fresh air through the casement window screen when desired. The window sizes look skewed in the picture due to the wide angle lens, but the iso room window assembly is 36"x34" and more than adequate for line of sight. Having the double slider glass doors (really like a glass wall) and the iso room window will allow for plenty of line of sight for most any workflow situation as planned.

Here's a dark picture of the iso room

Power isn't yet on in the studio rooms and we haven't installed the track lighting, so here's a dark shot of the iso room as seen from the control room window raw opening. You can see the door with glass panel that provides line of sight to the live room. In the lower right you can see the two glass windows that will go into the opening to the control room that I took the picture from (one window in each of the two walls). It's a nicely sized iso room and will be a great utility room for many things (vocalists, voice over, background vocals - maybe even 4 or 5 people at once, amp isolation, perhaps a small drum kit for a tighter sound when desired, etc). I can imagine using it in many ways as planned.

Live room shot - work in progress!

Not the most flattering shot of the live room but it gives you an idea of the layout. Once again, the wide angle lens is distorting dimensions and not doing justice to the beauty of the space. Flooring is obviously under way as is casing, trim and baseboard work. The metal soffits will soon have 4" of fiberglass installed and will be wrapped in stretched fabric for a really nice look. You can see the solid door to the gym/fitness room on the left. Just beyond that is a storage closet inside the studio envelope so that will have some closet doors of some type soon. Five exterior windows looking out to the mountains, plains, wildlife and awesome views. The door opening in the angled wall on the right is the iso room entrance. In the lowest right corner of the picture you can see a tiny piece of the sliding door frame that goes back to the control room. The doors back to the lounge are out of the picture and just behind and to the left of where I took this shot.

The electricians are moving right along and will have all of the surface mounted outlets and surface mounted track lighting in place next week. They are also helping me with the surface mounted conduit we will use for the low voltage/audio cabling around the various rooms. The key here is minimizing the penetrations we make in the wall assemblies AND sealing up the ones we DO have to make and finishing up with acoustic caulk. Mark at Wind Over the Earth is helping with the panels that will go into the various rooms with plenty of XLRs for microphones, DI boxes, aux returns and RJ45 for my headphone system mixers. He's also providing the bulk cabling and all of the soldering and structure. Our neighbor Dave (who builds beautiful wooden furniture in a custom shop on his property) is making me custom wooden boxes to mount the panels in and ultimately mounted on the walls. The soffit insulation and the large bass trap in the front of the control room should be done soon (we are waiting on a shipment from Owens Corning). I have Kem on hold to do the fabric work on the soffits but we have to wait for the insulation to be installed first. I still have plenty of 'agita' with many things that we're working through inculding some of the HVAC controllers and a couple of other nagging things, but we are getting closer to the finish line. Of course, even when all of this is 100% complete, I still have all of the cabling and connecting of the SSL console, patchbays and outboard gear. Even once all of THAT is done, Sam will pay me a visit to listen to the room (with ears AND his famous software) and additional acoustic treatment will be needed. I own a lot of wall mounted absorbers and diffusers so will want to re-use what I already own where I can. I'm sure I will have to supplement from there though. Time will tell. The good news is that I can at least start using the space, passing some audio and learning what the rooms sound like and what the new workflow will need to be.

That's all for now from Wyoming! Please tell your friends! If you're an artist/musician/producer/engineer, please consider getting away from it all and using our new space for your next project. Find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X and wherever else.

Jim