Small Studio Build Journey

[vibrations1951]

Well this is not going to be as comprehensive or impressive as Max’s Saga but I figured I should catalog it just the same. I started my roughly 1200 square foot build in the spring of 2008 after lots of book and forum reading, a fair amount of construction experience and thinking I could do this without professional plans. Well about 2 years ago I finally smartened up (very slow learner). I contacted Rod Gervais and he agreed to take my project on even though he would have laid it out way different than what I did. Oh well, one of a long line of AFOFG’s (Another F’n Opportunity For Growth!).

The second story layout is for our personal use but may be openned up for musicians as needed. I may even do some tracking up there. I intend to continue this thread from time to time, sifting through my pictures and trying to give a rough idea of my experience from beginnig to now. Wish me luck trying to figure out how to size and list my pix.

[bigtree]

Looking forward to how it all goes!

[Space]

It would be interesting to see your current floor plan versus what Rod might have or is suggesting now.

Also, to what extent you had this project, the pictures, and then at what point you realized you may be in over your head.

Everyone who is involved in this aspect of acoustics understands whole-heartedly how it can become over-sized...Biggie sized as McDonald's would request:0

But the true test of a man is when he recognizes just how complex a project can be, how difficult learning seven different crafts will be and to acknowledge...I need help


You have made the right choice...we just want to get caught up...

[vibrations1951]

Thanks guys. I will try what you suggested Space. I like the idea. It's going to take a little bit to gather my thoughts about how to start. My biggest challenge right now is posting pix. I've tried to follow the FAQ and Forum Actions for both posting directly and building an album to refer to but it seems I run out of "assets" rapidly. I will put up what I can. Any suggestions would be appreciated. OK here goes:

pnb plan.jpg
This was my second or third "serious floor plan"
The redish pink lines represent the existing house attachment with an added on space at the top of the plan for a very small kitchenette and bathroom. The initial red rectangle was my first recording space I used for a couple of years until my incredibly generous wife said I should go for it with a "real studio" (She has had many second thoughts since and so have I! But she is still my strongest supporter...boy am I lucky!)

I had read Rod's book, Philip Newell, and many others through Amazon etc. I had been a frequent reader of this forum, John Sayers and others. I thought that with my adequate construction experience I could save lots of money planning and building myself. Wrong! I visited the local college (125 miles away)with my first sketch that was barely loosely incorporating built in bass traps in the corners, the corner control room (seen on Sayer's site-Ithought it would save space) and incorporating my interpretations of room ratio considerations. I was lost and thought the school could help. Wrong, wrong wrong!
They thought my plan looked cool and only suggested using the room corners for tracking and re-amping guitar cabs. Their studio was a near rectangle with a very small drum room (kit barely fit), linoleum floor and acoustical tiled, slightly vaulted ceiling and a rug area in one corner. They did have what seemed to be a nice post production mixing room.

Well I had gathered that if I could get enough ground depth I could put my wife's web store above the studio and still get my desired finished floor 12-14' ceiling height. Well of course the store closed shortly after the build was well underway. Too late to expand my footprint and eliminate the potential noise inducing floor above! Big mistake...too late.

Still convinced I could cut corners and save money I figured that I would just immitate JS's corner control room design, just cut the dimensions down a bit...how could that hurt right? I have always been ennamoured by the glamour of his designs but I was focusing on glitz too much and not enough on the basics. No negative meant towards John. I'm talking about my focus and process. He and I skyped a bit for a while and he helped a lot for where I was at at the time. Super guy and very generous. Many thanks John.

Here's the second floor and sectional plans as well:

2nd story.JPG Sectional Elevation.JPG


Looks like I've got a start here. Hope it's not just rambles. Gotta get to the day job, it pays the bills.

[Space]

GIMP - Downloads

Then use Gimp to save the pix in PNG format. That should shave tons off the size..., maybe GIF, but I prefer png.

[vibrations1951]

Final Floor Plan.jpg
Rod gave me permission to post this one. I'm stil not sure what I am doing with images but I'll keep trying.

[MadMax]

What I did with images was to put them on another site and link to them by using the html code of (remove the dashes):
<-img->http://yourwebhost/somefolder/img.jpg-<-/img->

That code then becomes a link out to your own site that can host the images in full res.

Some webhosting services such as blogs, automatically create a smaller preview that will link to the full res, or you can resize the images and link to the resized image.

While I didn't mind uploading images to RO, it just wasn't feasible given the number of images I was uploading with the 4 image limit of RO. (Sometimes I had as many as a dozen images to upload.)

Generally, your studio is going to need a domain anyway, so just add it in to your site... and your clients will appreciate the ability to get insight into the studio!

My humble $.02 worth of noise

[bigtree]

It would be a benefit to everyone if we can keep images like these on our server instead of a host that may expire over time. Are you all still having trouble adding images? I should look into this for us if need be. Maybe I need to change some preferences for you. Are you doing this?

The best way to upload images is in Go Advanced . Select Attachment (paperclip icon) and upload images to your folder, see Add Files ( Upload Files from your Computer | Website) or below Select Files from your browser. These links give the option to choose a file being uploaded via a website or browser. It works great!
You can then store all your images there, and use them in other posts too.

To put the images in context, where ever you cursor is in a sentence is where the image will be placed.

See Insert Inline and Done to complete the process.

_______________

The width size could be larger but our current software requires a one size fits all so images fit into our articles without upsetting the overall design of our website.
If we need more width than 600 pixels: If you have the ability to rotate your image before uploading it to RO, that gets you by this obstacle.

Here is what a registered member can do:

Can Have Album and Upload Pictures	Yes
Can View Albums Users without this permission will still be able to see picture in public and profile album if they know the exact URL.	Yes
Follow Picture Moderation Rules	Yes
Album Picture Maximum Width (pixels)	600
Album Picture Maximum Height (pixels)	1200
Maximum Number of Album Pictures	100
Maximum Total File-Size of Album Pictures (bytes) 1KB = 1024 bytes	10240000
Can Comment on Pictures	Yes
Can Edit Own Picture Comments	Yes
Can Delete Own Picture Comments	Yes
Can Manage Comments on Own Pictures	Yes

Not sure if this helps:
http://recording.org/faq.php?faq=vb3...b3_attachments

[bigtree]

I just adjusted the file size limit to 2048000 bytes per image

[bigtree]

Adjusted album size to 5120000 bytes.

We compress images on the server side so a 1 meg image would be compressed to around 100k . This should give everyone a lot more space now. Please try this and let me know how it works..