well, it’s just really hard to soak up frequencies that low. You can minimize the ringing and clear out some of the peaks and nulls, but it would take a ton to actually kill it all. Take a look at the graphs on Ethan’s site. Even a fully loaded room has a low end that isn’t very flat. There’s just not a whole lot that can be done at frequencies that low.
I feel hopelessly inferior now.
Thanks.
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Awww 
How come? Having a bad day?
Wiring…omg. What have we gotten ourselves into!!
Today I rounded up a bunch of gear from a storage locker and from other people that had been borrowing it while I was setting up the building. I also had to spend hours on the phone with Avid tech support in California, trying to get a crashed fader bank back up and running on the board. Once it was back online, it took a little time than I had expected to plan where stuff was going, and to actually get it racked up. When we finally had the machine room racks moved into the right rooms, my faithful assistant (her name is Bella, and I’m hoping she’ll join this site soon) began sorting wires, and connecting power. Next we started on the pro-tools and monitoring stuff because it was familiar. She also spent a good amount of time crawling around behind the System 5 console and hooking up cat 5 to the router that controls each of the fader buckets on the console. Its getting late. I gotta go to bed, but I’ll work on the MOTU section and the digital patchbay tomorrow.
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Yeah, good luck with that. 
That’s a lot of damn wires. Are you going to do cable management on all of it? It takes time and effort, but if you ever have a problem and need to dig into it (in the middle of production) it could be quite helpful.
So I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind. How is your commercial studio in a residential house/neighborhood going to mesh with local zoning laws? I mean, it may not be an issue or come up at all unless someone asks questions or complains, but it might be good to have an idea what that looks like if it comes up. Some municipalities are tougher than others. The neighborhood dynamic may or may not be in your favor. Have you connected with other residents and told them about your plans? Have any come up to see what you’re doing?
Also, what about sound and loud noises? I assume you’ll be booking most stuff during the day, but the main thing is a full band setup in terms of loudness. How about parking space and loading gear in and out?
I realize this is Devil’s Advocate kind of stuff, but as they say “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. I’m really curious about these aspects of how it will work.
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This is so cool to see this coming together! Thanks for posting the pics along the way!!!
Yeah, I’m gonna have to do it myself. I always start by keeping as many permanent wires from being draped along the back. I always find ways to tie them off to the sides. I have a little vault of hundreds of power cables of different lengths, and I take the time to pick the cable that are the right length to the power supply. I also use light pipe and DB25 where possible, so you run 8 XLR channels through one digital cable instead of a big snake.
It basically means I can’t put up a sign in my front yard lol. That’s about it out here in this area of South Carolina. I have a homeowners policy on the house, and a separate commercial liability policy on all of the gear. I double checked to make sure that a it was eligible for both. The only other catch is I have to keep a bed and a dresser in at least one bedroom. And I have to have a kitchen, and a working shower. But I had planned on having that anyway, since I wanted to stay a functioning house for resale purposes down the road.
I’m quite a ways away from an airport or a train track. No factories or industrial shops close by either. Its basically a quite little residential spot. Backs up to a golf course.
I wasn’t planning on tracking any bands 
If I needed to mix a band or shoot overdubs it wouldn’t be a problem. If a needed to produce a music project, I’d only take the job if they have the budget to go to a proper live room for drums.
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So, you will be working there, but not living there, right?
Yup. That’s the idea.
…I think it would be a bit complicated to have a studio in your house. Like…unless it was a totally isolated area. The studio setup here takes up too much of the house too. I don’t know how that would work.
By the way…for anyone following this…I got the I/O working today. This entire rack is just converters.
And there’s the rest of them…
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Alrighty! Got me some good 4" thick quadruple paned triple laminated blast resistant windows. I have to modify the inside of the tracking room wall, because the blast system uses a recoiling metal barrier structure between the windows that connects the frames together. This is a good idea of what I’m getting installed in about 2 weeks (that’s not my building obviously).
It took me almost a month to figure out how to get in touch with a window contractor who could install them. I ended up going to some banks and police stations and asking who built their buildings. Once I got the name of the general contractors, I asked them who they used for windows. Once I got in touch with the window contractor, it was pretty smooth sailing from there.
Today I got a tour of the factory warehouse where they pre-assemble the window systems. I got to actually bang on some of the frames and see the anatomy of the glass construction up close. And man was it eye-opening. I also got to take a look at the way a bomb proof framing system is built underneath the wall. This glass can get smashed with a crowbar or sledgehammer and it won’t budge. If entire wall takes a bomb, the glass breaks but it doesn’t shatter.
What was downright amazing was when I stepped into the guys office. You couldn’t hear a thing!! There were two gigantic air conditioners right outside the dudes window, and it was dead silent. He wasn’t more than 80 feet off of one of the busiest roads in town, and absolutely nothing when you closed the door.
Here’s a picture of the A room at Sweetwater in Fort Wayne Indiana. Like Blade (Echophone) studios in Louisiana (also designed by Russ Berger) the windows are injected with about 2-3 feet of depth. I don’t have a big enough room to be able to take 2 feet off the wall. It’ll cut the floor space back too far.
So the re-inforced cement blast system can achieve a relatively similar OTIC result without eating up all your floor space. I placed the order today. Should have it up and running in a few weeks! Yay.
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It’s a live room, AND a bomb shelter! 
nice work @Jonathan i look forward to the finnished tour! can u do us a video when its done?
once i`m settled in canada and bought a house (prob about 3 years from now) i will start mine lol
nothing on this scale though, just a small jam room and one man studio.
Yeah man! Sure will
Jonathan Wow! I’m impressed - You’re not playing pretend, Bravo and Good Fortune
FINALLY got a gap in the schedule long enough to get the vocal booth painted. Next step is replacing that God awful ceiling fan so I can build a cloud. I went with a color the female voiceover and character animation clients thought would be cute because the majority of the time the guys don’t give a rip. And I only intend to use this room for vocal and guitar tracking. Grayish blue sound panels going on the walls, and a 60" TV screen going along the main wall.
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Nice mate. Good work 
I remember back at RR you talking about this. Things are looking very professional, did you wire those racks or did you hire someone to?
Well congrats and good luck. I’m looking forward to hearing some stuff coming out of your new studio.
