Circle Studios refurb

[51m0n]

Crikey thats some serious mass barrier isnt it - beats a triple layer of plasterboard then

'Soundproofed' a tiny live room with about 4 tonnes of sand for the floating ceiling alone, that was a pig; but this is the serious real deal mate, nice!

[Rimskidog]

[quote name='51m0n' post='501252' date='May 29 2009, 09:38 PM']Crikey thats some serious mass barrier isnt it - beats a triple layer of plasterboard then

'Soundproofed' a tiny live room with about 4 tonnes of sand for the floating ceiling alone, that was a pig; but this is the serious real deal mate, nice![/quote]

Thanks man. As you'll see, that isnt even close to being the end of it...!

[Rimskidog]

At a bit over 20 feet wide an9 inches tall and about 5 inches deep the beams are outrageously heavy so we thought we'd better have the aid of a lift.

And here it is... First beam in the building and onto the lift:



Up it goes:



Pulling it back:

Edited May 30, 2009 by Rimskidog

[Rimskidog]

Here's Max indicating how much he likes my well used Mercenary mug:

[Rimskidog]

First beam in place:



Stacking the others up ready to place them:



same shot from down below:



And with a little perspective:

[Rimskidog]

And beams are finally moved into place... First is into that corner where the electric cabling enters the room:



Then a view across the room:



And in the other direction:



And one from below:



(The red gunk you can see between the beams is just a silicon sealant.)

Edited May 30, 2009 by Rimskidog

[Rimskidog]

You can see in these shots how we are backfilling the gaps between the beams with a concrete screed both for structural integrity and to ensure there are no nasty little gaps for sound to get in/out:

[Rimskidog]

A few more roof shots:

[51m0n]

Wow.

Thats really nice. Like the way the roof steps down to the wall, I'm sure thats an acoustically sound approach (we dont like parallel walls!). Never seen anyone go to these lengths before.

Its brilliant, cheers for posting in such detail!

Edited June 1, 2009 by 51m0n

[51m0n]

Whats the reasoning behindgoing to such massive lengths to get acoustic seperation?

I mean really, that is taking it to the absolute extrme, is the outside environment particularly noisy, or are you really concentrating on minimising spill to the control room?

Just curious to know what is driving this kind of build/spend...

Certainly not criticisng, as its definitely the 'proper' way of doing it. It's just, as I said, I've been involved in the building of a few studios and no one I've done this kind of thing with has had the money or bothered to go to these lengths, so I'm really curious to know what is your driver for the outlay in time/money/effort.

Edited June 1, 2009 by 51m0n

[51m0n]

When are you due to complete?

Shame you're in Manchester, I'd love to have a nose around

Edited June 1, 2009 by 51m0n

[Rimskidog]

[quote name='51m0n' post='502824' date='Jun 1 2009, 11:16 AM']Whats the reasoning behindgoing to such massive lengths to get acoustic seperation?

I mean really, that is taking it to the absolute extrme, is the outside environment particularly noisy, or are you really concentrating on minimising spill to the control room?

Just curious to know what is driving this kind of build/spend...

Certainly not criticisng, as its definitely the 'proper' way of doing it. It's just, as I said, I've been involved in the building of a few studios and no one I've done this kind of thing with has had the money or bothered to go to these lengths, so I'm really curious to know what is your driver for the outlay in time/money/effort.[/quote]

It may just be that I'm aiming at a different market. Given the demise of the big studio (Townhouse, Olympic, Michelangelo etc etc which often get turned into apartments) I think there is a market for a high end room but without the cost base of the old standards. There are very few acoustically awesome rooms in the UK anyway. I'm certainly not in competition with the Birmingham crowd. Imagine one of the best sounding rooms in the country for 30% of the cost of the competition? We're also gonna have one of the only API consoles in the country.

Put together the room, the console, me and my contact book and you have the business plan. Make sense?

[Rimskidog]

[quote name='51m0n' post='502826' date='Jun 1 2009, 11:20 AM']When are you due to complete?

Shame you're in Manchester, I'd love to have a nose around [/quote]

I wish I knew! Live room should be done in about a month but I'm working on an album in the US all summer so unlikely to open much before September. Control room build will start toward the end of the year with a similar build time. Might be completely finished this time next year I guess??

[51m0n]

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='503298' date='Jun 1 2009, 08:54 PM']It may just be that I'm aiming at a different market. Given the demise of the big studio (Townhouse, Olympic, Michelangelo etc etc which often get turned into apartments) I think there is a market for a high end room but without the cost base of the old standards. There are very few acoustically awesome rooms in the UK anyway. I'm certainly not in competition with the Birmingham crowd. Imagine one of the best sounding rooms in the country for 30% of the cost of the competition? We're also gonna have one of the only API consoles in the country.

Put together the room, the console, me and my contact book and you have the business plan. Make sense?[/quote]

Nice plan, really hope it pulls together in order book terms as well. Really nice to see someone putting a room together in a big way, sounds like you're going into a really interesting little big studio market. I've said before on this forum that all studios will have over home recording soon is the proffesional expertise, ultimate sound quality gear and a properly great live room. Looks like you feel the same way too

Best live room I ever worked in was a converted barn, the acoustic was pretty much the natural room, it just happened to be exceptional...

[51m0n]

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='503301' date='Jun 1 2009, 08:58 PM']I wish I knew! Live room should be done in about a month but I'm working on an album in the US all summer so unlikely to open much before September. Control room build will start toward the end of the year with a similar build time. Might be completely finished this time next year I guess??[/quote]

Oh mate, hellishly long time frame!

Still means we get to see luverly piccies for a year

[Rimskidog]

here's a few more for your delectation:-

You can see three beams lined up to move in while they mortar the gaps in this one:



Same thing here:



On this one you can see the next beam being moved into place:



The final one for today gives some perspective on height (the board his foot is on is 9ft high);



Hope you guys are finding this interesting!

[Rimskidog]

Here's a few pictures of the apex of the roof. The first one is looking straight across from the other side of the room:



The second looks back from the same position:



And the third looks forward:



This one is from the booth:

[Rimskidog]

Plasterboarding/dry-walling (or should I call it dry-roofing) begins with battons being screwed into the concrete beams. You can see that strips of rockwool are being placed on the returns and held in place by the batons:



Here's a shot from across the room:



And another from the control room:

[jwbassman]

This is superb - fascinating stuff

Looking forward to seeing it develop - can you get an 18 piece big band in the live room?

[Rimskidog]

[quote name='jwbassman' post='504321' date='Jun 2 2009, 10:59 PM']This is superb - fascinating stuff

Looking forward to seeing it develop - can you get an 18 piece big band in the live room?[/quote]

Glad you find it ueful!

Yes, we calculate that the room should take 25 without resorting to the booths (of which there will be two)!

[jwbassman]

Cool, thanks - might be an idea to put our drummer in a booth all the same

[cheddatom]

Just so you know and don't stop posting - i'm following this with keen interest! Cheers.

[51m0n]

Heh, now what I find really interesting here is that the roof follows similar angles to the barn conversion live room I mentioned earlier in the thread, and that was one of the nicest sounding rooms I'ver ever used. We got a staggering (and I mean truly eye popping) drum sound by micing a kit with a single U87 about 6" off the ceiling right over the kit and compressing the absolute bejesus out of it, then mixing it in with everything else....

Really fascinating and informative photo journal. Should give the home recording crowd real pause for thought about the usual, "These days you don't need a studio" claims. May be you don't [i]need[/i] one, but great live rooms are nothing like normal room construction, and as such you can not compete in a home studio IMO. Unless the engineer is a moron of course

Edited June 3, 2009 by 51m0n

[escholl]

[quote name='51m0n' post='504601' date='Jun 3 2009, 12:31 PM']Really fascinating and informative photo journal. Should give the home recording crowd real pause for thought about the usual, "These days you don't need a studio" claims. May be you don't [i]need[/i] one, but great live rooms are nothing like normal room construction, and as such you can not compete in a home studio IMO. Unless the engineer is a moron of course [/quote]

+1 on the room, although you still don't need a studio for that -- and of course it depends what your definition of a "home" studio is


seriously though, it's nice to see a studio designed by someone who actually knows what they're doing, rather than just thinks they know what they're doing -- the latter seems to be the popular trend nowadays.

it's looking good, am following this with interest.

[Rimskidog]

Thanks for all the support guys! I'll let you all know when I hold the opening party (I have a couple of very special guests going to attend)!

Anyways up... back to regularly scheduled programming.

Couple of pics here. Here you can see the window cavity taking shape from the mix position:



And this one is from the machine room: