Island Studio 2

[David L. Donald]

Link to 1st part of story, for when it sinks out of sight. http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum22/HTML/000006.html

Ok, a studio pic or two up shortly.

Our little bike trip across the isthmus,
was very nice,
but after reading this sign,

I turned the following corner,
and the engine just died.
Only a fuse getting wonky... 20 minutes lost,
yet it WAS a rather prophetic sign LOL.

Last day of the trip. Only lost 20 minutes.

1st day of the trip, in some un-pronouncable national park.
3 Shadows, mines the red and black '94, 400,
(soon to be a 600cc)
the black is a '01 400cc.
the silver is a '06 750cc, and super sweet,
I put 100km in it myself.

I own mine, but the other two were rented for the trip,
but they bought both since then.

We did 1300 km and went to Ao Nong, Krabi, Phuket and Kuraburi,
over a Saturday morning to Wednesday night.


<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 16 December 2006 at 10:01 PM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 17 December 2006 at 02:39 AM.]</p></FONT>

[David L. Donald]

From Below south east
The roof is out to the end.
This will be a BIG wondow.

I am thinking to build the interior
so it is like 2 Thai style houses,
left and right with a tall window between.
And windows above them.
Bottom story big enough for piano and drums,
but a tall and narrow floorless top floor,
for a long sound throw up and back.

It will make the booths and the interior very 'regional native' looking.
I suspect the moving walls will just plain be to big and heavy,
with the present ceiling height.


View from control room window to end of studio.
I may likely cement over this glass dorr to the left,
and put in another from the office.
I was not quite getting all my design crteria from the desgin team,
and had to move or lose the crew. Ah well.
The still have to cement and block between wall tops and roof.
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 16 December 2006 at 11:22 PM.]</p></FONT>

[David L. Donald]

Not much progress this week,
but a little more next.

[David L. Donald]

No pics today, but more wall work is happening,
space between roof and walls are all cemented,
stairs in for upper floor,
living space is getting sheet rock insulation,
and electricity this week too.

After the electric some windows, outside finish work
and yard work are slated.

Apparently this electrician DOES understand REAL GROUND..
Not Thai ground. We'll see.

[David L. Donald]

Owing to some delays there was a ... delay.

Oh yeah.. I got married and that took some
of the building budget, but with little regrets
in perspective.

But things are moving again fairly quickly.
I have been stocking items for the build over the last several months.

The biggest being a HUGE lot of rockwool.


And also some metal for sound treatment support.
It's much cheaper than wood here.

But I am making some solid Dang wood doors for the main room.

2" thick and solid as all get out.

The outside is half mortered and made to look like ancient castle stones.

They will be starting exterior painting tomorrow.


I even have a kitchen with running water and electricity too!

[David L. Donald]

As to the studio
I have the control room metal work starting.
They have built the basic speaker wall/stands.
3 front


and two rear

For the 5.1 surround monitors I have.

They have started drilling the wall for the 5 meter tall columns for the control room's sound treatment.
The columns should start going up tomorrow also.
The then extrude 1 meter at floor, 2.5 and 5 meter levels
to support the baffles, insulation rubber and cloth covering

Each of two vertical rows of 10mm plywood baffles
will be 80cm x 244 cm, free-hanging with 15 cm
of rock-wool loosely glued to each side.

Then any lateral standing waves will be damped
by each of many panels across each wall.
As a bass player I CAN NOT allow bass frequency dis-balance in this room.

The 1st columns extending 10cm from the walls,
will also support 2mm rubber dead-sheet
with 5cm insulation glued to it's back face,
and probably front also.

This allows a 5cm air space,
5cm airspeed damping,
2mm low frequency damping limp sheet,
and then likely 5cm of additional air damping
before the rubber.

This is what sound must move through
after the 80cm baffles and rockwool attached
to them that will also slow down sound waves in the air.
Friction through these various materials
converts sound wave velocity into heat,
ideally over the complete audible bandwidth.

I have some nice sandwash being done on the walkway.outside,

A really cute cement mixer lady is working.
She is dressed like a guerilla bandit from the hills,
but she has a charming smile.
I think she is another young workers wife.

[David L. Donald]

If anyone knows where I can get three
Digidesign MIX3 system 25 foot cable
for and 888/24 and ADAT Bridge,
I would be beholden.

I have feelers out.
My current cables can't possible reach
where the computer will be residing.

[David L. Donald]

OK some more control room progress.

This is the main Left Center Right speaker wall units.
With places for 2 Genelec 1095 sub-woofers
(I have 1) 1/3 in from the side walls.
And the top over hang is for sound damping treatment,
to slow bass freqs. traveling to ceiling (& walls),
then bouncing as ghost returns.




Then there is the back wall,
FINALLY it is getting it's steel framing to hold
rubber, insullation and 2.44m x 8o cm plywood baffles on 2 levls.
Plus cloth covering.

There are 2 rear speaker stands there also,
a worker is holding one.




The space for the speakers themselves is
1.16 meters wide x 1.20 tall x 62cm deep.
This allows me to build L:ARGE speakers
w/double 15" woofer, 8" paper mids and on axis high freq drivers,
and then tune the boxes to the INVERSE anomolies of the room.
At least enough size to get close enough a tuning.

[David L. Donald]

Finally started actual sound treatment installation.

In this case 2mm rubber sheet from the top beam of
the roof trusses, rather loosely hung,
with some insulation, spot glued in it's bowl.

This will damp low and low mid freqs going to the
roof panels and causing resonances.

They had me up on the scafolding
5 meters from the floor, and I HATED it.
Between the old inner ear issue, and still finishing
a BIG cold I got last weekend, I REALLY didn't want
to be standing on 10mm plywood on top of a rolling structure.

Vertigo, on top of real dizziness, and lets add some glue fumes too.
YIKES and ye gawds, never more said the raven.

[David L. Donald]

I never learn...
was up the scafolding again yesterday.
Not as bad this time. Except for the glue fumes..

This also shows the side wall's
15 degree traps/deflection panels over the windows.
But watching a worker balancing 4 meters up,
on a 5cm x 10cm box steel beam,
not attached or tied, just resting on 2 beams,
with a open can of glue balanced on it,
and he is passing fiberglass insulation
around roof trusses onto plywood sheets,
balancing on 1 foot, and the steel beam is wiggling...


And with lots of rope available, he refuses a safty line.
An OSHA inspector would be apoplectic!

(Seems today he thought better of the technique; TWO beamsand a 6mm plywood...)

Young Thais can be mad as hatters sometimes.
I was getting vertigo watching him from the ground...
'No worries Budha and Jatukaman Ramathep
are watching out for me. Chock dee!'
********************************************

Well the ceiling treatment is almost done.
Droopy rubber sheet between the roof trusses,
and insulation glued on the top face.
With an airspace above to the plywood roof.
Stopping lots of mid-bass travel,
while diffusing the highs a bit.

Then at each rubber junction is a vertical, left/right
plywood waveguide with insulation.
These are set in 2mm rubber shock mounts in the trusses.

Forumite Jon Moen asked about condensation on the rubber.
I imagine there will be some,
but it should run out into lots of insulation
and evaporate before falling.

Just added the sub-truss, triangular, vertical hanging wave guide. (1 shown)
There will be 3, every other truss;
6mm, 20mm, 6mm, and another 3 mirror facing on opposing slope.

This will help block modes from taking off side to side.


In addition I am doing square waveguides
in between the triangles @ 90 degrees,
but tilted bottoms forwards,
so that they are 90 degrees on axis to the speakers center points
This will guide the bass waves to the in-truss vertical panel, extra insulation, and the rubber damping.
One is done of the three rows, but no foto yet.

The wave guides and triangles will touch their insulations,
but not the wood.

Most all steel work is done.
Now it's weeks of 'Itchy Work"
1 shipping container of rockwool will
find it's homes on many surfaces.

This is Tongma and Bee-Ly who do most of the high-wire act.


The corner bass traps are starting to crawl up the walls also.

There will be insulation on the fronts also.

*****************************************************
I hope to do listening tests in early November.
big flat concert PA system and QTC-1 omni mic.
With SpectralFoo and my Mac.

[David L. Donald]

I have started 3 different Helmoltz resonator/diffusor types,
slates and hole grids, on different sloped/depth'd boxes
ready to handle errant frequency modes
and deflect early reflections
off to safe absorption sites.



I am building a second 'grid style' with smaller holes, but a bigger box.

These two should work in separate but complimentary bands of frequencies.
They are based on number theory, not random holes,
so if the size is different than the model,
we just move the model over till the sequence matches and add rows.

After response measuring they may move to different locations.



'Uncle', who is a master joiner,
really doesn't like making these boxes...
The slit, slot, slit, slot boxes should be
better for him less drilling.

He made some serious doors for the main room.
And will do some custom cabinets for the living space.

Can't REALLY tell what's working acoustically
and what's not till I get readings.
And that's not until it's dust free
enough to bring in the electronics tools.
But it's moving along.
Once I get this data, I can move parts around,
or change slate placements or add a unit, etc.

The room cut-off freuquency is around 17-19 hz.
before over preasuring the speakers in the low end.

I want a decay across 20hz to 20khz evenly
of around 0.2 - 0.3 second.


Faster than the average listening room.
No early reflection multiplying to cause
smear and frequency doubling mud.

And when I have it close,
Eddie can come in with his serious audio design suite,
ring the room and design speakers to match.

He's some of Eddie's speakers
http://www.empad.com/uploads/pages/prod ... rnless.gif

They handled 1.5 million people in 3 days.
Woodstock size audiences for an evangelical show.
http://www.empad.com/view.php/page/news ... wJakarta06
http://www.empad.com
Of course he has to find the time...

[David L. Donald]

Moving over to this thread now for slower broswers.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=119679