Island Studio 3

[David L. Donald]

It was getting a bit image intensive,
so I am giving the slower connections a break.


Here's the earlier two threads
# 1 on old forum in archive
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum22/HTML/000006.html

# 2 in new forum, but slipping down the page a bit.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=99663

OK,
Getting the insulation on the inside of the 2mm rubber sheets


Welder 2 attaching the frame for the false ceiling.

An Hour later he would spark into a can of the glue from the picture before.
it of course would ignite and quickly get to hot to carry.
Fortunately Speedy lived up to his name and got the burning bomblet outside.
OSHA would just plotz...

If you are a speaker looking up this is your view.
Several partly adjusted ceiling traps for the bass
and floor ceiling waves.



The back wall just about to get it's outer layer of insulation.
5cm Green inside, 15 or so cm yellow outside.
The rubber is fixed to wooden cross pieces at top and bottom,
but lightly attached at sides so it can breath
and not be drum like.



Lots of progress.
The welders are almost finished.

[David L. Donald]

Well I am pretty close to bringing speakers and computer down,
and 'ringing' the control room a bit.

Both with CD's, some test sounds from Metric Halo,
and their analysis software,
and also remix a few tracks from the last 2 recordings.
Then see how it travels.

Wednssday I get the 2 x 3 meter window, installed.
Well one 10mm pane anyways.
@ $1,000 a pop I'l wait for the 2nd one.

Maybe this thursday, after the toluwene
and ether fumes clear from my brain... nasty glue.

I will have some pictures of the whole control room acoustics installation,
but then need to drape some cloth to keep the fibers in check.

If any of your engineering types have
'absolute favorite new room CD's'
you take top a new studio to get to know it,
I would be interested in knowing your choices.

And it goes on.
DD

[John Macy]

Heck, yeah--gotta love watching someone else shelling it out...:) Makes me feel less lonely...

[David L. Donald]

John I can dig it.
It's the labor rates that make it possible.
And I still am paying more than many here.
With perks like satelite TV for the crew camp etc.
The last 2 months have been pretty intense,
because only myself understands the actual
instaltion design and function. If I ain't there,
way to much backtracking takes place.

OK, here is a installation of the low frequency traps
over my speaker wall. Not at all typical, but I have
5-6.5 meters of ceiling, so rather than build floor to roof,
at excessive expense, and loss of over all volume,
I am redirecting and disapating the sub 200 hz omni sound wave
by changing it's direction and forcing it through
several reductions of space, 28 cm mouth to 13 cm throat,
filled with fiber. So those are the boxes over the speakers.


It will then partly go into the wall of wave guides.
Seriously heavy particle board covered in rockwool.
hanging from plastic chord from a steel frame work.
This again forces the sound to go through fiber
and change it's direction, converting air velocity into heat.


This is the back wall, top row, looking up from under,
a similar row is behind the speaker wall also.

You can see the hint of number theory defraction resonators
peeking out on left and right.

On the side walls over the windows are Jenson style,
15 deg. front facing traps.


Allowing sound waves to enter the mouth,
slow going through fiber, to an increasingly small exit.
This cuts down on lateral waves also, by damping their travel
and forcing most sound to the back wall or ceiling.

Here's the completed back wall


Here is Be-lie putting some rubber on the speaker wall
to keep the top face from vibrating.
I have cut outs for the 2 Genelec 1032's left and right.
And the 1094 sub-woofer goes under the ladder he is on.

Also there is another type of wave guide left and right
of the speaker cut outs.
Of course with lots of fiber around them.
Directing the lateral wave upward and backward
into , back or side wave guides or the Jensons.

There is a computer, storage, electrical, etc. space behind,
accessable from both sides. The 'trick' wave guides
should help take it out of the low end calculation.



Air con ducting etc. is being estimated now,
but the local guy has no clue and his boss with
better english is driving in.

A bit of security is going in also. Of course.


We need security, because the neighbors can be large.
Seems the next piece of land is also now a feeding area,
the last two days also had some kind of cow.
And I do NOT mean Chacha...


It started raining big time again. DRAT!
I am hoping the glass crew will bring in the big window tomorrow.
I personally would think twice about a coconut wood scafolding,
holding 2 x 3 meter 10mm (1")thick glass up,
over a 60 degree slope, through double doors
at an angle...
in a rain storm,

We'll see if I get glass...

[Joey Ace]

Hey David! I haven't posted anything about your project, but don't take that to mean I haven't been enjoying following the progress.

I've even showed it to non-musician friends.
I love it when a plan comes together, and you are doing that, my friend!

As long as the Subject Line of your post states what it's about, disinterested folks can just choose to
not open them.

Keep 'Em Coming!

[David L. Donald]

Hi Joey.

There is lots of talk about studios and project rooms here.
I figured it doesn't hurt to show the assembly and guts
of a correctly built control room.
Or at least something CLOSE to one.

Many of these techniques apply to the small home studio also.
A line of 1 foot deep chipboard wave guides covered in waste felt,
in front of the back wall and half of the side walls of a typical basement studio,
will greatly increase the mixing accuracy of the room, no matter what speakers are in it.

Add some live baffle fronts around the speakers,
and it takes out the early bass reflections
from the wall behind,
out of your stereo image.

Voila and greatly improved small mixing space.
And small rooms benifit from this more than big ones.

Well it is 8 am...
it has been raining since 9 PM last night.
Be-lie and Speedy are on a 110cc Wave motorcycle to get to the job,
and Lamai had 1 meter high floods a week back.

I somehow doubt my glass will be installed today.

And I am NOT bringing the studio monitors out of the small studio
till it is DRY.
DRAT cadderack and offendicum!!!

[David L. Donald]

Well it was almost dry today,
but the glass guy doesn't work Saturdays.

How wet was it.
The island lost 100,000,000 baht or around $30 mil. US
in the last few days.
Airports closed, tourists stranded, and general damage.
But the tourist board wants to sue CNN,
for making it look worse than it was...
Yeah right, I REALLY don't think it did...
Heck Samui floods made the front page of
the Bangkok Post today...

Today was final day for the work crew til Dec.
Most went to the other island,
but I have a control room now!
Needing a bit of prettying up still,
but very little yellow still shows.

I have the 2mm rubber down on the floor,
and some chip board until the nice tounge
and groove Dang wood gets in the picture.

I actually have one 2x7meter roll of rubber extra.
And this when I used it in places that I
hadn't originally planned on it.
Better extra than too little.

When the glass shows up I will start testing.

But tomorrow I do... NADA.. nothing
Except get a tooth pulled maybe. YIKES '

Seemed like a perfect time to NOT drive down
and inhale ether glue fumes for a week or 2.

Chacha says she gets tired
just looking at how tired I am.
Tomorrow up at the crack of noon!


82% OK that's decent numbers.

[David L. Donald]

Well I more or less survived the dentist.
Only took 3 full novocaine canisters to get
this 3 root, back tooth out.

And some over the counter opioid to get through
the following 12 hours. Doing OK today.

But no call on the glass installation yet either.

If it doesn't go in today or tomorrow,
the weather will close it off till next week.
DRAT.

[Ed Phipps]

I hope you have recovered from the Dentist
Please keep us updated with pics on your progress.
It's quite interesting for many of us.

All the best,

Ed

[David L. Donald]

Hi.
Ed, thanks for the encouragement.

OK I have done some sine and pink noise tests,
and also some people have heard the room,
but with a large EMPAD PA system, not the Genelecs.

The over all response from the informed few,
is amazed and pleased.
And one is ready to book acts... I am not.

The alternate responses is just
'WOW!! What the heck is this place.'


OK I will have some pics like the 12 guys
bringing in my big window, but I am doing a 'fast'
on Day 3, and I am a bit too vague
from toxins escaping in the blood stream,
so I ain't up to posting right now.

More later.

[David L. Donald]

OK here is some of the juggling act.
12 young Thai guys, and apparently easily
swayed into dangers path did this production.

Coming down the washed out walkway.
The rain wiped it out the day after it was poured.
I love rainy season.


And turing the corner the architct hadn't given thought about.
Gee, 2x3meter window 100mm thick, HOW does it get inside.


Ohhh... OHHH you mean like THIS... not me under there.


Gee, I wonder why they are all smiling??
Budha and Jatukaman Ramathep must have been looking on favorably.
I'd smile too If that didn't break over me...

Dark green, sleeveless shirt is the boss.
I give him credit for big cojones taking
the hardest and most shard likely place
if it all goes pear-shaped.


And adding extra caulking etc to stop any sound through the cracks.


And here is the Empad system set up for some tests.
It goes out next week and the Genelecs in.
Not painting the wall it's gonna be tounge and groove
Dang wood sometime in Jan.



And some preliminary cloth coverings, so it doesn't rain particles,
and looks better.
I need to locate some theatrical scrim in Bangkok, but no clue where.
Right now it's a bit arabian nights, not bad,
but I want to airbrush murals, so a tighter
fitting system is in the future.


Awaiting a transome fitting for over the door,
and I am ok to start leaving a few tools there, when I am not.

The Empad system is quite heavy, so theft is somewhat unlikely.
It also will go WAY past point of pain in this place.
It looks just like simply 3 15's and a pair of satalites,
but the box tuned drivers and amps tuned to them
and those REALLY high output 7" mids and 1" tweeters are MUCH more powerful than they look.
It is not a company buying parts and building a box,
but EVERY component is built to design specs as a system.

I will have 3-4 of these systems together for the Phuket Blues Festival
Feb. 22-23rd next year.
I am FOH mixer and systems specificator again this year.
But with enough advance time to pick the system
and not just mixer

[Dave Burr]

Alright slacker, it's been a week and two days since the last update!! Surely you've had some progress over the last week.

Hope you are back in full swing from the Fast.

Always enjoy updates of your adventure.

Respectfully,
david burr

[David L. Donald]

Hi Dave.
Well it is the Kings birthday today.
King Bomhibol, the "Jazz King"
is a retired trumpet and bari Sax player.

Satchmo said, "he's a player"
And Satchmo wouldn't stroke someone, he didn't care.
He had a big band that he played with every Sat night live on the radio for the people to hear. From the 50's onward
The band with some early members will play a concert of the Kings compositions tonight.
He was a more than just competent song writer
and arranged himself, NO Ghost arrangers for him.
I plan on having a large, framed poster of him in
the main room when I find one.

My crew arrives from up north from today till just before the election Dec. 20th,
where they must go home to vote.
We will move in before then.

Also I believe that, barring a change,
that my neighbor will take the small studio house
'as is' for his own gospel song production,
and just move next door. COOL!

So I won't have to put that house back to normal rental condition,
and pay an extra month and labor to do it.
VERY good news.


I yanked the Empad system out last week,
and await making the Air con holes and
a few other nasty dusty jobs and then will
put the studio monitors in.
I did some tests, but had too much glue and toxic crap in my system, so the fast was DEFINITELY
called for.

I won't post the room tests.
I haven't adjusted the room yet,
and want to do a different empirical method,
and also use different software to do it.

I did 10 days regular fast and then day 11 was a galbladder/liver flush day,
So 11 days total. I lost 8 kilos of weight,
and had no bad symptoms.
Back to eating a normal diet, but still leaning
towards veggies and fruit.

Oddley enough Chacha just started being
Maitre de Hotel at a Jamaican jerk Rib Joint
on the beach. My builder/friend's Bikini Barbeque,
needed a replacement front person for a week,
So she went from a 7 day fast to a
pork sales job with a week in between.


So in the next two weeks
Paint outside,
last hole in apartment over controlroom ceiling,
will be insulated and rubber and sheetrock'd
vs control room sound.

And half the glass wall will be done with one layer 6mm.
The other half will be done 1st week of Jan.
It's 12 meters wide and 7 meters tall, a LOT of glass.
But the extra glass trimmed off will be kept
and stored for the playing rooms windows and doors.

So I'll be home for Christmas!

[David L. Donald]

Well I have a crew on site as of yesterday.
very close to only dust free work happening.

But I am still likely to have to clean up the
old small studio now. DRAT!

The prospective tenant is vacilating.
He and the landlord don't see eye to eye on too
many things...

Oddly I translate between the two of them.
And we are all three speaking english.
They just don't seem to communicate.
He's lived in Thailand many years longer than me,
but some people are not cut out for the places logic.

But he is offering to help pay for me cleaning it up,
to make up for leaving me in the lurch.

Issues include bad electricity,
vacilating between 170v and 450v instead of 220v..
but I have dealt with that,an APC UPS.
He just needs to follow my lead.

And screening in the front porch.

Of course ANY house in Dengue Fever mosquito territory is worth more as a rental to
most ANY prospective renter...
Gee, I can sit on the cool porch in the evenings, that's worth more.

I convinced the landlord this was so.
But no matter, no transformer/capacitor bank for the project,
and no stable AC for the studio.

DRAT.

Well the big place is half painted outside,
Sandstone color. Which works well with the
large block motif of the walls.
The apartment is almost ready for dust free living
without mosquitos and full food storage.
AH!

Biggest dust issue will be the 50cm x 30 cm floor holes
drilled in for the future AC ventalation systems.
Once they are cut-in I can move in.

As of today 1/2 of the BIG glass wall will be installing.
They started the frames yesterday.
The other half will be 1st week of Jan.

[Hook Moore]

Its looking real good David
Hook

[Dave Burr]

Thanks for the update David! Can't wait to "hear" the results of your efforts.

[David L. Donald]

Hi y'all.
I have been moving into a mausoleum
and out of two rental properties.
I HATE this CRAP. MOVING!!! Auughh!

I hope never to move again.
unless I say.
"Here just buy this stuff
and I'll get new stuff moved in
before I arrive."

I had to do a visa run to Malaysia thursday
and the navigator/gas-payer etc bagged out at 6am that morning,
I went alone; with a bad replacement map,
and did an extra 4-500 kilos of driving,
and the trucks AC unit I JUST had repaired
drained out and was useles...
AND the border crossing was closed 2 hours
before I got to it. 100 kilos later I found a bed,
The next morning found a working border,
and then drove home, as the cold Chacha
had given me kicked in... Not as bad as SHE got it,
but bad enough. Just what you want moving week...
Visa run from hell and a cold.


I have gotten a bit of the studio hooked up,
but the electrician is being slow. I am looking
for boxed parts and checking patchbay damage etc.

The crew finished repairing the old studio so quickly,
that I was out in 2 days with a happy landlord.
But he hired them to do some other work.
Like 4 year repaint etc,
and refinishing a bunch of furniture.

Plus the 'neighbor' is renting a shophouse, from his pastor,
and I am designing a small scale studio refit for him.
This will be almost ewxclusively Gospel music
for the Christian churches here.
He'll do his basics and I'll finish the drums etc later.

So the crew is being kepy busy for a bit,
and won't just split to the rice fields
up country for lack of work, while I put in the windows..

I also was told that Sek Loso, the biggest
modern rock artist in the country,
want's to come to the island and do his
next album here on Samui over na few months.
I am the logical place to do it,
if I can cobble together some booths quickly.
He's done work in London and even played Lincoln Center in NYC.
If you like rock he is a good act.
And a way up there shake down gig for the local market.
I have played on the same stage as him,
so we aren't complete strangers.
We'll see if the timing works out.

Im HOPE to be remixing Barry's jazz album by wednesday,
the gods of Thai electricians willing of course.

Onward.
D5

[David L. Donald]

Well it seems the 'hot rock band's' club contact here,
and vacation property builder / seller etc,
is in jail for general malfeasance.
Not convicted, but it is assumed by many
it will be so.

Allegedly:
Taking from Peter to pay Paul,
but not finding Martin's deposit
fast enough to pay off Peter...
or some such.

So that explains why the phone call wasn't answered.. DUH!
Even made the papers in Thai.
The Thai's REALLY, REALLY like their 'Perp-Walks'.


Well I DID remix Barry's album and it sounds MUCH better.
So already the new control room has greatly improved imaging.
And lack of clutter in the sound field.
On mixes I did in France I now hear things that
I wish I could remix again.
That is even MORE positive about the new room.

Just getting round one of the big room treatment
Most will be tossed eventually,
but it WILL make a large working space
when glass is fully installed.

[David L. Donald]

OK big room rev 1 picture
With instrument collection.
A family portrait


L-R '81 ShoBud ProII 8+9, french Pentatonic bass amp, '57 Gibson J-50,
'63 Mosrite Dobro, '54 Kay upright bass,
'93 Fodera 6 string 28 fret bass, Roland gt synth,
1/2 scale plasic gt. w/internal amp/speaker, Crate basBuss amp,
Ibanez Artist,'12 Gibson A-jr mando, Fernandez gt. w/whammy bar,
custom 6 string green Donaldoline, indian made upright bass
from Shanghai, Mexican Tele from Nashville pawnshop,
'60 Supro Comet, Sonar drums, '61 Fender Champ,
2008 10-string 'Thai-ing Pan', Sierra S-14,
Peavey Transfex Pro 212S, Juki industrial sewing machine (Chacha's)

[CrowBear Schmitt]

now that's much better bro' D !

[David L. Donald]

Yeah, definite improvement,
my storage space behind the speakers is
bigger in area than my drum room in France.

And the big one has room to build large,
smaller spaces and not lose the big feel/sound/decay.
There is actually a half meter down in front,
where I was on a ladder to take the shot,
and at least another meter peak above where
this shot stops. A touch under 30 feet at the peaks.

Hey CB we did a family portrait back when too.
I just found it @ GSimmons Shobud Gallery.

[CrowBear Schmitt]

was that some good wine or what ?

[David L. Donald]

Absolument mon amie!

[David L. Donald]

Here is a view from the yard above.



And my security crew
Steelee & her brother Gangster.

[David L. Donald]

Not a ton of visible progress recently,
but the big window glass should be all finished today.

That would be 'invisible' progress I guess.

The control room is getting closer to properly set up,
but waiting on assorted parts from abroad.
And getting back to Bangkok for some big cables etc.

I also want to build shorter racks for the mix space.
All things take time.

Big work screen and few bad reflections from the monitors to mixing position.

A small amount of monitor front edge angle difraction,
but negligable IMHO Not compared to a big console bouncing in your face.