Studio Journal 9-18-2015

Progress!

Finished the walls, floor, mechanical, and just passed electrical inspection yesterday.

It’s been quite the ride, though this last bunch has been kind of on autopilot. There wasn’t much design to do, just a laundry list of things that needed to get done before we could do the next thing to be done. The summer was crazy and it took about a month after finishing insulation to get the sheetrock up, green glue the 2nd sheetrock layer and plaster.

We painted the room quickly and got the wood floor into the room to absorb moisture. We had to let it sit in there for a week or two so it wouldn’t warp when we nail it down. Luckily we got the AC working and we were able to somewhat simulate the actual conditions of the room. I was nervous because the wood floor arrived during the hottest muggiest part of August and I wasn’t sure if anything would (wood?) save it from warping.

I had the 2nd session in the room scheduled for the night of 8-14. Three female vocalists singing all at once. True to my last minute nature, the last floorboard was nailed down at around 3pm that day, trim was tossed up and the outer doors didn’t have handles or knobs. Uff Da!

The session went great. With no stuff in the room it sounded like a cathedral in there. I was hoping to be able to recreate this effect somehow, but as soon as anything entered the room, the reverb time drastically decreased. Even when the wood floor was moisturizing in boxes, the reverb time sounded like it went down a second, and I thought I broke the room. I made a clap test video for you all so you wouldn’t be sad, Alex Case showed me how to properly clap.… listen……

Then Lou Clark made his first visit. With the dodecahedron??!?!! (I think?) His colleague at WPI made this ball of speakers to spread energy evenly through the room. He did some pink noise reverb time tests, deftly maneuvering the electrical guys, who were drilling into the outer wall and turning the power on and off trying to finish up their end. (Thanks for being patient Lou!)

Lou wasn’t out of the house for 30 minutes before my keyboards, speakers, desk, books.. pretty much my whole life expressed as things… were being hustled into the new room by my family. Finally, I got the first look at all my stuff inside my “sanctuary”! Which felt great to say. Before I was in a dark room referred to as my “hole”. Big upgrade! But mostly the rest of the house was cleansed of my piles and piles of wires which made everyone happy.

Some more time went by and I was able get the HVAC guys in to turn on the air exchange and the electrical was finished as well.

We got the electrical inspection yesterday and now we need to put the door seal kits on and get some insulation between the doors. It was a bit depressing to be mostly finished with the project but the doors had no rubber gaskets around them, so there is a small opening below the door. With the doors closed, we are able to clearly hear anything and everything through this “majesty of isolation” I created. I got some, “Looks like those 8 years of collage, and 8 months of construction were totally worth it Phil….”

The baseboard heating is going in shortly and the final room inspection is right around the corner… and I’m psyched to add, Lou is officially adding his acoustic wizardry to the project and will be designing the treatments inside the room!

That’s all for now. Cheers!