Here is a pic of the new studio shell in the new barn.

Ok Todd, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it", is to keep us all informed of the progress, more photos please as the developments evolve!
Lookin' good.
Thanks in advance!
Trevor

Todd,

Great, thanks for sharing the Picture.
Also +1 on the update request.

My barn is steel similar to yours
40x80 12 ft sidewall, 18 ft peak.

Bit different construction than yours.

We get medium cold here.... freezing outside mid 20's
temps can cause inside dripping. Don't think your climate
is that cold, but if so would suggest some plastic sheeting
on your Studio roof. Lot of very expensive gear will be in there.

Very happy for you, bet the excitement is mounting...

Looks like fun.

I'm sure you've thought of this, but I see two other possible areas of concern. The minor one is noise from rain on the roof of the barn. The more important one is noise and vibration from utilities and vehicles etc. on the common slab floor. Will you be adding another floor in the studio, and isolating it as best as possible from the barn slab floor?

And since you're in Texas, how will you cool the studio?

"And since you're in Texas, how will you cool the studio?"

.. I see a fan in the picture ..

Last time I was in Texas, one little fan wouldn't have been enough... I assume you're kidding, Bob. Running ductwork for cooling can make it noisy in a studio. But you knew that...

Isn't it summer in Texas for about 10 months of the year? I'd suggest a dedicated heat pump system for the studio only.

Mount the heat pump itself 30ft down from the studio enclosure on a separate electrical circuit and the noise from said unit will be negligible.

It wouldn't hurt to have a 15 deg. sloped roof above the studio in case of a "barn" leak. It would also help with noise isolation.

The moving air and ducted fan noise of hvac system is a sonic problem, though, as well.

Easiest way to handle that is to place the Thermostat handy to the Control Room Desk and get a stat that has a manual Fan on/off switch on it, when Tracking with mics, cool 'er down and then cut the fan and make some takes.

A through-wall unit with Remote Control is a great way to handle this. hitachi

Don't neglet to install insulation before the interior walls go on.

Down in Tejas, you won't forget to turn it back on...


--Mac

And "Radiant Barrier".
During construction cheap with great comfort returns.

I think that steel building, coupled with all the free airspace in between, would preclude the need for a radiant barrier for those interior room walls.

Although it couldn't hurt, and many insulations come with radiant barrier on one side anyway, I'd therefore go with that if the cost effectiveness due to supply and demand made it the thrifty choice.


--Mac

Thanks for all the replies!
The decking on the top is radiant barrier with 3/4 plywood on top of that. The top deck will be used for storage.
The interior temperature of the barn will probably be in the 90-100 degf range during the many hot summer months. I don't know for sure yet. I had roof vent included in the barn construction which will definitely help. We'll see.
I will be installing a heat pump. With the 1/2 inch sheathing on the outside walls (and also on the walls facing the barn metal)and the R15 insulation, I'm hoping I will have pretty good sound proofing. I will also be installing some type of acoustics in the room. Of course, I will be doing this in stages as everything is expensive. I will be doing the electric and insulation this week.

And.....I know you guys and gals can sympathize with me when I tell you that all of my gear (guitars/keyboards/drums/etc.) have been in storage since we moved out of our house last May. But on the upside, the house will be finished in a couple of months.

The little blue building is the vocal isolation booth, right?

To your first question in an earlier post (directed at me) yes I was joking about the fan.

To your last question directed at LoveGuitar; yes, the blue building is an isolation booth, go in there and take a deep breath and we'll record whatever comes out.
(again I'm joking - I spent three years on Galveston (Oh Galveston) so I know)

An outhouse in Texas heat. One of the reasons the Michigan winters are tolerated.

Your jokes are getting even better, Bob. We can almost start to blame you.

Todd,

I'm concerned about those guitars you have in storage. I'm sure you know this, but wooden instruments shouldn't be stored anywhere you yourself wouldn't want to be on a long-term basis (car trunk, attic, non-climate-controlled storage, etc.). Let me know it ain't so and I'll respond with a big "Never mind."

Signed,

Perry Noyd

FECAL isolation booth

With my vocals sometimes it's hard to tell.

I'm calling the FOH! HAHA!

Hey Ryszard, Yeah my gear is all stowed away in a comfortably climate controlled and secure space. I go to look at it once every couple of weeks.

16X20 room, 19 double receptacles. Won't have to worry about where to plug stuff in.
trying to figure out how to run cables. I plan to have all guitar amps, mixer, PA amp and speakers on the 20 ft wall opposite the entry door. Desk and laptop, podium with TC Voicelive Play GTX, guitars on hangers, pedal steel, and keyboard on opposite wall. Electronic drum kit in corner.
My thought is to place an octagonal electric box in the walls on each side. These have 8 knock outs for my cables. I would need to run my XLR mic cables, sound card connection to mixer and instrument cables into the boxes and through the ceiling. I went by GC this morning looking for some kind of integrated solution but didn't really hit on anything other than a snake that is more intended for recording. Any experience/suggestions.

How about this Todd?

Wall Plates

" went by GC this morning looking for some kind of integrated solution but didn't really hit on anything other than a snake that is more intended for recording. Any experience/suggestions."



Get your soldering gun out, buy some cable, and make your own.

Cool! that is perfect!

Great idea 90db! I need to conserve my $$ (my wife says so)

I would suggest Beldon cable, but if you PM Mac, he can probably steer you in the right direction.


Regards,


Bob

Check out MCM Electronics.

Go online and request a paper catalog to pour over, too.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/

Have used this outfit 25-30 years.
They have almost anything you might need.
Have no connection other than purchases.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/

Also couple more idea's.
For house and your shop/studio.
Wifi may preempt some of the needs.
Good quality RG-6 video cables.
We've been in our "new home" about 8 years now.
Put empty conduits, bit larger for runs you might want later.

Also for your entire new project, home and shop/studio.
Install Spike/Arc/lightning suppressor devices on your main
power panel, and also especially on main power feed or panel
for you Audio studio.

They are about $40 bucks H.Depot or other places.
They install similar to a breaker, but usually external
next to your panels.

Uh OH! There goes the money to finish the new studio.

Swimming pool, cool....

I use markertek.com for cables and all audio supplies. I'm sure it's similar to the other company.

When you are running your cables, be sure to keep XLR and any audio-related cables away from AC power. If they must come near each other, have them cross at right angles.

Sheet rock almost complete and 2 1-1/4 inch conduits connecting opposite sides of the room for cabling.

Todd,

Yes sir....2 l/4 inch.... Great on the large size. material cost is minimal
on a project like yours.

I'd have put in an acoustical drop ceiling to make new runs easy .. but that's just me. Makes moving lights in the ceiling around pretty easy too.
Since you're ceiling appears to be 9.5 - 10 ft high I'd probably have added it under the (unfinished) drywall ceiling if heat was a concern, and dropped the cans lights down a bit.. otherwise, you may want to actually let heat rise up and out a bit.

I am afraid with my Strat and Vox amp, I would shake the tiles out of a drop ceiling (wearing proper hearing protection of course...:) I know there are some other of you old geetar slingers out there that can relate.

All I can say is, "I'm envious."

Great job.

Don S.

Looking good Todd. This is going to be a cool space- built from the ground up.



Bob

Just play louder then the noise, duh ? :P

Congrats on the s ssu ssssssudio -oh oh !!!!

Let er rip !!!

Trax

I had responsibility when I worked at GM, to run our very expensive automotive noises listening studio that had incredible acoustic features built in, like slat-helmholtz resonators, panel resonators to control low frequency modes, fiberglass reinforced ceramic ceiling tiles with dispersive reflective surfaces, rotate-able wall panels to change the RT in the room, etc. We ended up rarely using the built in subs in the room - because they excited the framework from which the ceramic panels were suspended like a drop ceiling. They buzzed. We worked for weeks on trying to eliminate the buzzes and as soon as we would fix it in one area, a different part of the framework would light up. Huge huge headache. That's the only part of the room structure that was not properly designed. As with any acoustics design project, the whole is only as good as the weakest link. In your design, I would be wary of the cable run tubing. Make sure it doesn't run by any noise sources. It's what we would call a 'flanking path' for airborne noise.

Good point Scott. I am doing some programming work for a major gulf coast refinery. In the DCS rack room, they are demoing some acoustic wall panels that I am trying to score.

The best free source of information for DIY acoustics is on Ethan Winer's site. He sells panels but also has quite a bit on how you can make them yourself. http://ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html Keep in mind that this article is mainly focused at bass traps - but there is more information here: http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Panels only control what is inside the room - my advice is to be careful of the flanking paths generated by having your wiring pipes run from one side of the room to another. Wherever the conduit pipes are not in the room - make sure that they are not exposed to noise sources that are outside the room. The word 'conduit' applies to acoustics as well as to wiring. To help them from being exposed, you can box them in, put constrained layer damping material around them (you can purchase mats of this stuff from car audio shops - be careful when you cut it, the constraining layer is foil and can slice fingers like you wouldn't believe - personal experience with this! http://www.dynamat.com/automotive-and-transportation/car-audio/dynamat-xtreme/ )
etc, just make sure that the pipes themselves are not acting as conduits of sound into the room - this also applies to HVAC ductwork. My purpose built studio in my last house suffered from the HVAC as a flanking path. I killed off everything else, but didn't really have a practical way to treat the HVAC ductwork as a path. I could hear my kids playing/talking two floors up through the HVAC, while everything else was killed - foot traffic noise one floor up was managed, exterior noise from outside the house was managed, even noise from the washer and dryer right outside the room was managed well enough to mix reliably.

Update on the new studio. Cabling is mostly complete. AC installed. All gear now out of storage and at home in the studio! I still have a lot of setup to do but I am waiting for some shelving before getting everything situated.

Lookin good Todd.