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If you have a hankering to do more and spend more..... buy a farm. It seems I spend money and time out there every time I go out there. recap: we bought the 28.5 acre farm back in March. The long time occupant moved out at the end of June and we took full possession on July 1. The place was filthy and that word doesn't begin to accurately portray how bad it was. We burned the house and cleared up the lot. We added a 24x30 shop and started to rehab an old shed. We dug the well 100' deeper and had the old surface water sealed off. We're now getting a solid 20+gallons per minute from 150' down in bedrock. Cold clean, and tasty water from thousands of years filtered by rock. We also found the surface spring down the hill and the foundation of the old spring house. My wife and I have signed the papers to get the process started towards putting a new 3 bedroom, open floor plan modular home on the old home site. Hopefully by the spring, we will be getting it installed and connected. So... here's what I've been working on. The old shed on the property was in bad shape. This is what it looked like. Rotted wood, siding falling off, wasps in it.  I asked my wife if she wanted it for a garden shed. She recommended that I fix it up and put my studio and office in it. We would be downsizing a bit on square footage in the new house so that made sense.  I pulled some siding off the old house before we burned it down and used that to repair the rotted siding. I added 2 windows on the south side facing the woods.  I installed 2 french doors that were found in the back of this shed. My wife picked the green color for the paint.  A neighbor sold me some tongue and groove pine boards, and I salvaged a bunch from inside the old house/cabin on the property. A friend helped me hang some sheetrock.... I installed wiring for power and internet.  And most recently, I rummaged through the many paint cans I had in storage under the laundry room sink. I found several colors that were close enough to the ones I wanted to make them work. In both cans, there was almost exactly enough to finish the ceiling in brick dust red and golden yellow on the walls.  Still more work to do... I'm planning to stain the wood on the window wall a darker color. (Walnut) and add a beam down the center of the ceiling, also walnut stained. Now, I have to figure out what to do with the floor since it's very rough concrete. Ceramic or terra cotta tile is a viable option and since I know how to do tile work, it's probably what I will end up doing. Add a throw rug, some sound diffusers, and my gear, once we move to the farm of course, and it'll be ready to rock. Anyway, that's the update on the Kill Branch recording Studio.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Finally, a real brick and mortar "Upper Room" recording studio! Will Upper Room name change to "Backshed Recordings"?
Everything is looking really good Herb. You will need to add a small doorway for Lily though.
Start watching some episodes of Daryl's House for inspiration.
Of course, if you need any guest artists to help you with the grand opening, I'm available.....
Charlie
BIAB 2026:RB 2026, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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We have a saying back home regarding farmers:
"If you want to be a millionaire farmer, start with two million."
Great job on the studio!
LLOYD S
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eddie1261
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That is AWESOME!!! Studio written all over that room!
If ever won the lottery, in the back of the new house I would buy I would have a log cabin built by those Barnwood Builders guys out of WV and make that the studio. I would also build it to seat 40 or so people so I could host house concerts. Isolated control room, tiered stage, kitchen area and some small bar tables for people to eat from the pot luck I would have as entry fee for the house concerts... I actually have it all drawn up!!
YOU, though, are living it! Good for you!!
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That looks awesome -- please keep us posted on how it turns out! In terms of treating the room, sound-wise, couldn't you leave the bare concrete and just throw some rugs on there? Or would tile be preferable?
Will - PG Music
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BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Looking real good Herb,
You're making great progress.
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Have you considered cork tile flooring? My sister has hard cork flooring in her studio which I believe is 25 X 35 or whatever equals a 2 1/2 car garage. The cork floor really helps when it come to mic'ing things in different areas of the room. It's as difficult to clean or keep dry as some assume.
Congratulations on the new place.
Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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BTW, where is it. It looks somewhat remote but must not be too far from Carl's Jr.
Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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That looks awesome -- please keep us posted on how it turns out! In terms of treating the room, sound-wise, couldn't you leave the bare concrete and just throw some rugs on there? Or would tile be preferable? The problem with the concrete floor is that the previous owner of the property finished it and it's really rough and uneven. Whatever I do I have to provide some way to even it out first. Tile puts a layer of grout on the floor first.... if I did wood of some sort, it would need some sort of underlayment to make it even. I will keep everyone posted as this project is nearing completion.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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BTW, where is it. It looks somewhat remote but must not be too far from Carl's Jr. Remote? Yes it is. It's on 28.5 acres and quite a distance off the road. Close to 1000' or so. There's no Carl Jr's around here anywhere, to my knowledge.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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This is looking really good Herb. You are a multi-talented man.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Coming together nicely Herb, that's for sure.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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eddie1261
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A layer of self leveling concrete will even it up.
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BTW, where is it. It looks somewhat remote but must not be too far from Carl's Jr. Remote? Yes it is. It's on 28.5 acres and quite a distance off the road. Close to 1000' or so. There's no Carl Jr's around here anywhere, to my knowledge. Herb, Carl's Jr. is called Hardees in North Carolina.
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Herb,
You sure have some mad construction skills- I only wish I had them! For the floor, have you considered Pergo? For a dry room you throw down some rugs, for some natural reverb you leave just the wood. It's pretty durable, and you could probably do it for the cost of tile.
Merry Christmas!
Regards,
Bob
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Well in that case, yep, it's actually the closest fast food joint. Hit the interstate a mile away, go east to the next exit 6 miles.... and waa laa.... Hardees on the corner.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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I'm going to hit the habitat for humanity restore where they sell recovered and excess things. I picked up the windows for $25 each... they were in perfect condition, just dirty.
I'll have a look at the flooring and tile when I get ready for that.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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I'm going to hit the habitat for humanity restore where they sell recovered and excess things. I picked up the windows for $25 each... they were in perfect condition, just dirty. I love going to the ReStore store!
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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