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Building my new songwriting space - diary


Neal

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Okay, chances are high nobody cares about this, but I'm bored so this might be fun.

 

So I've been told to leave my old rehearsal space that i was in the last 4 years about two months ago.  

Kind of a bummer, but I also dig the Idea of creating a new space for myself. the last room was my old bands rehearsal space. since the other two guys don't live in the same city anymore, it was basically mine for the last year.

 

So I searched around and was very lucky to find a new room as quick as i did. It's not ideal since i would've loved a room with daylight, but there is nothing affordable around and probably never will be.

This is how the room was given to me:

 

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note: The drums and stands are not mine, the old owner is picking them up the next few days.

 

I am going to update this thread as i proceed

 

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Here is what i plan to do:

- Remove all the foam on the walls and ceiling

- remove the little riser 

- colour the walls

- Build and mount acoustic treatments on walls and ceiling

- mount a curtain to seperate the little entrance area

- cable management

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the grey shapes are the absorption pannels and basstraps that i planned

 

 

I went to the swiss equivalent of homedepot last saturday which was very lucky. All the stores are closed now due to coronavirus so i got all my stuff just in time.

I basically got loads of rockwool, loads of wood, colour for the walls and a couple small stuff and tools i might need.

 

 

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I planned on doing the majority of the work next weekend with the help from a couple friends, my girlfriend and my dad, but since the corona-issue got much more serious they all had to cancel.

On the plus side i have much more time myself to do the build so i will work by myself on the evenings and with my girlfriend on the weekend.

So the first step was to remove all the acoustic foam on the walls so we could colour them.  They used som wierd superglue to mount them which was almost impossible to remove

so we had to sand of every bit of it which took about 5 hours 

UPeX1wm.jpg

 

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2 minutes ago, twentytwenty said:

This will be interesting to follow, looking forward to the updates as the work comes along! Will you build like a studio of it?

Yeah i want to be able to record and mix in it. mostly for my own music, but last year i also started recording other bands so i'm really trying to get the room sound as good as possible with a as flat as possible frequency response

I'm also documenting the process with audio measurement and will post the results as i get to it

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Building the Basstraps:

Yesterday i started building the basstraps. Building the wood construction was a lot harder than i thought. i would not recommend doing this alone since it was super anoying holding the wood in place and putting the screws in.

I then put some painters foil on the back and started filling the thing with rockwool. the dimension is exactly one board cut diagonally, so it was quite easy and fun. 

After that i put the same foil on the front and the top. 

I'll put a nice fabric over all the absorbers once I'm done and the room is cleaned. The painter foil is just to make sure no particles of the rockwool float through the air so nobody's going to breathe them in. I wore gloves and a breathing mask during this process.

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Building the wall panels:

I built these to last and being able to move them if i have to move into an other space in the future. The pictures explain the process i guess. i used the floorliner that i used to cover the floor while painting as the fabric on the back and the same foil as with the basstraps for the front.

Fabric will also be applied once the studio is clean.

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As for now i have two basstraps and 3 Wall Broadbandabsorption panels built. I ended up using more laths for the basstraps than i planned so i don't have enough for the two basstraps in the back. home depot is closed until at least may so those will have to wait. I might go back tonight and build the last wallpanel and maybe get started on the ceiling cloud.

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2 hours ago, Neal said:

Yeah i want to be able to record and mix in it. mostly for my own music, but last year i also started recording other bands so i'm really trying to get the room sound as good as possible with a as flat as possible frequency response

I'm also documenting the process with audio measurement and will post the results as i get to it

Awesome, looking forward to it!

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Wow, this is great Neal!

I don't have a band, but if I ever come to Switzerland I'll stop by just to pay a visit - Abbey Road style - so we can start a rumour about this cool, mysterious studio where people from all over Europe (@Kay and I so far, we need more people) go to record their music. And then boom! You'll get lots of requests. 

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4 hours ago, Elisa said:

Wow, this is great Neal!

I don't have a band, but if I ever come to Switzerland I'll stop by just to pay a visit - Abbey Road style - so we can start a rumour about this cool, mysterious studio where people from all over Europe (@Kay and I so far, we need more people) go to record their music. And then boom! You'll get lots of requests. 

I'm down, I'll come too. Now we're three :D 

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Hey thanks a lot guys, glad you enjoy following this!

Last wekend i got a lot of shit done with the help of my girlfriend.

i finished the last side panel on friday and prepared the cloud panel. i didn't want the whole room too bright so i planned on putting some LED spotlights into the desk later.

We then stapled the fabric on the panels which was a shitton of work but i think it turned out great. fabric is  fucking expensive i noticed. the fabric i wanted woul'dve cost me about a grand for all the panels! i was very lucky to find a used roll of fabric at a thrift store about two weeks ago. not the colour i wanted, but i'm happy with the result.

 

Hanging the panels on the side's was quite easy. the ceiling though was a real pain in the ass . i underestimated how heavy the whole thing got. The stonewool now pushes a bit much against the fabric when it's up. i need to add some wood laths later on to make sure it's nice and firm.

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i think the walls are super nice now. i thought at first i'd keep the old floor in, but since everything else now looks quite nice, it really annoys me. 

I wanted to paint the ceiling on sunday but i couldn't cause i was just to exhausted. i think i might need to take a break. I noticed that i try to work on this as much as possible to keep my mind busy during all the corona-weirdness, and i have a hard time stoping. It might be a smart thing to schedule my working there on certain days (Weekend) and stop working in the evenings.....

I'll keep you updated. Can't wait to star to work (musically) in here

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Just in case anybody was skeptical: I work by myself on this or with help of my girlfriend who i live with anyway. The room is not in a public facility and i don't get close to other people on my way there. as far as the situation is now, i can keep on working. as soon as we go into full lockdown, i'll stay in my house for good.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Allright so i haven't updated this in a while 'cause i needed a little break from working on this.

I decided to remove the old floor, cause it was super wobbly in places and definately sounded kinda wierd.

I got a hold of some parquet that someone had left over and it was enough for the dimension of my room so i was happy to make a good deal there

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Putting the new floor in was rather easy and was done in about 4 and a half hours.  After a good clean up i decided to start moving some of my gear in so i can start writing again, cause i was really missing it.

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There are still some small things i need to get done, as soon as stores reopen but I'm already quite happy how it turned out and i finally record music again.

The sweetspot sounds already quite impressive, but i'll still need to get some acoustic improvement.

One thing at a time though :)

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2 hours ago, Neal said:

Allright so i haven't updated this in a while 'cause i needed a little break from working on this.

I decided to remove the old floor, cause it was super wobbly in places and definately sounded kinda wierd.

I got a hold of some parquet that someone had left over and it was enough for the dimension of my room so i was happy to make a good deal there

OtBG4fL.jpg

eNfyEyz.jpg

 

Putting the new floor in was rather easy and was done in about 4 and a half hours.  After a good clean up i decided to start moving some of my gear in so i can start writing again, cause i was really missing it.

2zQAuau.jpg

latHDzu.jpg

 

There are still some small things i need to get done, as soon as stores reopen but I'm already quite happy how it turned out and i finally record music again.

The sweetspot sounds already quite impressive, but i'll still need to get some acoustic improvement.

One thing at a time though :)

Looks sick mate, nicely done! 

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