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Click on any of the photos for a larger image.
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The money shot. A view from the entry way. Note the high ceilings, at the apex of which, you can see the curved diffusor/bass trap. The purple panels are OC703 high density insulation. The corner panels (alternating shades of purple) are angled from the walls to serve as bass traps. These corner panels are 4" thick with a void up to 2 feet in depth. The other purple panels are 2" thick and held off the walls with 2X2s, to lower the effective absorption frequency. See the construction page for details. |
| The Floor Space. A view of the floor space from the loft. Everything is set up for a one man operation, although the keys face away from the nerve center, which helps when jamming with the buds. The floor is simply painted plywood. I didn't want a finish that I gave a damn about, since I drag heavy stuff along it all the time. In retrospect, I could have installed parquet flooring fairly cheaply, but at that point in the building process, I was so horny to get moved in, I just threw down some paint. |  |
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The Work Space. You got yer basic setup of symmetry from the front wall to the ears. The G5 is so quiet, I haven't felt the need to isolate it further than just shoving it under the desk. Note the old Yammy ProMix 01, which now largely serves as a control surface for Digital Performer. Yeah, the requisite Lava Lamp, the beer and if you can make it out, the stuffed bongo playing frog on the left monitor. |
The Wall Treatments. As described above, the purple panels are OC703. Note the bass traps, which are a modified design from Ethan Weiner's Build a Better Bass Trap article. My traps have a 6 inch depth, mostly to accomodate the 2" thich OC703 (Ethan's design calls for 1"). Also, mine are 6 feet tall. There are 6 on the walls and 4 on the ceiling. Instead of painting the resonant surface, I just polyu'ed them, to keep the periwinkle and honey wood thing going. My goal was to control the echoes (unbelievably nasty with stucco walls before treatment), while preserving some reverberant big room sound. By using a wide variety of treatment technologies, I figured I hedged my bets a bit. |
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The Guitar and Drum Zone. Behind the mix position lies the guitar array and under the loft on the west side is the drum set. Note the oodles of books in the book shelves. The idea here was to achieve random diffusion through many books of varying spine depths. Still, I have more books than I have room for my other stuff, so The Zen of Pet Rocks may have to go. |
| The Entryway and Loft. From behind the mix position is the loft. Under the loft to the East side is the entry way. My builder had a great idea to put double doors on both the entrance to the studio and on the entryway isolation area. This makes load in and out a breeze. The entryway can serve as an isolation area, although it will always be pretty leaky. Note the ladder leading up to the loft. Yes, it's disruptively in the middle of the floor, but it gives the climber much better headroom. You can see the futon up there as well for guests to crash or ill-behaving husband to rethink his communication methods. Restroom is in the form of the surrounding heavily wooded three acres. |  |
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Guitar Zone. No, I am not much of a guitar player, but I have a nice rig. The axe on the left is an Ibanez strat copy. Piece of crap, but sounds pretty decent. Next to it is an ugly as hell, but very sweet 70s Telecaster Deluxe with Seth Lover humbux (Think Sonic Youth, Thom Yorke or Keith Richards). The amp is a little Mesa Boogies which does a decent impression of Fender and Marshall amps. I need to paint the love clock some hideous shade and put her in a more prominent space. |
| The House Bass. I knew I needed some mutt bass and I'm a sucker for yellow axes. It sounds okay and really woofy through the Music Man. Why does all my gear look dusty and dirty as hell? Oh, I know! It's cause it's dusty and dirty as hell! |  |
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Keyboard Rig. I suppose I am a guitar player trapped in a keyboardist's body. This is my current configuration of keyboards, a Korg Prophecy on top with an old trusty Roland D-50 below. I control lots of MIDI gear with these, but also I use their on-board sounds a lot. |
Road Rage Rig. Here's what I take on the road to go along with the Prophecy and the D-50. From the top is the Pro3 rotating horn. I tried all the electronic Leslie simulators out there, only to conclude, you just have to move air in a circle to get the right sound. I typically feed my Peavy organ ROMpler into the rotating horn. It actually sounds pretty damn good. You just take all the Leslie effects off the ROMpler sounds and pipe her through. Voila! I also have a Yammy piano module, which sucks enormous donkey unit. I'm getting the feeling I'm going to have to just get a stage piano and forget the piano module route. Then the requisite piece of crap Alesis Quadraverb. It's one of those no-where-else-to-put-it rack decisions. Note I also have a full rack of MIDI gear for studio use only. |
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The Input Rack. Trying to keep the inputs pure, I use a Demeter preamp for my Neuman, Crown, Shure and Audix mics. Then I go through the li'l miracle RNC compressor and into the MOTU 896HD. If I need more than two channels of preamp on tracking, I'll use the onboard pre's from the 896HD. |
The MIDI Rack. From the top, I have a dreaded Behringer 16 input stereo mixer. This highly affordable piece of junk is never in the signal path of recording, but it is handy when you want to monitor a whole mess of outboard synths at once. Next is the Emu ESI-32, a pretty cool little sampler. The filters are pretty great and the sample libraries have some real gems. Next is the under-appreciated Roland MKS-7 Super Quartet. Nice unit, kind of like a polytimbral Juno-106 with drum machine. Under that is the Alesis D4. Kind of crappy, but it has drum triggers. Now that I have DP, I don't really need the triggers, but there are some useful sounds. Under that is a Roland U-220 all-purpose ROMpler. Sounds great. Less filling. Then comes a Tascam cassette deck (what's a cassette, grampa?). Finally a Roland D-550 to give me more D-50 when I need it, or to serve as a backup in case my workhorse keyboard ever ups and dies on me. |
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The Legacy Rack. This gear is somewhat obviated by my digital upgrade. The top unit is a dbx 166 compressor. Nice unit. Nice complement to the RNC in that it can do dual mono and has noise gates built in. Under that is a Cooper sync box I used to sync ADAT to SMPTE to MIDI. What a nightmare of syncronization hell. Below that is an old ADAT, which I haven't used much, but it seems to be working pretty well. I use that to share tracks with my ADAT bretheren. Then comes the old DAT machine. Now that I can burn right to disc, it's a bit of a dinosaur, but there you have it. Finally, the vintage Hafler D-100, which powers my Audix 1A speakers. |
| Farfisa Professional. The coolest looking keyboard in the arsenal, although she hasn't been cranked up in a while... |  |
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