Prime Audio Studios Build Diary

[throwoff]

Hey Folks,

Well the time has finally come for this thread to start, over the past 6 months I have almost started it a few times but wanted to wait till everything was concrete and ready to go.

I used to run a PA hire company with the old man, had a good laugh doing it and accumulated a hell of a lot of gear in the process, times moved on and we gradually wound it up but kept the gear, stacks of mics, cables, stands, outboard, not to mention the speakers, desk and a bunch of lighting gear.

Well we spoke at length, did we ebay the lot as a job lot take the money and split it? Did we split it down and spend weeks selling it by bit, we even considered keeping it just for family weddings and parties!

Well a few months back while moving a sofa from my dads house to his garage the penny finally dropped. Here we have a large double garage (probably more the size people would call triple!) with 1 car in it and bugger all else, said garage is on a detached house with a fair distance from another house....

Bingo. Studio build plans were born.

Day 1 of the build is coming in 2 weeks when a skip is coming for us to clear out a load of old toot which has been stored in there and we will be bricking up the door from the inside.

Gear has already been bought and a load of our PA is going to be up for sale (will list it down in other musically when the list is finally sorted)

We are building a compact (read 'sweaty uncomfortable') control room to maximise live room size, we think there will be room for a drummer miced up and a guitarist and bassist at once time.

We are running Cubase, the interface and control surface are currently in discussion but will be in soon.

For now let me tease you with a photo of the first 'new' item to arrive, our M-Audio Oxygen 8.

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/throwoff/20130319_113843_zpsf87667de.jpg[/IMG]

Much more to come!

[throwoff]

More stuff arrives!

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/throwoff/20130321_090326_zpsb43fdba8.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/throwoff/20130321_090451_zps294eb704.jpg[/IMG]

I cant even begin to tell you the bargain prices I paid for these items, the monitors and pads (about 500 quids worth when new!) for 75 quid! Bloke is emmigrating so put a load of his gear up on eBay 99p start no reserve!

[Myke]

Exciting stuff!

I'm assuming you're going to run it as a business? Or will it be a private thing?

Either way I'm jealous, I'd love my own studio!

[Bigjas]

Looking forward to following this one, lots of pictures please

I'm the same as Myke, I would love my own studio, very jealous.

Enjoy the build

Jas

[throwoff]

Will be documenting the whole process as it goes, if for noone else than me to remember why I plugged certain things in certain places!

It will not be a business as such, it is for personal use but I know plenty of people in bands locally and I will be happy to cut them demos etc for a decent price once everythings running.

It is more a family room, I have my first child due in 7 weeks, my brother has two aged 6 and 2 and we want somewhere we can as a family play music, teach them instruments and recording and basically have fun!

I will post a full gear list as more stuff arrives, we are expecting a Line 6 Pod today, this will be a guide guitar unit and good for jamming, it can also be used to record main guitars but we have a nice collection of backline for that - Marshall TSL60 and cab, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Fender Greta and 112 cab and a Line 6 Spider Valve.

Here is the current list -

Cubase Artist running on a clean PC (nothing but windows!) 16GB ram, watercooled, 2TB storage, uprated firewire card.
Steinberg MR816 X (8 channel firewire interface for Cubase)
Behringer ADA8000 (8 channels ADAT bridged to Steinberg for a total of 16)
Mackie Onyx Satellite (just being used as a monitor control station and talkback device)
Samson S-Amp Headphone amp

Running into -

Event TR6 Monitors
Samson Resolv 40A's as a B pair.
Beyer DT100's
Several pairs of Behringer HPS 3000's for the live room foldback

Rack DI
Rack Tuner
Line 6 Pod
M-Audio Oxygen 8

Mics -

Samson CO1
Rode NT2
Superlux Kick
Superlux Tom x 3
Samson C02 (matched pair)
SM57 x 2
SM58
Electro Voice ND 767 x 3
AKG C519 clip mic

Countless cables and stands, I mean really, 2 large flight trunks full of them!

I want to pick up a few more outboard items (Tube Compressor, Rack EQ and ideally an Alesis Reverb) plus I want to upgrade the drum mics and am on the prowl for something nice, I will get a new kick mic soon but to give credit to those superlux units they have worked flawlessly for almost 5 years of live and recording work!

Next on the list is to get the racking (20U standing unit) and spend an afternoon measuring everything, the room size is flexable so although it seems a bit ass backwards to get the gear first to us it makes sense, last thing we need is to build it then not be able to fit the gear in!

Ill get a photo of the space in its current 'full of crap' condition this weekend!

[bremen]

Before you do any soundproofing/treatment/planning, spend a week browsing this:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php?sid=df3c503a4984b43b0b4f9c9f08700fed

[throwoff]

Some photos of the room finally!

You need quite a bit of imagination as it is currently 'chock full o'sh*te' skip booked up now so getting close to clearance day!

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/throwoff/20130329_114945_zpsdfe20968.jpg[/IMG]

This area will hold the control room.

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/throwoff/20130329_114934_zps2211854e.jpg[/IMG]

We will build up to the existing wall in the middle

Edited April 2, 2013 by throwoff

[stoker]

I will follow this with interest. Always wanted my own studio. Any tips?

[throwoff]

As we grow the thread I am sure tips will come along, been a little quiet recently with my baby on the way any day now, should be sorting the skip and clearing the space soon. Then we can see how it lies.