Les Paul - Chasing Sound

A couple of months ago I saw this documentary on Les Paul. I highly recommend that you check it out. His contributions to music will never be forgotten. Here is a short clip of what you can expect. The full version can be seen on most public TV stations.

I recently purchased a field recorder and had a chance to test it out. These videos are from the Music Fusion Parks Alive performances in Kelowna. These were both recorded using a Zoom H4N recorder.

Understanding Noise

A colleague and online friend of mine (thx crux) found this awesome video that provides a basic understanding of sound and frequency.

GIK Acoustics

I have contacted GIK Acoustics about treating my garage/studio. Here are snippets from our conversation.

Hi Bryan,

Nice to meet you and I look forward to working with you as well. I only used that size of bass absorbers in my drawing because I thought the room would need really large ones. If you think I can get away with smaller ones then awesome! The room seems like it would be difficult to tame which is why I'm coming to you guys. I've seen Glenn's posts and have been a member of Gearslutz for a long time! :)

I will be doing the occasional live recording. This would mostly be my bands practice but eventually I would like to record other bands rehearsals as well. I will also be tracking drums/guitars/vocals etc for our albums. The other thing I plan to do in the room is video. This would mostly be lectures and training videos. This is why I'm trying to create a retro garage/service station type vibe. I will be painting the cabinets toolbox red and I want the acoustic treatment to be red as well. This is why I don't want a separate control room or any other rooms to break up the look. There will be show cars in the room from time to time and video will be filled around them.

We have now taken possession of the property so I will take several new pictures with the room empty.

If there is any other information you need just let me know and I will get back to you as soon as I can. For the timeline, I would like to have at least some initial treatment done by winter. Keep in mind I have a lot of work to do on the retro garage part as well. I need it to look great in photos and it is a long ways from that right now lol.

...and Bryans response;

Well the traps I'm going to use aren't exactly small - lol. Just nothing so big that we can't take care of the important symmetry issue. I'm thinking either Tri Traps or Soffit Traps stacked in the 2 front corners of the room.

In the rear (especially since the room is square), we'll need to address bass cancellations off the back. Monster panels (3 or more) would be appropriate in the middle of the wall. Can still be the free-standing on stands or can use our boom stand brackets and your mic boom stands to give you movement and height adjustment.

Ceiling - since you have a nice high 10' ceiling, I'd use diffusion there. The Grid Fusors are very cost effective.

For recording, we have a few options. We need to have something on the side walls for reflection control. We can hard mount those or you can use our boom stand brackets and your mic boom stands. That would give you a height adjustment as well as being able to easily remove them from the space when filming to keep the 'look' if so desiered. Another option is to use our Screen Panels - again, not mounted, moveable, and removable.

I look forward to working with GIK. They are make a very good product and this will go a long ways to making my studio fit my needs.

Bob Katz articles

Looking for great Audio Engineering articles? You must drop by Bob Katz' site at http://www.digido.com/articles-demos.html. There a many articles covering everything from mixing tips to mastering do's and don'ts.

Over a month already!

OK, well when I set out to do this latest project I had no idea it would take so long to get past even the first stages. With moving into a new house, the living quarters actually have taken a priority over the studio. Imagine that. Anyways, I have started painting the cabinets and the walls are awaiting paint, as is the floor. I will try and take some pictures of the progress to keep this blog somewhat up to date.

Building my new studio

Wow, has it really been 3 years since I updated my blog. Yikes. Well, I have a 24ft x 24ft x 10ft shop that I plan to use for mixing, jamming/practice and even occasionally working on my car. I will be coating the floor with epoxy paint and the cabinets will be left in the shop for storage. I am not worried about soundproofing as I am in a rural area with very little traffic and I will not be jamming late at night so I won't be bothering the neighbors that are around. This will be somewhat of a multifunction room and I want to leave as much of it original as possible.

This will be an ongoing project but I would like to have a decent setup fairly quickly and on budget. I do not plan on tracking/mixing bands other than my own and that would be on very rare occasions. At this time I do not want the extra expense of building a control room.

Hmmm, not sure what other information I can provide at this time.

I know that this room is going to need a lot of dense absorption but I am not sure where it needs to be placed or exactly how much I need. The diagram below is sort of what I am thinking.

The roll-up garage door is a bit of a problem. The tracking runs right up to the ceiling and about 10 feet in along the top. I cannot put clouds there because of it.

I was thinking of filling every available corner space from floor to ceiling with OC 703 bass traps. (6x) 4ft x 8ft broadband absorbers and (3x) 4ft x 8ft portable broadband absorbers. I know that I'm going to need some diffusers and clouds incorporated into this as well.

Here a pic of the shop from the outside (click to enlarge)



This is the wall with the cabinets and part of the front wall. The room of course is completely empty now. This is a picture from before we bought it. (click to enlarge)





Left hand wall and part of the front wall (click to enlarge)



I don't have any pictures of the garage door from the inside but I'm pretty sure you get the idea.

Here is what I am planning to do for the first phase. The main objective is to have a great sounding room to be used for mixing. It will have a secondary function of tracking and a third function of working on my car.



I'm sure this project will take quite some time to complete but I'm hoping to have a good solid start by November/December. I will use this blog to update my progress.