Early signs of finishing touches.

According to the schedule, we're about 6 weeks away from move-in. And the place is starting to look like it.

Framing for the acoustic treatments in Studio 1 is complete, and the ceiling grid is in place. Now the electricians can begin hanging fixtures.


David and his capable crew - Matt, Zach and Randall - hang one of the custom-made HVAC plenums. (Sorry again for the blurry pic. The iPhone doesn't do well in lower-light settings. And apologies to Zach, whose back is all you can see.)


Here's a view of the corner near Studio 1's entrance.


Meanwhile, work continues in the control rooms as well.



The ceiling grids are complete and HVAC supply plenums are in place. I think it's clever how David has designed the system so that air comes into the room down through a ceiling reveal at the front of the room.



At the rear of the room, the HVAC return will be inside the bass trap and partially concealed by a loveseat and two side chairs. As you can see, installation of the lighting fixtures has begun in here as well. (That REALLY bright light is a test of the battery powered fixtures that illuminate in case of power failure.)


Meanwhile, the ceiling grid is taking shape in the common areas. (Geeky detail alert!) To prevent even the slightest acoustic vibration from penetrating recording and mixing spaces, any ceiling grid running along the outside wall of a studio or control room is disconnected from the wall, and further separated by a strip of black neoprene. The neoprene disappears into the black ceiling grid and completes the acoustic decoupling.


I also had a request to show more of the paint colors. This photo doesn't do it justice, but the short hallway leading to Studio 1 (with restrooms on the right) is a warm brown called "Hopsack". The restrooms get this same color.


Door frames will be painted black, and common area doors and baseboards will be natural light wood with clear stain. Brian, our architect, came up with a handsome contemporary detail for the baseboards. They're being milled and finished off site, but I'm told I'll get a look at them this week. Which means you will, too.

Until next time...

Beginnings of a vibe.

I know, "vibe" is one of those throwback words. But it's still a word freely used in musical circles, and one we take seriously when it comes to the feel of our new facility.

Fortunately, we found Bobbie Cox of Custom Dragonfly Designs to guide us in the quest for great vibe. And now we're finally seeing the first signs of her excellent interior design consultation. The first coat of paint has been applied in the common areas, and it's lookin' good. ("Riverway" is the name of the color, if you're interested.) You'll see much more of Bobbie's input going forward.




Meanwhile, even Construction Superintendents have to eat now and then. Here's Jerry in a makeshift lunch spot. I don't want to embarrass him here on my humble blog, but credit must be given where credit is due. On time, on budget and lookin' good. You run a tight ship, Jerry. Props to you and Denver Construction Company.


Until next time...

Acoustics!

This week the first acoustical treatments began showing up in the control rooms. In this shot of the front wall of Control Room A (remember, they're all identical except for color and fabric treatments) you see layers of rock wool attached to the framing for the corner bass traps. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of what's inside the cavities - namely loosely stacked unfaced pink insulation. The traps will be sealed on all sides except the front.


As you can see, rock wool extends beyond the line where the acoustical ceilings will hang, all the way to the hard drywall ceiling. Suspended ceiling height for the front of the room will be 8' 6", with the hard drywall ceiling at 12'. Plenums for HVAC supplies will set atop the corner traps and feed air into the room through a 6" reveal between the suspended ceiling and front wall. Very clever and discreet.


Believe it or not, this isn't quite all the conduit. Two-inch pipes will also be included to handle larger 16-pair microphone and line level connections to the machine room patchbays. The framing cross member in the center is to hold the flat panel wall mounts. Each control room will feature a 52" 1080P monitor in this spot.



And now for the rear wall. Ceilings at the rear will be 10' 6" high, then slope down to the front wall height of 8' 6" beginning about the middle of the room.


That's not a picture window in the center. It will hold six 2' x 2' wooden diffusers. Not only will these help the room's acoustics, they'll look cool too. Beneath will be a plenum and HVAC register for the return air. If you notice the short joists across the top, these aren't just structural supports for the front of the wall. Hanging diagonally will be double-faced rigid bass traps. By being suspended from above, they're more effective at trapping those insidious, rogue bass frequencies. David tells me the frequency response of our new control rooms will be superb, which is exactly why we're going to the effort. It's great knowing that we'll be making critical mixing decisions in that kind of environment.

Now on to the largest room in the new place, Studio 1.


I wrote about construction of the stone walls (and their acoustical importance) in earlier posts. Here, the framing is complete for the bass traps which will angle gently into a 14' high theatre curtain at the front of the room. David will use the same rigid bass traps in these cavities that he's using in the rear wall of the control rooms. You'll notice that the hanging joists are in two tiers. The raw material for these hanging traps only comes in 8' heights, so it takes two tiers to get the job done - 8' at the bottom, and just over 5' at the top. Total height of the traps (and the stone walls) is 13' 6" and the suspended ceiling will be at 14". Compared to our current tracking room, that's some extra cubic feet of room volume!


These traps will also be sealed. The sheetrock on the back wall wraps around to the back of the trap. The theatre curtain will be installed 2' from the back wall (flush with where the traps end) so we can store mic stands, music stands, stacking chairs and such behind the curtain for a nice neat appearance. The cavities behind the traps to the side walls create a perfect nook to tuck the theatre curtain when it's open. As you can see, rock wool is ready to line these structures as the work continues.

Meanwhile, drywall finishing in the common areas is almost complete and painting of the hallways, offices, restrooms and break area may begin this week. Next week installation of the ceiling grid will commence.

The only problem with all this great progress is that every time I visit, it's getting harder and harder to drag myself away and get back to writing some music!

Until next time...

Word of the day...Infrastructure.

(I've stopped counting how many posts this thread contains. But if you like to track progress chronologically, you might want to jump back to the beginning.)

The structure is complete. Now comes the INFRA-structure...all the pipes and wires and metal and wood that make the place work. This week studio designer David Rochester arrived from Nashville to begin turning all those four-walled rooms into proper studios and control rooms. Here's a shot of the acoustics framing for the front wall of Control Room A.


Once the details are nailed down for this room and the framing infrastructure is in place, it will be precisely duplicated in Control Rooms B and C. Then the acoustic materials will start going in. LOTS of rock wool and Owens-Corning 703 compressed fiberglass.

In this shot, you see the HVAC and sprinkler pipe penetrations for Control Room A.


And here's how they look in Studio 1.


Meanwhile, drywall finishing is progressing in the common areas.



So far, right on schedule. Very cool.

Until next time...