I’m back. Took a few weeks (months??) off - things just got way too intense to try and keep this up. I’ve worked harder over the past month and a half than I ever have, and it has been really tough. Once the old studio was shut down it was important to get up and running as quickly as possible, but it has been a bumpy road with a lot of detours.
At this point (October 6) both studios are up and running. Many days we have sessions in both rooms, and as long as we can keep that up we should be good. The work of getting equipment running and computers online is being replaced by the work of getting systems set up for a whole new space and handling twice as many clients in and out each day.
In order to catch up on this blog I’m going to continue to take it week by week, so this post will basically cover the last week of August.
All of the glass showed up, these pieces are for the control rooms. 3/4” laminated sheets for the control room side, 5/8” tempered for the tracking room side.
Getting the control room side glass set in studio 1.
With one of the glass sheets set, work on the stops and the casing can begin.
Getting the outboard gear racked up in Control Room 1.
Trying to find a way to store and move cymbals around was proving difficult. We had them stored in multiple cymbal bags but we wanted a solution that would be mobile and hold all the cymbals. Ryan and Dan took our old rolling drum rack apart and got to work on a solution.
A few hours later the cymbal car was finished.
The crew from Brett Acoustics left, driving one of the trucks back and taking our old API 1608 with them. One week later Tony and his brother Bryan flew back out to help finish up a few odds and ends like the soffit facia they are installing here.
Adjusting the many Overly sound doors we have ended up being quite a task. Lots of playing white noise on one side and listening for gaps on the other as well as using flashlights to find gaps.
2 days before our first session in Studio 1, piano movers brought our old Bush and Gerts upright from storage and moved our Yamaha C7 from the house into the new space. The upright was the biggest challenge as it is incredibly heavy and wouldn’t go through the doors and around the corners right side up.
Although much larger, the dimensions of the grand made its move into the studio quite simple comparatively.
Trimming out the window in control room 1.
In comes the huge sheet of glass for the tracking room side of studio 1. Something about this sheet being tempered and so large meant that it had to come from another state, which took weeks, so this was a long awaited moment.
…and then we heard the installer on one end say “you need to come my way a lot” and then the installer on the other side said “no, it needs to come my way a lot.” As you can see, somewhere along the way one of the measurements was wrong and the glass was cut incorrectly. It fit great on top but was ten inches short on the bottom. So our first session in the studios didn’t have total isolation, or a trimmed out window, but it was a lot easier to leave that huge piece of glass in that spot than take it out and find somewhere to put it while we waited for a replacement.
Using the laser to get the console centered in the control room.
This is a blurry phone photo of the rack in machine room 1 showing the API power supplies, the McIntosh amp for the NS-10s, and the Burl converters. The Aviom headphone system is racked on the backside.
With our session coming up we asked for some help from friends to get things cleaned up and ready. One of the great things about our local music scene here is just how much support everyone shows to each other and in this case to us. We were really lucky to have a lot of help.
Maren, Dan and Ryan digging into the back of the API and getting everything connected.
Our studio manager Emily started hanging some artwork in the hallway.
These are all of the concert posters from the 10 years of the Provo Rooftop Concert Series, which is an event started and run by my wife and three other founders. The concerts got to the point where so many attended that the rooftop where they were initially staged was no longer safe for the crowds. The latest concerts were held on the street around the corner from the studio and would regularly have 10-15,000 attendees.
Artwork begins on the other side of the hall. I found Scott Iulianelli of Analog Prints from the awesome Tape Op magazine covers he has drawn. Scott was on board with doing a piece for the hallway and we decided that he would draw it and we would find a local artist, in this case Jake Reedy, to paint it.
Jake printed the drawing out and then used a pounce wheel to perforate along the lines. Then the prints are hung in place and a pounce pad is used to beat chalk through the small holes on to the wall. You can see the chalk lines to the left where the paper has been removed.
Next, Jake would paint over the chalk and wipe away any chalk residue.
The final mural is basically an elevation of the entirety of Studio 2, so to the left is the small booth, where you see the three mics on stands, then the wall, then the tracking room where the guitars and amps are pictured, and then all the way down the wall to the window and the control room, everything lifesize and laid out where it is behind the wall.
Jake painting the outline of the Daking console and monitors on the meter bridge.