Some Major Developments

Hi, it's been quite a while since I updated the blog so I thought it would be a good time to do so now that some things have happened recently.

As you can see from the walkthrough below, the roof is now nearly finished, and the inside of the roof is almost fully insulated. This week has been a major milestone in the project because the internal structural work has started. We've had some of the people from Studio People on site since yesterday and they've begun the work of setting out and preparing certain things. Their first job (installing Cellotex insulation in the roof space) is now almost completed and they can soon begin the job of creating the wooden frame structure within the live room and control room. After speaking to them today they have explained that the ceilings in both rooms will be nice and high, much higher than they would expect to be able to give in a 'home studio'. I'll take this as a compliment as this will be much more than a 'home studio'. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all takes shape.

We are in the process of having a new website made for me by Matt Thomas (http://www.mattthomas.co.uk) and once it is totally finished we'll put it out there properly, for now it is working like a blog and can be seen here www.skyhammerstudio.com.

This week marked the announcement that the very excellent Chris Fielding (www.chrisfielding.co.uk/news) will be moving into the studio once it is completed and will work here as producer. Chris is a great guy and is just simply excellent at what he does. He has worked on every release that we (Conan) have put out and through that we have built up a friendship and also a professional understanding and so therefore when he called me to ask if he could move to the studio, I didn't have a very difficult decision to make. You can see the scope of the work he has done so far on his website and it can come as no surprise that he is very well respected within the realms of music and music production. Initially I was going to have a go myself and build up my skills over time while hopefully building up the studio itself. Now with Chris here I can follow a different path and while the studio grows I can concentrate on one or two other projects I have rattling round my head while also committing time to the studio alongside Chris.

So things are going well so far, we have a 3d walkthrough of the studio on the way and I will upload that to the website soon.

The studio will be ready in early August 2013, we will soon be ready to take bookings. In the first instance you should email us on skyhammerstudio@gmail.com but we will have an email setup at the domain soon enough.

Thanks for reading...... Here's the latest walkthrough.

Video Walkthrough - 13th May 2013

Here is a short video showing the studio during the construction phase. This video was taken on the 13th May 2013

More Progress

Hi all

So it looks like we have a two man team pretty much permanent on the studio now, and it is showing in the amount of progress we have had.

This last week we have got the internal blockwork (forming the acoustic barrier around the live room) up to lintel height and the old external wall (and supporting wall underneath) has been removed so that the studio is now fully open.

It looks a mess right now, but it is an active building site and it's really cool to see it taking shape the way it is.

Will probably do a video walk through next I think.

Closer and Closer...........

Been a bit busy with a few shows recently so haven't been able to update, but things are moving on nicely.

The shell of the building has now been made good and the only current way into the building is through the main doorway. The garage door has been removed and has been bricked up.

The biggest obstacle we faced was to do with the internal walls. There was one stretching the whole width of the building that was holding up some of the roof joists. This has now been removed and will be replaced by a similar wall about two feet further into the 'control room' space. There was quite a lot of rubble to move and once that was done the foundations were made and concrete poured and the first runs of brick were put in.

As I type the builder has put two extra men onto the job today to begin knocking down the other internal wall so that we can prop it up with steel, then remove all the walls below it - this will open up the inside of the building 100% and will make it ready for the studio designers (The Studio People) to come in and do their magic. The brickwork that is the 'internal acoustic barrier' around the live room has now begun and can be seen on the pics below. The 'before' and 'after' pics on the removal of the existing internal wall are below also.

The studio accommodation is pretty much finished and we are very happy with it. It comprises of two bedrooms (each sleeping a maximum of 4 people), a living room (with Freeview TV and comfortable seating), a kitchen and a shower / toilet room. It has WIFI, is secure by way of its own secure entrance, and is quiet and cozy due to the central heating and double glazed windows. We had Bongripper and Humanfly stay there recently while we (Conan) were on tour with them both and it was great. It's nice and quiet at that end of the house too so it will be a peaceful environment for them.

Movement - finally......

Not updated this in a little while as we've not done much, basically. However, we have now started making some real progress.

Over the last 10 days or so the ceilings and joists have been removed to create a large amount of space, over the last couple of days the footings have been built to provide footings for what will be the acoustic barrier wall..... Because of the fact that there are a couple of houses within 100 yards of the studio we have over engineered the sound isolation on the live room, providing a full height block work wall inside the existing structure, within this block wall will be constructed a timber frame acoustic wall thus providing even more isolation of the live room. This live room will have two suspended acoustic barrier ceilings above it so will be pretty much silent to the outside world.

In terms of the internal construction we decided a few weeks ago to give the work to Studio People. We figured that the acoustic treatment and construction of some of the specialist aspects (air con 'plenums', drop ceilings etc) would be better carried out by the guys who designed the studio in the first place. It's going to look great when it's finished.

Pretty excited about the whole thing now, it's been a hard slog as we've been living in the house for 6 weeks or so with no heating or hot water.... You can imagine how cold that was when we had the snow a few weeks ago, a period of time within which we had no internal doors for two weeks, and half the house exposed to the weather. We had to go to Spain to get some warmth, seriously.

But now things are coming along nicely. The main house is unfolding and we can almost call it comfortable. We're currently busy making sure that the 2 bedroom accommodation for studio clients is ready for the arrival of Bongripper this weekend, we (Conan) are touring with these fellers and Humanfly from Leeds soon. The studio accommodation is now plastered, painted, carpeted, beds are getting made up tomorrow, windows are in, the kitchen and bathroom tiling is being sorted tomorrow and the flooring in the lounge there is on the way tomorrow too. This has been a huge job, but we;re plugging away with the help of our builders who have been great.

Concrete is being poured tomorrow and brickwork is starting next week.

Anyway, here are some pics.......

And The Walls Came Tumbling Dowwwwwwwn.

I turned up to at the house today just in time to see two of our builder's lads start some of the demolition work in the studio. We discovered that a couple of the internal walls (that we thought were just cosmetic) are actually holding up the roof structure so we'll have to incorporate some steel work up there I think.

Some Progress........

I've been away for two weeks on tour with the band and a week before it I got Bells Palsy. The day I was going to upload some new pics our internet connection went down as I forgot to tell BT that we hadn't moved yet.... Nightmare.

Anyhow..... I've now had the M&E construction drawings and these are with the builders. They've started knocking some walls down and the new outside door will soon be in..... Once that's in they'll remove the back roof completely (they have removed the tiles already). We've had to take the labour off the studio though as the house is falling behind a bit, so once we get ahead of ourselves we'll get moving again with the studio.

Onwards and upwards.