Work Has Begun!

Ok so I'm off work at the moment with flu. Feel TERRIBLE, but had some good news yesterday that the back of the studio has now been bricked up. Where there was once an up and over garage door we now have solid brick work. Next step is to remove the garage door from the front of the studio and brick it up too. Once that is done the new roof and the removal of internal walls / pillars and ceilings can begin.

Also, had the construction drawings earlier this week from Studio People. Exciting times.

Construction Drawings

So I'm sat up at 3am following too much tea earlier. Got a bit of a cold, so have put the heating on and made a lemsip before I go back to bed.

Anyhow, I should have the construction design drawings later today. I also have learned a bit today about 'structurally isolated' windows and how the studio will have two separate ceilings over the live room to keep the noise down. Currently still enjoying Pro Tools 10, got a way to go before I can call myself fluent though.

Once again, Chris and Peter have been cool about everything, even when I am at my most annoying.

Amended Design

Had some thoughts, and after a bit of a chat with a guy on Twitter of all places, decided that perhaps the vocal booth was unnecessary. Well, maybe not 'unnecessary' but certainly sacrifice-able (if there is such a word).

Had the designs from Studio People yesterday and at midnight last night (still awake thanks to cold tablets with caffeine in) I decided that I'd rather take out the vocal booth and instead have a bigger control room. I've seen people record vocals in the control room and every time we (Conan) recorded at Foel Studio we've recorded the vocals in a makeshift 'booth' in the live room - works fine every time. The extra room in the control room will no doubt help mixing in there..... See, I'm talking like I know the score already.

I must say though, the guys at Studio People are really good. I'm really enjoying working with Chris (Design Coordinator) and I'd be TOTALLY lost without his help so far.

Here's the revised design. I was excited to hear that the brick acoustic barrier wall will stretch from the floor right up to roof height, I might follow Chris Fielding's idea and make some of it chalkboard so we can draw genitalia on it - big ones.

Quotes Are In

Had the quotes from Studio People yesterday, will be going through them later on in the week when I can get the full designs off them. Looking forward to getting to the bottom of all the ideas we've fired around the last week.

Thinking of doing away with the vocal booth, it's not that big and it might help keep the costs down a bit. Plus it will help to get a larger control room which will benefit us in a few different ways.

Snow Need For This Weather

Moved all our cabs and amps out today, the garage doors are being bricked up tomorrow and the side entrance is being knocked out. Don't want the gear being smashed to hell. Had some good news today too, I've been dealing with Mark at Lowfold Audio - www.lowfold.com. I'd been struggling to make sense of a few different quotes on mics, audio interfaces etc and stumbled upon Lowfold through Google. Not sure how I missed them first time round, they're only up the road! Anyway, looks like I've got some good deals on the shortlist I sent him. Will do pics when I get around to ordering it, I'll probably change my mind 1000 times before then.

Roof will be removed soon and rebuilt - just waiting for the snow to clear.

The Roof

One thing not shown on the plans in my first post is the roof redesign that is required. Back in the dim and distant past the studio was extended and the 'old' outside wall now sits half way into the overall floor plan. This is obviously an issue from a design point of view as with the pillar, the RSJ and the sections of brick wall that are present, the room cannot be broken up as easily and it would certainly spoil both the acoustics and the aesthetics of the room.

To fix this our builder is going to remove the roof on the 'extended' part of the studio and then remove the old external wall (which is now half way into the foot print of the studio). He will then rebuild the roof and take it all the way up to the current apex of the roof. Once that is done we can remove all the internal ceilings, the old 'external' wall and the pillars and the RSJs that were holding it up and then take out all the 'insides' of the studio, which will open up the building and enable the plans detailed earlier to be put into action.

This pic here show the 'extended' section of the building and you can see the old external wall too. The roof on the extension will be removed and remodelled as per the above description.

This will begin when the snow clears.

Pro Tools 10

Ok, so I now have a trial version of Pro Tools 10 Standard. I doubt I'll go HD as I know it costs a lot of money and my skills aren't up to it yet. It's simply too 'high end' for me. Oh, and the place isn't even fucking built yet......

Nevertheless, I got a trial version and it all works great. I have limited experience of this sort of program in general, I was a Cool Edit expert back in my 'acoustic guitar and crooning 20's' so this new layout, with all the inserts and jazz was a bit of a shock to me when I started using Reaper. However, I quickly got used to that. I've now installed Pro Tools and it seems to be just as easy to use, but I'll need to re-learn all those things that took me ages to learn with Reaper. Another first world problem (I'll stop using this phrase soon I promise).

I'm currently trying to split EZ Drummer out to separate tracks to create some simple tracks I can play guitar riffs to and I'm sure it'll sound a lot better than the voice recording function of my iPhone......!

I'm going to send this blog to a couple of magazines to see if they are interested in linking to it.

A Cold Start

This is my first post in this new blog about the development of Skyhammer Studio.

Here is a plan for the layout of the studio. I have brought the guys at www.studiopeople.com on board after a very frustrating period of time waiting for a designer who was based miles away to do what he said he would do. Chris and Peter at Studio People have been excellent so far, I'm really looking forward to having this take shape.

Ok so we're building a recording studio at our house in Childer Thornton on the Border of Cheshire and The Wirral. We're converting a 19th century coach house into a three room studio, this will incorporate a live room (18 sq m), a control room (16 sq m) and an isolation booth (4 sq m). The live room will also double as a practice room for the band I am in (Conan - www.hailconan.com). The studio will, in time, become a commercial venture and my aim is to build it (and myself) up to a level where we can confidently take bookings from bands who wish to record there. I will personally work there as lead engineer but will of course be open to people doing their own producing there if they prefer. I dare say that once I get the right setup people will express an interest in producing their own stuff there (with their own producer) and that's fine by me as I have a day job too.

I'm not currently a recording engineer / producer, so what the fuck am I playing at? Well, I am starting right at the beginning - from scratch. I did once have a small business recording bands in their practice room but gave up shortly into that. I had a laptop with half the screen broken, a few cheap mics from Maplins and bigger ideas than I could put into action. However, now we have this property to work with, it became clear that we have an opportunity to build something that I can practice in with the lads in the band, as well as renting the studio out for new recordings with other bands. I will 'cut my teeth' so to speak doing demos and recordings for bands I know, at little cost - and certainly some pre-production demos for Conan (we see all our recordings being done by Chris Fielding at his place down in London). I'll even record a few bands for free at first before I start to consider myself worthy of payment. Although I am taking on a lot, considering my little knowledge, I've been given lots of advice along the way on what I need to get at the outset, so I have a shopping list for my first venture into 'gear purchasing' - thanks to Chris Fielding, Matt Richardson and Matthew Dick (others too probably) for all your help so far. I also have my Wife, Holly, to thank for allowing so much of our joint investment to be committed to the studio. On that front, it will certainly be a huge personal help being able to practice right next to where I live. Currently we practice quite a way away from where we live. Paul, Phil and I all drive to our regular spot in Liverpool which is about 45 minutes each way. We then have to set all our stuff up from scratch and often we will only actually play our instruments for an hour, where we've actually paid for four. I guess if our time keeping was better we'd start earlier, but now that this new studio is in our sights the 'older' way of doing things just seems like such a chore - again, first world problems for spoilt dickheads like us! Nevertheless, at least I can still do the bedtime routine with the kids now instead of skulking off to Liverpool at 18.30 each week.

I'm currently messing around using Reaper at the moment on my PC. Through this I'm messing about with some stuff but I'm drawn to getting a set up based on Pro Tools. The frustrating thing is that no sooner do you agree to do one thing in terms of gear, you are talked out of it by someone who prefers a different setup and then you change your mind again. First world problem, but I think I'll move to Protools asap.

The studio will be complimented by accommodation incorporating two bedrooms (will sleep 6 to 8 people when it's all done), a kitchen, a shower room and a lounge. It will have WIFI, television and DVD player and will be two hops and a skip from the door into the studio across a small courtyard. This accommodation is being built into what used to be servant's quarters at the house.

Anyway, the house we bought (which brought with it the coach house) is in the midst of a full modernisation currently. Seemingly endless is the amount of debris in the house and outside, but full marks to our builders for keeping the place very tidy, considering the circumstances.

Will leave it there for today, need to sleep off the snowball fight we had before.