Some Progress in Wyoming!

I’m happy to report that we’ve finally had ‘some’ progress on the interior of the studio. I can’t wait to be up and running but, in the meantime, I’m weirdly excited to share progress pictures and details of the studio build itself. I understand if some of you want to tune out during this period, but there are likely others of you that will find it interesting.

While building studios is a very customized process, it really comes down to having a great plan and guidance (Thanks Sam!), some customized building materials (more on that later) and attention to detail by contractors. I WISH I had the talent required to do all of the construction work myself, but I don’t and have to rely on other professionals. One thing about living in a rural area is that the supply of quality contractors are few and the schedule just sort of happens. Predictability is mostly out the window. Oddly, when building our home up here, we managed to move in ahead of schedule by a month or two. We’re not having the same luck with the studio build BUT we are finally seeing some progress. While this part of the progress may seem mundane, the subfloor build is important because the interior studio rooms will be built on top of it!

The contractor that poured the slab for the studio building (we did that at the same time we were building our home) did a great job and left us with a nice smooth and level surface. A great start. On top of that layer, we now have a layer of SR Board (from a company named Kinetics Noise Control) which is a patented layer of compressed fiberglass boards and a honeycomb-like cardboard structure. On top of that is a layer of 3/4” OSB, then a layer of cement board (Hardie backer) and finally another layer of 3/4” OSB. The layers are installed in a way that the joints are staggered and none overlap.

Here is the finished product from a subfloor perspective.

Below is the ‘before view’

A side view of the layers built up

A view of the first layer of OSB being installed on top of the SR board

Our next steps are now cutting out and separating the room floors from each other. The floor of the control room will not touch the floor of the iso room nor the tracking room for instance. Then, the framing people will build the interior walls of each room with a combination of 18 gauge steel studs and a custom product (also from Kinetics) that allow us to use the exterior structure walls/frame for a portion of the rooms walls. Multiple layers of drywall will sit on metal strips that will be suspended in the custom clips. The interior walls will be decoupled from the building’s frame by these special IsoMax clips. The ceiling in the tracking room will likewise utilize a custom product (Wavehangers from Kinetics) that will decouple the drywall from the structures’ ceiling joists. The control room will be different as it will have a spanned steel ceiling and will not even touch the exterior structures’ ceiling joists.

OK, are you still reading? Bottom line is, the framing should start this coming week. There is still so much to do, but Marie and I are resolved to get this building finished so we can get on with our plans! As mentioned, I plan to provide blog updates whenever a meaningful and/or interesting step is completed.

In other nerd news, we locally picked up a vacuum tube tester for just a few dollars. To some, it is a relic from a time gone by. To someone like me, it is a great diagnostic tool to maintain some of our equipment that still relies on good ole’ vacuum tubes! Our Hammond organ, Leslie cabinets and some of our outboard gear (Manley Massive Passive, Stam Audio ‘Stamchild’ come to mind) very much need them to do their thing.

Even MORE nerd news - our friend Derek at Vanguard Audio Labs is starting the restoration process on an old AKG mic we sent him. Let’s just say, it’s a very special mic, and it will be awesome to have it back in great condition and begin using it on recording sessions. Derek makes great mics of his own and we are very pleased to have his Vanguard Audio Labs V13 and stereo V44 in our mic collection. A really talented guy and a great company.

OK, that’s all for now. I would love to see your comments (good or bad). Please reach out if you’d like to discuss. I will publish updates as they become available. - Jim