I’m sure I started the year thinking ‘I shall post more often’, but as ever the juggernaut of time flattened that one. I find myself sat in an almost empty Sandpit Studio having spent the last couple of weeks packing away gear so the build can at last begin (building regulations approval was granted mid-January after I had submitted possibly the most over-detailed application for two soundproofed rooms ever created…the spreadsheets…oh the spreadsheets!).
I have managed to make a 6U rack of essentials (mic pres, headphone amp, Lavry monitor/mix AD/DA, patchbay, RME HDSP and power distro) to keep recording over the coming months. There’s also a few cases filled with pedals, mics, cables, etc. And then there’s the monitors…
Possibly the hardest packing task was the expansive mess of electronics components, especially those associated with the Midas PR mixing desk renovation work. Everything had to be sorted, catalogued and boxed up. All done now and I may be able to squeeze that into my house for occasional fiddlings…this desk won’t build itself you know?!
This rather blurred photo (iPhone+strip lighting+evening+physical exertion=shit picture) is taken from the temporary storage platform I built to store gear/crap during the first part of the build, which is the control room. The boxing up exercise is in mid-flow, though ‘flow’ might be a tad inaccurate considering the amount of times I became paralysed by indecision (you never know when you want to get to a tape head de-magnetiser in a hurry!).
The prepping of the control room end of the unit has now begun and the first materials will hopefully get ordered within the next week. First up is the air conditioning unit and the air extraction fittings as the appropriate holes will have to be made in the external blockwork wall before the outer skin of the control room can be built up. Then it’s time for the timber framing. The whiteboards are out and the order of works is getting refined on them as I type this (I keep remembering details and going over to the board to put them on the list…maybe I just like the smell of the pens…).
Photos of the build and some attempt to explain them will follow soon.
