Trailer Studio Build...

[DrummerMan]

My heart breaks a little every time I hear about somebody investing hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into a space, only to lose the space to some C.H.U.D. who wants to use it for a convenience store or whatever. But here you seem to have the ultimate solution! And they say "you can't take it with you...."

And that's really a big thing for me. I've built 2 "real" studios for myself in the past. You put so much work into it, only to have to leave it when your landlord decides to all of a sudden be a dick when the ceiling caves in with rain water from a leaky roof that he never properly fixed, and your storage room gets drenched destroying a bunch of gear (true story). There's a good amount of money going into this trailer, but in the end it'll still cost less than 1 year of rent at a commercial building somewhere (not to mention I'd still probably have to invest in all the sound treatment), and I'll actually be able to spend real time with my wife and son throughout the day. Every composer I know (and most of the engineers I know) who have kids and a studio somewhere else always talk about how that's their biggest regret, and I'm just not willing to do that.

[Spark]

I dont have much to add other than this is a really cool project. Keep posting pics! Best of luck.

[boriscrispin]

What an excellent idea. Whats the basic floor plan......control room, live space, separate drum room?
Toilet.....?

I'm especially looking forward to this being horn ready

[DrummerMan]

Here's a quick sketch of the floor plan, not necessarily proportionally accurate. I removed the toilet, bathroom, kitchen and cabinets. Since it won't be a "mobile" studio, per se, I can always just go inside my apartment to use the bathroom, make a sandwich or whatever. I'll also store whatever instruments I'm not using in my apartment, for the sake of space and also security.



The drum booth would be where horns get recorded, just in case you were starting to get concerned...

[boriscrispin]

i see it, looks great, though I am slightly concerned - will it be wise to always be wearing green when recording?

[DrummerMan]

i see it, looks great, though I am slightly concerned - will it be wise to always be wearing green when recording?

Oh, right... I forgot to mention... that's the dollar, dollar bills that can't help but to float directly to my pocket for the artistry I create. They sometimes get caught on my shirt on the way in, though. That's why it's green.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Very cool.

[RefD]

a trailer for rockin' out.

last night i dreamed i got to record there.

well, that and a woman friend of mine i'm semi-infatuated with was there playing wurli on the same track.

don't tell my wife!

[DrummerMan]

You can come and record whenever you want, dude. There's no wurli here, so I think you're safe, unless you count the old 200 watt tube wurli organ I have in storage that needs work and I probably won't have room for in the trailer (if it'd even fit through the door. Hmmm, doubtful...). I've got a rhodes, though.

[sonicmook56]

That's cool. I've thought about getting a trailer like that and turning it into a little machine shop.

What part of LA?

[willowhaus]

Wow - this is an awesome idea! Can't wait to hear how it comes out.

What are your plans for power & cooling?

[mikeyc]

I'm impressed and jealous. I considered this approach at our last house. We lived on 3 acres in a 1100 sf house, so I thought a trailer would be great. The wife did not agree. Our new house has a usable finished basement, so that idea is out of the running, but I still love the idea of a trailer studio.

Best of luck!

[DrummerMan]

What are your plans for power & cooling?

Power's coming from an extension chord from my house, plugs right into the side of the trailer and powers everything from there.

I've got a rooftop AC unit which will be running ducts into the drum booth. I haven't gotten the unit working yet, mostly because I can't remember where the hell I put the remote for it, and that's the only way to turn it on/off . Once I finish the sheetrocking, I'll redouble my efforts in looking for it.


Down the road, I'd like to invest in solar power for at least some of my needs. I don't know how viable that is for sound equipment, but I could get it at least to power the AC, lights, and other non-audio, yet power hungry, devices.


By the way, I forgot how annoying drywalling is. I've been doing the walls by myself, which is a PITA, but doable, but now I've come to the ceiling and cannot move forward until I get some help. I'll try and take some pics of the new disaster zone today.

What part of LA?

East side-ish. Though we might be moving west soon.

[Judas Jetski]

[...]I forgot how annoying drywalling is. I've been doing the walls by myself, which is a PITA, but doable, but now I've come to the ceiling and cannot move forward until I get some help. I'll try and take some pics of the new disaster zone today.

Wow, too bad we're on, like, opposite sides of the country. If you were in, say, Irondequoit, I'd be over there first thing Saturday morning.

As for power, are you sure that an extension cord is a good plan? I mean, if it works I'll totally love it. It just seems like there would be a lot of draw on one long-@ss line. Or is there some sort of on-board thingy in the trailer that would make it not-so-bad? (I don't know, like a transformer or something. I know nothing about trailers.)

[DrummerMan]

There is a new transformer (at least I think it's a transformer) in the trailer. That's actually what the extension chord plugs in to. All the plugs are then connected to that. I don't know how these things all work. Obviously, all my power tools aren't currently drawing as much power as the recording equipment will be, but I was led to believe that it could carry a pretty full electrical load. If not, well, I can probably draw some separate power from the light box that's right near the trailer, maybe split the load some.