Operation: Studio G Brooklyn CHAMBER

[joel hamilton]

My first post in this forum, ever.. I think...

anyway,
I am in the middle of making a chamber underneath Studio G Brooklyn, and the targeted decay time is at least 2 seconds.
I have never purpose built a chamber, i have only appropriated pre-existing stairwells and basements and other assorted spaces including the live room during mixing to get a "real" ambient feel to things tracked in less than ideal spaces. (or too simply add some great sounding, unique verb).

I will update this thread as i go, including some pictures of the most disgusting space you have ever seen outside of the hellraiser movies, and what I am attempting to do with it.
I will probably wind up with a few galvanised trash cans hanging from the ceiling for diffusion and to extend the decay time a bit.

The room in the basement i am using is directly under the live room at Studio G.
It is cement and brick throughout, with some mystery nightmare of a ceiling right now along with some nasty spiders... I really just want to ask people that make swimming pools to go in and skim coat the whole thing and seal it up, but it turns out they get paid a lot of money.... The dimensions are roughly 15' x 20' with an 8 foot ceiling. Kid of perfect actually. Larger isnt better usually, as i have found through a bunch of research onto some very classic chambers at capitol and abbey road and avatar... The avatar stairwell is the thing that really inspired me to get something happening at my place, though. I just dont have a spare 4 story stairwell to dedicate to this purpose.

Construction wise,I also would really like to try this myself, so unfortunately for my assistant and intern: we are going for it.

Step one has been to paint the hell out of the brick surfaces. Its going to take like 39 coats where I thought it was going to take 2. The brick is old and thirsty, and stuff is flaking off as we roll the high gloss white paint onto it. Some of the cement surfaces worked fine, but the brick is barfing 100 years of neglect onto our super giant nap rollers as we paint.
This room used to have the heating oil tank in it, so it is SUPER toxic smelling in there, and not very fun to be in for more than like 30 minutes (if at all, depending on what you think is "fun").
The first coat is drying and awaits the 3 million more, but while we get that stuff happening, we are going to get some sheet metal hanging up and a few trash cans and wire it all up and just listen, because it already sounds pretty awesome in there.

I will update this when we either get the speaker/mic stuff happening or we all throw up from the fumes and say fuck it.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[joel hamilton]

My first post in this forum, ever.. I think...

anyway,
I am in the middle of making a chamber underneath Studio G Brooklyn, and the targeted decay time is at least 2 seconds.
I have never purpose built a chamber, i have only appropriated pre-existing stairwells and basements and other assorted spaces including the live room during mixing to get a "real" ambient feel to things tracked in less than ideal spaces. (or too simply add some great sounding, unique verb).

I will update this thread as i go, including some pictures of the most disgusting space you have ever seen outside of the hellraiser movies, and what I am attempting to do with it.
I will probably wind up with a few galvanised trash cans hanging from the ceiling for diffusion and to extend the decay time a bit.

The room in the basement i am using is directly under the live room at Studio G.
It is cement and brick throughout, with some mystery nightmare of a ceiling right now along with some nasty spiders... I really just want to ask people that make swimming pools to go in and skim coat the whole thing and seal it up, but it turns out they get paid a lot of money.... The dimensions are roughly 15' x 20' with an 8 foot ceiling. Kid of perfect actually. Larger isnt better usually, as i have found through a bunch of research onto some very classic chambers at capitol and abbey road and avatar... The avatar stairwell is the thing that really inspired me to get something happening at my place, though. I just dont have a spare 4 story stairwell to dedicate to this purpose.

Construction wise,I also would really like to try this myself, so unfortunately for my assistant and intern: we are going for it.

Step one has been to paint the hell out of the brick surfaces. Its going to take like 39 coats where I thought it was going to take 2. The brick is old and thirsty, and stuff is flaking off as we roll the high gloss white paint onto it. Some of the cement surfaces worked fine, but the brick is barfing 100 years of neglect onto our super giant nap rollers as we paint.
This room used to have the heating oil tank in it, so it is SUPER toxic smelling in there, and not very fun to be in for more than like 30 minutes (if at all, depending on what you think is "fun").
The first coat is drying and awaits the 3 million more, but while we get that stuff happening, we are going to get some sheet metal hanging up and a few trash cans and wire it all up and just listen, because it already sounds pretty awesome in there.

I will update this when we either get the speaker/mic stuff happening or we all throw up from the fumes and say fuck it.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[Jon Nolan]

yesss! we had a badass stairwell in my last space that i discovered sounded awesome about a month before we left it. duh. I'll be watching this thread closely. I'm definitely gonna do this at milltown too.


good luck!
_________________
www.jonnolan.net
http://jonnolan.bandcamp.com/
dude about town.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

take a little bit of the money you saved by DIYing this and spend it on some ventilators for you and your asst/intern. you will feel noticeably less worse from the fumes and will save a braincell or two, which will probably come in handy later in life.

[ott0bot]

[dave watkins]

definitely get some respirators, also it's a lost cause if you have already bought all the paint you need, but if you haven't you may want to look into to something other than what you can get from the hardware store, i've gone to this company for coatings for speaker cabinets and studio furniture. and they make great stuff that doesn't smell all that bad either, and you may be able to get away with less coats:
http://www.acrytech.com

but hell yeah natural reverb is awesome! i've got a couple stairwells and rooms in my space that work pretty well, but it would be super sweet to have a permanent setup.
_________________
the tape is rolling, the ones and zeros are... um... ones and zeroing.
http://www.davewatkinsmusic.com
http://www.colloquialorchestra.com

[joel hamilton]

I am just putting super high gloss latex on the walls everywhere. Its outdoor stuff like for painting curbs. The walls are seriously so gnarly that regardless of all the good intentions in the world, there is no F%^ing way I am cleaning them up to the point that I dont just get some of the old grout and nastiness in the paint. No chance. I am sweeping the cobwebs off of the walls before hitting it with paint, and thats as far as that is going to go. Anything I do for verb density will be based on hanging some sheet metal in the space and possibly some plexiglass panels as well, as suggested in a few sources I have read. There are two wooden beams in the place that I am going to attach some crazy stuff to, like a screen door return spring array or something... havent really settled on that yet.
I will be getting a couple of masks for the guys tomorrow. I know I am brain damaged for life, but the younger guys deserve a chance at finishing high school someday...
I will post some pictures tomorrow night hopefully when I climb out of that hole...
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[joel hamilton]

I am just putting super high gloss latex on the walls everywhere. Its outdoor stuff like for painting curbs. The walls are seriously so gnarly that regardless of all the good intentions in the world, there is no F%^ing way I am cleaning them up to the point that I dont just get some of the old grout and nastiness in the paint. No chance. I am sweeping the cobwebs off of the walls before hitting it with paint, and thats as far as that is going to go. Anything I do for verb density will be based on hanging some sheet metal in the space and possibly some plexiglass panels as well, as suggested in a few sources I have read. There are two wooden beams in the place that I am going to attach some crazy stuff to, like a screen door return spring array or something... havent really settled on that yet.
I will be getting a couple of masks for the guys tomorrow. I know I am brain damaged for life, but the younger guys deserve a chance at finishing high school someday...
I will post some pictures tomorrow night hopefully when I climb out of that hole...
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[JohnDavisNYC]

dude, can i come huff some paint with you tomorrow?

john
_________________
i like to make music with music and stuff and things.

http://www.thebunkerstudio.com/

[joel hamilton]

[joel hamilton]

[Dakota]

Pics, Joel? Spider fights?

Thought, in addition to hanging trash cans and such: asymmetrical stacks of cinder blocks / concrete junk / rocks & bricks / junk machine parts on the floor near corners and walls can come in handy for extra diffusion, lengthening that rt60, and breaking up frequency resonances in a chamber. The price is right too.

[roscoenyc]

paint the brick with Plaster Weld
It will cover and seal the brick.

Even if you have a couple coats of regular paint on there you want to coat it with plaster weld then paint it.
_________________
http://www.cowboytechnical.com/
http://ericambel.com/

[JohnDavisNYC]

i think we're going to make a chamber, too... i was just poking around here in the basement and there is a doublewide elevator shaft that is unused.... only a story and change of it (it's blocked off for other stuff upstairs) but it's all stone and brick...

you (and working at avatar last week) inspired us!

j
_________________
i like to make music with music and stuff and things.

http://www.thebunkerstudio.com/

[Rod Gervais]

Joel,

why not rent a spray rig to paint with - you could spray in one hour what it will take you 5 to paint with rollers....... just wear a tyvek suit (pick them up for almost nothing at paint stores) and a good respirator (dust masks will not help with paint fumes)

Rod

[*cisko*]

John, I am definnitely up for huffing paint at your place. let's hope soing the G chamber leaves some braincells to make it to yours.

[joel hamilton]

Wow. Just got out of there, and I am feeling it. it is SUPER nice out in NYC today, so we decided to hide in a sickeningly gross basement and paint.

I didnt rent a sprayer because we are not in a super hurry to get the paint on the walls, and because I probably need to rent a sprayer to put up some sort of crazy sealer after all the paint dries in a week. I am going to spray some sort of clear coat type action over the whole thing after we get the rest of the stuff cleaned and painted. So much of the work is getting the shitty old mortar either sealed up or scraped a little bit, because it just falls off when you look at it. I can spray over old ass plaster/paint and it will peel in like 3 months down there because it is SO wet.
There is literally a river that runs underneath part of the building that was diverted for the subway in roughly 1920.
So yeah, it gets humid down there.
We just had some serious rains and the basement got some water in it, so it is wet as hell right now anyway.
Regardless, after we get all the walls sealed and painted and clear coated, I am putting down a flagstone walkway to roughly where the mics and speakers will be, with tile floor all around the flagstone. so I dont care that the floor is wet. I am just not going to really grout the stuff. Its not to be walked on, and that way if there is a little water, it can seep between the tiles easily. We are just going to lay it down around the stone walkways.
Pretty much because of the crazy shape and construction of this basement room, I am just trying to make an incredibly live, great sounding room to pump stuff through with a dedicated stereo speaker and microphone setup. It will also be easily accessible for use during sessions because it will have dedicated patch points.

The super high gloss paint we put everywhere over the last two days has added what I would guess is about .25 MORE verb in a room that already sounded like the .65 room I use all the time on my bricasti M7. The "studio B far" patch, if you know that box. The room already sounded like that when I went down there and checked it out. I am going to be adding the sheet metal suspended and stretched between two beams soon, and THAT is going to dictate the next few moves.
I dont give a crap how it looks, I need to start listening through the returns to really get a sense of what to do next as I am not an acoustician by any stretch of the imagination.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[joel hamilton]

Wow. Just got out of there, and I am feeling it. it is SUPER nice out in NYC today, so we decided to hide in a sickeningly gross basement and paint.

I didnt rent a sprayer because we are not in a super hurry to get the paint on the walls, and because I probably need to rent a sprayer to put up some sort of crazy sealer after all the paint dries in a week. I am going to spray some sort of clear coat type action over the whole thing after we get the rest of the stuff cleaned and painted. So much of the work is getting the shitty old mortar either sealed up or scraped a little bit, because it just falls off when you look at it. I can spray over old ass plaster/paint and it will peel in like 3 months down there because it is SO wet.
There is literally a river that runs underneath part of the building that was diverted for the subway in roughly 1920.
So yeah, it gets humid down there.
We just had some serious rains and the basement got some water in it, so it is wet as hell right now anyway.
Regardless, after we get all the walls sealed and painted and clear coated, I am putting down a flagstone walkway to roughly where the mics and speakers will be, with tile floor all around the flagstone. so I dont care that the floor is wet. I am just not going to really grout the stuff. Its not to be walked on, and that way if there is a little water, it can seep between the tiles easily. We are just going to lay it down around the stone walkways.
Pretty much because of the crazy shape and construction of this basement room, I am just trying to make an incredibly live, great sounding room to pump stuff through with a dedicated stereo speaker and microphone setup. It will also be easily accessible for use during sessions because it will have dedicated patch points.

The super high gloss paint we put everywhere over the last two days has added what I would guess is about .25 MORE verb in a room that already sounded like the .65 room I use all the time on my bricasti M7. The "studio B far" patch, if you know that box. The room already sounded like that when I went down there and checked it out. I am going to be adding the sheet metal suspended and stretched between two beams soon, and THAT is going to dictate the next few moves.
I dont give a crap how it looks, I need to start listening through the returns to really get a sense of what to do next as I am not an acoustician by any stretch of the imagination.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[joel hamilton]

Pictures! Inspiration! Complaining! Hallucinations!!! Ghosts!!!

all here:

http://joelhamiltonlivesloud.blogspot.com/

More soon. Gonna let the paint dry for a few days... and hopefully grow a new brain.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots

[joel hamilton]

Pictures! Inspiration! Complaining! Hallucinations!!! Ghosts!!!

all here:

http://joelhamiltonlivesloud.blogspot.com/

More soon. Gonna let the paint dry for a few days... and hopefully grow a new brain.
_________________
http://joelhamiltonrecording.com/

http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com

http://www.lawless-music.com

http://www.myspace.com/thebookofknots