Not to be glib, but I had never used it before and learned by doing this... I'm still doing a million things wrong and using idiotic workarounds I'm sure, but it's enough to get the job done with sufficient precision. Which is to say, necessity is sometimes the best motivator - you might be surprised with what happens if you just dive in when you have a specific problem to attack and don't stop until you've solved it!I really wish I had better Sketchup skills. Would make my current build so much easier.
OK: end of week two updates!
The wall framing for both leaves is finished now. I'm very happy with the proportions of the rooms, sight lines and flow of the space. I think it's going to feel really nice in here.
View from the control room
Live room looking down the long axis
The two smaller isos across from the control room
View of the control room and big iso from the live room
Completed racks and diffusers (well, most of them - they wouldn't all fit in the frame!)
Now logistics and prep for next week! I'll be running all of the integral mic ties / Furman headphone system distro /etc while Manuel the electrician runs power. I scored a crazy deal on a 50 amp Equi-tech balanced power transformer, so there will be technical power for gear / amps /etc and a separate system for lights & non-audio electronics, which I am extremely enthused about.
I will also be installing a set of fans and baffles using sonoflex duct to provide ventilation to the booths while maintaining isolation. In an ideal world there would be a separate central HVAC system for the live room and control room, with feeds to all of the booths, but for now it will be a very robust Mitsubishi mini split (the really quiet ones) in the CR and LR, with the booth ventilation systems spec'd to turn the air in the booth completely over every 5 minutes. Not perfect but hopefully more than sufficient.
Later on if things go well, I will retrofit a proper HVAC system - and open up the live room ceiling all the way up to that beautiful old-growth redwood bow & truss ceiling!
As far as cable runs, again nothing fancy, just some PVC tubes with entry / exit points staggered by at least 5 feet for isolation. They'll then be caulked around the cables once they're fed through, as a sort of halfway compromise - that way if I REALLY need to change something later, I can, but it will also be a totally airtight seal.
I'm leaning heavily on available space to create larger air gaps rather than resorting to more expensive methods. I'm using a double door, one in each leaf, for every threshold, since two $400 doors 10" apart with proper sealing isolate about as well as a single $5,000 acoustic door! The large iso also acts as a sound lock, so there is no direct path from the control room to the live room. This has been a common feature of every studio I've worked at with truly great isolation.
It will, admittedly, likely be a bit annoying to have so many doors to open and close between takes - I may revisit this decision later - but we will have to see what the weakest link is when all is said and done. Doors are the easiest thing in a room design to change post hoc. There will definitely be some impact transmission... but if impact transmission through the slab is a significant issue, that means you're already in a very good place isolation-wise, and there are a number of ways to mitigate that down the line.
Fingers crossed!
XO
Theo