The New Studio Build Diary: Phase 3 – The Install

The new control room is painted & the floors are dry, I’m about 15 pounds lighter & ready to go!
And to go along with the new space – I have a new console – a Soundtracs Megas 32 channel / 24 bus. It took 4 of us to move the console into Chris Holston’s Volvo 240 Wagon – perfect fit.

The console has a built in patchbay terminated to ELCO connectors. This, along with my 3 existing 144pt. patchbays means an almost complete studio re-wire. Okay, this is a good thing, we can clean up any “kinks” & “issues” that I’ve come across over the 7 years or so that these bays had been in place. We can also consolidate my existing bays down to 2 & still have plenty of room to grow.

Rolling my racks out of (a 3 & a half month) storage & powering them back up was like the best feeling in the world! No issues at all, other than my TC Electronics D-Two delay seems to have died. Oh well, not a biggie – I’ll live, off to TC service it goes along with $120… I am no longer using the workstation desk that had my racks placed to my right & left, so all the outboard gear has been moved to three 20-space racks to the right of the console. Selling that desk on eBay really turned out to be a pain-in-the-arse (it would’ve been much easier to just chuck it in the dumpster), but that’s another story for another day. So, anyway, back to the racks – having all the outboard in one place is great.

These 2 images may not look like much, but it took all night long to get the multi-pair (mixed w/ single strands here & there) untangled, in good order & into boxes before I could deliver the patchbays to Rob Preston of RFI Audio. Really, like 7 hours. These 3 bays were put together in a few stages over the years & of course my layout work is not as neat as Rob’s, so all in all (while they worked just fine) – it was now a mess!!! I am so glad to be reworking them. Oh yeah – all multi-pair this time – no singles :).

Rob is removing the busses to narrow down an issue. Turns out that the midi mute automation backup battery was going bad & causing the channels to stay locked in the “on” position. OK cool, that’s pretty easy to swap out…

And we have sound.
Everything about this new control room sounds better! From the new console, the cabling to & from the patchbays, to the new electrical wiring – everything is solid & dead quiet. I am loving this.

Up next: Phase 4 – Acoustics.