SOUND ON SOUND

[Luke W]

OK, desk build time... With everything sounding a lot nicer I wanted to get a more permanent and practical desk. The weird room shape/size along with the high price of studio furniture and my seemingly endless desire to make life difficult for myself led me to designing and building a desk to fit.

I spent a good while deciding what I wanted and drawing up ideas, and did a final design in Sketchup to give me a rough plan to work to. I decided to include more rack space than I need, and have a sliding shelf for my keyboard so it can be tucked away to save space when I'm just working on edits/mixing. CAD is not one of my strong points, but the design I settled on was this:


The whole thing is made from 18mm MDF, with the odd bit of 2x1 and 3x1 for bracing and as a fixing point for the top. I left a few mm spare on all of the cuts for the panels so they could be clamped together and planed/sanded all together to make sure there was a nice consistent finish.

First panel marked out ready to cut:


Roughed out, and being used as a guide for the next one:


Inside panels with the cut-out for the sliding shelf:



All 4 roughed out and clamped ready for final shaping:


As usual, there's more to come...

[blinddrew]

Gotta love a custom desk!
Out of curiosity, where does you computer live?

[Luke W]

It hides away in the bottom of the rack on the right, external drives live on the shelf above.

[blinddrew]

Ah right, laptop powered. I see it now. :thumbup:

[Luke W]

Yep, the plan is to eventually have a desktop machine in its place, that's why its all tucked away in the rack, but for now it's serving as both studio and mobile machine.

Few more steps in the desk build, here we have a side panel on the bench getting some 2x1 fitted to support the top:


And all four fitted:


Back panel fitted:



And both sides together with some 3x1 bracing:




Starting to look a little bit like a desk by this point.

[Luke W]

Bit more progress on the desk build, been a bit busy recently so updates are a little slower at the moment.

Marking out the top piece:


Cut out with lots of lovely dust:


Test fit:




Once again all edges were left slightly over sized to be sanded up to a nice flat finish. You can also see how the top sits in the recess at the top of the side panels so the angled rack spaces sit flush with the desk surface. So far so good...

The top was attached by screwing upwards through the battern it sits on, which means no visible fixings from the top, no filler needed. This needs a little care and attention with the length and depth of screws vs. the thickness of the top and battern, getting it wrong and going straight through the top is a feeling best avoided.

[Martin Walker]

Lovely work as usual Luke! :clap:


Martin

[Luke W]

Thanks Martin :thumbup:

One more part, and then it's paint and trim. A sliding tray for my keyboard, not much to explain here:


First coat of paint, Satin finish, all done with a roller:




Everything that was going to be hidden away out of sight like the insides of the racks and the back panels got a single coat, the outsides got two, and the top was treated to three coats with some light sanding in between.

Side racks in place:


Fitting rack strips, and seeing if the trim I'd found for the edges would do the trick:

[Luke W]

On to the final stages of the desk build now, here's a shot from a bit further back:


Keyboard shelf fitted and in action, the runners are just some standard drawer runners from Screwfix, I had left room to fit another pair of runners on the underneath of the shelf and mount them to the inside rack panels if needed, but the two on the supported the weight of the shelf easily, so I left it at that:



Next up was some moulding to tidy up the edges, so the saws came back out:


These all got the same flame/stain/wax treatment to match the rest of the woodwork, and as they're nice and light were just pushed into place with a bit of adhesive. A close up of one of the top rack surrounds:


A couple more in place, with my power loom from my old rack ready to be adapted for the new desk:


Next up is some screen mounting, and final wiring. :thumbup:

[blinddrew]

Really nice work. I have much envy. :)

[Luke W]

Thank you :thumbup:

I'm almost up to date now... I originally bought my 21:9 monitor thinking it would give me enough space to keep me away from running two screens, but as nice as it is, I started to miss having a second. I've also done a couple of bits recently where I've needed to work to picture, so I decided to add another while I was getting everything back together.

Screen on a stand, with a block to raise it:


I had to modify (chop in half) my Rockwool filled stand that I'd been using for my existing screen:


In with cables through:



That's where I found out the interesting way that the desk is strong enough to hold a person who's holding a TV. Confidence is key.

All trim finished and both screens working:

[Wonks]

It's all very nice.

[Luke W]

Cheers Wonks.

A week or two ago my lovely new Crookwood C3 arrived, so I took the opportunity to tidy up my power wiring whilst I installed it. I also added a couple of patch panels, one in the top left rack with a socket for the output from the Crookwood's headphone amp and a couple of USB ports to save me fumbling around under the desk to plug in a hard drive/memory stick, and one in the bottom left rack for mic/headphone connections to and from the Apollo Twin.

Rack with C3 installed:


Desktop close up, you can just about see the USB ports:


And finally, up and running:



The rest of the room needs a good clear out and tidy, I'm planning on making some gobos that will double up as panels for the back wall, and there's the patchbay to get sorted, but everything is functioning to a point where I can work, and sounding pretty decent. Winner.

[blinddrew]

That's a nice set up and no mistake.

[Luke W]

Cheers, your place is coming along nicely, looking forward to seeing the results :thumbup:

Bit more Rockwool appeared yesterday and I'm just waiting on some extra fabric so I'll be getting some gobos built next week hopefully.

[Luke W]

Another little update, I've just finished building some gobos that will double up as panels for the rear walls. I won't bother with each stage of the build as they're much the same as all the other panels but with some wheels screwed on. They all contain 100mm slabs of Rockwool with fabric on one side, and some wooded cladding on the other.

There are two 600x1200 finished in some blue Cara fabric I had left over, and two 1200x1200 with castors finished in black Cara. I also fitted some catches so they can be stacked and locked together for when I need something a bit taller for vocal recordings and the like.

1200x1200:


1200x600:


Catch:


Stacked in various combinations:






Once I've tidied up and cleared enough space to get them in place I'll take some pictures of the rest of the room.

[Sam Spoons]

Nice, I might build a couple of those, would be useful to separate the guitar amp and drum kit or, as you do, for a vocal corner.

[Luke W]

They should do the trick nicely. I was going to go for two at 1800mm high, but the pitched roof meant I'd never get them anywhere near the edges of the room when I was finished with them! That's when I decided I could double them up as back wall panels which I've been planning on adding for a while.

[Martin Walker]

Why oh why do you have to be so talented with wood Luke? :smirk:

It's not fair ;)


Martin

[Luke W]

Why oh why do you have to be so talented with wood Luke? :smirk:

It's not fair ;)

That's very kind Martin, thank you. :thumbup:

I've cleared some space and got the gobos upstairs so I thought I'd get a few pictures up of the rest of the room. The plan is for them to live in the back corners as extra panels when I'm not tracking anything, and then roll around/clamp together in various combinations depending on what I'm recording. I've done a bit of a test recording some voice using the dead side of the panels and the result was very promising.






Lots of issues of Sound On Sound in these pictures of course...

The next things on the list are to clear out the alcove to the left of the desk and get my guitar effects rack in there (maybe even finish building it...) and make a section of flooring with some leftover laminate I have. And actually use the studio a bit now that it's in working order :D