mancave recording studio

Well, we are adding all of the paint, the draperies, room-tuning baffles and other niceties to the Creative COW's new audio facility, Mancave Recording Studios. Soon I will roll-out the COW's 'Building a Recording Studio' series of articles and it will be very cool as we took hundreds of photos documenting every step. We will address the subject in bite-sized pieces and each article will cover one aspect of building a professional recording studio. Now that that is over, what's up next? The mixer and soundboard is next on the list. What have we decided on? The Euphonix System 5-MC is where we are heading. Why? The system is able to control multiple software tools and operating systems, so that our existing purchases of Steinberg Nuendo and Apple Logic will work alongside the upcoming Digidesign ProTools system we will be adding down the road. If you haven't had a chance to check out the Euphonix boards in action, there are demo videos online at http://www.euphonix.com/pro/music/video.php

All of us here at Creative COW are very excited to see the Mancave nearing completion. Next, I'll have to fly Tim Wilson out from Boston so that the two of us can get lost for days in the new facility. (Tim's about as big a music freak as I am, so I have a feeling that talking him into coming West won't be all that hard.)

Charles and I have started calling the entry way to the new Creative COW Productions' Mancave Recording Studio, the "transporter" because it kind of resembles the Star Trek transporter from the TV series. With (what will end up being) three doors in a triangle -- of which two are now in along with the entry light, etc. -- you can go left into the recording room or go right into the mixing booth. When completed, the steps up into the studio will have a third door that separates the studio from the business offices just down the hall.

Here is a shot of the entryway and the twin Andersen dual pane heavy duty glass doors with soundproofing rubber gaskets and airtight seals around the doors. The third door in the "triangle" placement will act as further sound dampening and isolation to safeguard the working offices nearby.

Since recording my first record long ago with a bunch of friends under the auspices of an engineer that had worked with the Righteous Brothers and a few others over the years, I have dreamed of having my own recording studio, complete with isolation booth, etc. So, when Kathlyn and I moved into our new home in Paso Robles, lo and behold, to what do my eyes fall prey? It is a utility area that Kathlyn and I took to calling The Man Cave, as it was clear it was going to be an area dedicated to music and my musician friends -- along with functioning as an expanded area where I could continue my music production and editing work. The Mancave is over 600 square feet of room that was intended for storage but has now been under construction for the last 6 to 8 weeks or so, and will shortly emerge as Mancave Recording Studios, a division of Creative COW Productions. We have been documenting every step of the construction, complete with floating the walls for soundproofing, using Z-bar to reduce the vibration and transfer of sound, how to set the sound proofing board and sandwich the drywall with air pockets to deaden the room, etc., etc., etc. It will be a multi-part article that will show in-depth how to build a recording studio that is a serious room for far less than you might think. Oh, this is not one of those "Build a recording studio for a few hundred bucks" kinda articles -- no, this is a real studio and one on whom we have worked with one of Ocean Way Recorders former engineers to spec and build. It isn't Ocean Way but it is one hell of a serious home studio. One that we will shortly begin to introduce here at the COW. Stay tuned.

Here is the first shot of the entry way, and the mixing booth...