The studio my dad and I have been working on

[Xownsend]

So this is my first post, I have been watching the channel a bit and decided to sign up on the forum. I'm not quite sure if I am posting this in the right spot but I saw some posts about people's build and a lot were wild. SO I decide to post my "build". A little background, there is a church near our farm that our family went to for generations and by the time I was about 12, the congregation was only a few people so they put the church up for sale and my dad bought it. My dad was a recording engineer for about 30 years for Loretta Lynn so he decided to turn the church into a studio. I do video and audio work too so I use it as much as him (I actually live in it lol). Disregard how messy it is haha.

 

So we decided to turn the chapel into a stage and then we actually turned the old pews into risers for tripods to dolly on. We also found an old antennae pole which fit perfectly for extra lights.  

 

 

Then we decided to build a balcony that we could put a spotlight on and a desk we could put the board and tricaster on. Then my dad mounted the seat panels from the pews to the walls which surprisingly work extremely well at deadening noise and absorb some of the free standing waves. 

 

 

Currently we use the old office as our control room. My dad has always used Ensoniq Paris as a daw so I ended up learning it too. We have to run paris on a Windows XP machine but thats not too big of deal for amazing analog sound. 

 

 

 

We also have our tricaster ran in this office so if we want to record a band or something live we can easily do that. 

 

 

Then lastly, I have my workstation in the basement (which doubles as my house lol) that I edit on. I run windows 10 on my pc which is pretty basic, i7 7700k, GTX 1080 ti, 32gb DDR4 Corsair Vengeance ram, MSI Z270, Samsung Evo 960 512gb M.2, 650W EVGA gold psu, and a WD 4tb hd that I use as a slave drive.  I use the iMac 90% of the time as a monitor for my pc and the other 10% is for iOS app development. 

 

 

So that's pretty much my set up! Tell me what you think and let me know if there is anything you'd do differently!

[Steven Porter]

looks like a fun setup! What sort of video content do you make? I'd be concerned about audio in such an open space with hard (reflective) materials. I've had good luck with cheap moving blankets like these for cleaning up audio in reverb heavy spaces. https://smile.amazon.com/Cheap-Moving-Boxes-Blankets-MB104/dp/B00Q6F18Y0/ref=sr_1_6?s=hardware&ie=UTF8&qid=1527984062&sr=1-6&keywords=moving+blanket&dpID=51rYAIdXH7L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

 

Also in my experience, using RGB LEDs (I'm assuming this is what your PARs on the truss are) can have pretty nasty color rendering in digital video. I'd take tungsten or LED fixtures and a set of color gels any day over RGB, unless you specifically need changing colors throughout a shot. 

[Psittac]

That's pretty freakin cool!

 

It looks like a large project and with all things will always have room to improve.  Very nice space you've got!

[Xownsend]

14 minutes ago, Steven Porter said:

looks like a fun setup! What sort of video content do you make? I'd be concerned about audio in such an open space with hard (reflective) materials. I've had good luck with cheap moving blankets like these for cleaning up audio in reverb heavy spaces. https://smile.amazon.com/Cheap-Moving-Boxes-Blankets-MB104/dp/B00Q6F18Y0/ref=sr_1_6?s=hardware&ie=UTF8&qid=1527984062&sr=1-6&keywords=moving+blanket&dpID=51rYAIdXH7L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

 

Also in my experience, using RGB LEDs (I'm assuming this is what your PARs on the truss are) can have pretty nasty color rendering in digital video. I'd take tungsten or LED fixtures and a set of color gels any day over RGB, unless you specifically need changing colors throughout a shot. 

The video content I mostly create is for marketing for businesses like commercials for local businesses but I also 3 camera shoot high school sports for a local cable station which is why I have a tricaster. I never knew that moving blankets are great for cleaning up noise! I will have to give them a try! I know exactly what your talking about with the rgb lighting rendering bad. I will for sure look into tungsten or LED fixtures because I have had a problem with rgb lighting. Thanks a ton for the advice!

[Steven Porter]

On ‎6‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 5:29 PM, Xownsend said:

The video content I mostly create is for marketing for businesses like commercials for local businesses but I also 3 camera shoot high school sports for a local cable station which is why I have a tricaster. I never knew that moving blankets are great for cleaning up noise! I will have to give them a try! I know exactly what your talking about with the rgb lighting rendering bad. I will for sure look into tungsten or LED fixtures because I have had a problem with rgb lighting. Thanks a ton for the advice!

Glad I could help! I'm not sure what your budget is, but as a DIY enthusiast who occasionally has nice budgets for rentals I have had experience with everything from $5 can lights from the hardware store to high end Arri's and Kinos, and some of my favorite lights to this day are these guys here. https://smile.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Integrated-Fixture-Basement-Included/dp/B012ENR1IE/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1528941374&sr=8-3-spons&keywords=hyperikon+5000k+under+cabinet&psc=1

 

I bought a 4 pack and made 2 fixtures each by attaching 2 lights side by side to a thin wood piece. Flash umbrella brackets hold it to a light stand. They're super bright and honestly look extremely similar in terms of color to the Arri L7 (full LED Fresnel) set to 5200 kelvin. I have a few cheap soft boxes from Amazon and GE LED bulbs that match well! I love the look of 5000k LEDs. Just about everything indoors in my reel was lit with either of those LEDs. http://www.uda.media/

 

I don't want to post too much of my stuff on your thread but if you want more info about the lights and how to build them I'd be happy to send photos and the parts list! My email is on the web site and at the end of the video.