LOOKING BACK ON OUR INITIAL GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS

Finally.....

The whole process from when we signed the lease until completion was around 3 1/2 months.  One thing that became very apparent is that just like in music (and everything in life, I suppose), the devil is in the details.  Framing and drywall is all pretty straight forward.  It was all the little things that took so long. Figuring out what door handles we wanted, what kind of light switches, where we wanted every little thing to go.  All of that took a long time.  And when I say the whole build out took 3 1/2 months, that's not entirely accurate.  Once we got the studio to a point where it was barely functional, we really wanted to move in and begin working.  Things like the Kitchen and Bathroom didn't get finished for another month or two.  

GOALS: Mostly everything we initially wanted ended up working out.  We do have a little bit of bleed from the live room into the production suites, but it's quite manageable . If both Dario and I are in our respective rooms blasting music at an ear popping volume, we won't hear each other.  If, however, there is a drummer in the live room doing his best John Bonham impression, then we will hear that.  It's not awful by any means and we can deal with it.  The little natural light that we left in the front room where the wall stopped just short of the ceiling ended up being a source of sound leak.  We ended up having to seal that wall and lose the natural light.

One unexpected bonus that we didn't predict is our live room sounds fantastic. We've recorded every type of instrument in there and it is really sweet sounding.  Not to dry, but not too reflective.  I think it's a combination of the 12ft ceilings with some of the reflection off of the concrete.  Additionally, the kitchen area which has no acoustic treatment at all and is super reflective is a great wet space.