{"id":25905,"date":"2017-08-22T10:59:49","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T14:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/?p=25905"},"modified":"2017-08-22T10:59:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T14:59:49","slug":"building-your-own-professional-sound-panels-5-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/2017\/08\/22\/building-your-own-professional-sound-panels-5-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Your Own Professional Sound Panels &#8211; 5 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Links to building the sound panels below]<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-25907\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Sound-Panels-2017-1024x575.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" \/>Time flies when you\u2019re having fun the old clich\u00e9 saying goes.\u00a0 For me, five years ago, I was in the trenches for a good week going down a rabbit hole not knowing exactly where I would end up.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about sound panels \u2013 building sound panels that is; and if you\u2019re anything like me, you\u2019ve been in a few studios and loved the look and feel of those expensive looking ones on the walls.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-25908\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Macklin-Landry-Studio-300x156.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" \/>When I moved into our new house, my goal was to create a project studio where I could plain and simply put, have fun.\u00a0 My jobs before Cakewalk at Elektra Records and Capitol Records allotted me enough pressure-cooker studio situations to last a lifetime, so this studio was about doing things I wanted to do, when I wanted to do them, and maybe also making some college money on the side for my boy Mack (now 8).<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to the present and as life will have it, we are leaving this house and moving into another.\u00a0 Fortunately, the move is a good situation to be in, but taking down the sound panels from these walls is bitter-sweet as I have had some great projects in here.\u00a0 If sound panels could talk I wonder what they would say? \u00a0\u201cJimmy, that couch you use for a base trap has got to go.\u201d\u00a0 Or, \u201cDude, you are killing me at 2.5k with that hot mess.\u201d\u00a0 Or even, \u201c<em>Another<\/em> compressor on the lead vocal \u2013 really?\u201d Haa\u2026 But seriously speaking, as someone who cares about music, artists, our industry and sound recording in general, I must admit that I was feeling a bit nostalgic breaking down the room.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-25911\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Jodi-Good-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>On the non-wistful side of the coin, I can report back after 5 years that these panels have really served me well, and that\u2019s the main reason for this post.\u00a0 In fact back when I built the panels, I thought it would be a good idea to document my experience for other musicians.\u00a0 I figured there had to be others in my shoes who wanted the aesthetic look of something a bit more appealing than those egg crate foam pads (not that there is anything wrong with those at all!), but didn\u2019t want to shell out the big bucks for the professionally build ready2go panels you can order online.\u00a0 At the bottom of this blog you will find a link to the full series of info-blogs that I created while making the panels.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-25913\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Peppina-Follow-Your-Gravity-300x271.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"271\" \/>Not only did these panels serve me well for their visual appeal, but they really made this small room sound great.\u00a0 Like any room, it took a little bit to understand it\u2019s quirks, but after a few mixes I was able to get my ears around the whole \u201cmixing and producing at home\u201d thing.\u00a0 I was fortunate enough to get a few productions for ESPN picked up out of here, did a few EP\u2019s for artists like <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/definitely-different-ep\/id677271134\">Jodi Good<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/peppinamusic\/\">Peppina<\/a>, and wrote and produced some songs for indie films which all ended up in festivals.\u00a0 I was also able to have fun recording my son while showing him a bit of the ropes in the production arena, while also reproducing a hidden-track single off one of my best childhood friend\u2019s record \u2013 the accomplished Boston based <a href=\"https:\/\/store.cdbaby.com\/cd\/conorobrien2\">Conor O\u2019Brien<\/a>. \u00a0There were also a few late memorable music nights with my Grammy-nominated neighbor and friend across the street <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanferber.com\/\">Alan Ferber<\/a> and his wife <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jodyredhage.com\/\">Jody Redhage<\/a> &#8212; all in all &#8212; the studio absolutely served its purpose.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-25914\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Panels-wrapped-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" \/>Upon taking these panels down for transporting one more thing occurred to me; they are really light!\u00a0 This is something I overlooked when I was building them, but a magnificent surprise now that I have taken them off the walls and prepared them for transporting to their next gig.\u00a0 They key element to them weighing so little was using Home Depot \u201cfurling strips\u201d for the main framing, and other light wood for the chassis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/tag\/acoustic-treatment\/\">FULL INFORMATION ON MAKING PANELS HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Links to building the sound panels below] Time flies when you\u2019re having fun the old clich\u00e9 saying goes.\u00a0 For me, five years ago, I was in the trenches for a good week going down a rabbit hole not knowing exactly where I would end up.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about sound panels \u2013 building sound panels that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/2017\/08\/22\/building-your-own-professional-sound-panels-5-years-later\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Building Your Own Professional Sound Panels &#8211; 5 Years Later&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,99,71,73,111,1],"tags":[2744,12,64,147,2745,617,93,170,122,123,94,35,1596,177],"class_list":["post-25905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-engineering-tips","category-mixing-tips","category-music-production-tips","category-studio-recording","category-uncategorized","tag-building-sound-panels","tag-cakewalk","tag-daw","tag-hardware","tag-home-made-sound-proofing","tag-jimmy-landry","tag-music-production","tag-pc","tag-producer","tag-production","tag-recording","tag-sonar","tag-sound-absorption","tag-tutorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}