Noise (or lack thereof)

Table showing informally measured noise floor of studio room, untreated:

dBSPL	31	63	125	250	500	1K	2K	4K	8K	16K
Furnace off	40	36	36	33	27	21	16	12	8	8	8
A-wtd.	24	-3	10	17	18	18	20	17	13	11	5
Meets approximately NC-15 standard.
Furnace on	45	42	39	33	33	24	20	16	12	12	12
A-wtd.	29	6	16	23	24	21	20	17	13	11	5
Meets approximately NC-20 standard.

Without going into the details of these measurements, their limitations, or what they represent, basically they are noise floors to die for. NC-15 is generally considered ideal for finished recording studios, and is more or less unobtainable in most urban buildings, while NC-20 is considered excellent.

What the above drawings and tables indicate is that I now have a really viable space for a studio. The dimensions are a little too square, but there is plenty of area, and plenty of ceiling height. And, I have no significant noise problems, which often require a great deal of money to cure.

So, over a fairly significant period of time, I've managed to keep my goals reasonably intact, and to maintain and develop a vision of a facility for my work. That vision has been fluid, and has gone through a lot of changes. I went through lots of different business scenarios along the way, including loudspeaker manufacture, commercial multitrack recording, etc. This has included many different business plans (complete with 20-year money projections, and lots of different occupational variations). Carpenters have a saying: measure twice, cut once. Well, I guess I've measured, in a planning sense, about a hundred times all told.

This obsessive modeling is an essential ingredient in the whole planning process, I've found. Developing and playing back your fantasy, visualizing "what it will be like," integrating it with the reality of other aspects of your life, testing that integration, and then revising the fantasy, over and over again, really helps when it comes time to convert the fantasy to reality.

I've also begun to do something that's new for me. I've gone out and talked to people about my plans. I used to really resist doing this - I didn't want people to find out how stupid and ignorant I really am, and I didn't want to test my dreams against the shoals of reality, due to my own insecurity and fear about what I'd find out. Now I've worked up enough courage to at least ask for advice and opinions, and the results have been extremely helpful. The reality check, painful and discouraging as it sometimes is, gets assimilated into the fantasy and the suggestions and new ideas that others offer me as they review my plans really help to shape and focus my direction.

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