Thread: Sound Desk for Church

The biggest problem with roll tops apart from the extra space they take up is that it makes the entire length of the wall behind the desk completely useless for any form of cabling access or mounting of cabling hardware such as power points and plate mounted connectors. unless you add a false wall in front of where the top ends up.

the entire back wall becomes a no go area.

another problem with roll tops is once they get some age under them, they can get very unreliable.....I had one client that had a roll top where the track was routed in MDF..... guess how long that lasted.
I told em but the architect wouldn't listen......
roll tops.... trouble from start to finish.

sectional panel is definitely the way to go......the carcas work is very similar to the roll top but you don't beed any curves or tracks or....or....or.... or having to be precisely square and paralell
its just a whole lot simpler to build & live with all round.

just cut your lid into near equal slabs & alternate the hinging...secure it in place with draw bolts.......if you want the whole thing to come off or slip forward for patching just bake the back panel with a lip that goes under a toungue at the back.......4 sections is the go....back section lays flat next section hinges up, next down and the front swings 270 deg
3 across the top and one down the front.
or 3 sections and the flat bit hinges up and the front hniges down to meet.

it also gives you a working shelf for bring in gear when stacked.

cheers

Another consideration, I was doing some sound work for a theatre production. Myself and the audio gear (2 mixers and a couple of racks), was set up at the back of the audience at the Theatre Royal. It was dark and the christmas tree of lights from all the gear was distracting to the audience members seated at the back. Some black cloths were used to take the gear out of the audience's field of view. This will likely need to be taken into consideration if the gear is in a position that would be a distraction to the audience.

Latest pics...

Originally Posted by soundman

Roll tops..... ARRRRGH... sorry.

I feel the passion. You sound like like a man that's had your heart hurt one too many times by those roll top and I like the multi fold idea.

I am however young and perhaps naive and I think roll tops are the best plan so far. I worked out that they should only cover about 15cm at the top on the racks and will sit infront of the persons feet under the mixerdesk.

Although I have a jig or two which has proven MDF true, this time it should, only be of solid wood. But we're not up to timber yet.

Originally Posted by soundman

Racks under the desk is pretty well unavoidable in churches.....apart from the fact..... most of the time you don't want the operator touching anything in the rack, particulary EQ & compression.....I will frequently fit security covers or place the thinks you dont want touched in a seperate section keyed to differ from the rest of the cabinets.

Exactly the thoughts I had. Behind the desk is an asile then more pews. Can't stack racks on the desk and block pews. And also I don't want people fiddling. Have two racks with seperate locks will aid in this, and the plan is for the small mixer to be operational without opening the racks.

Originally Posted by soundman

Make sure you build this thing tough....I know of plenty of gear being knocked off from churches..... consider bolting stuff in the rack with allen key bolts.....that will slow down both the theves and the fiddlers.
remember a big look is pointless if you can just undo the screws in the hinges.

It should be tough. That's the plan. The wood for the roll top on last plan was 18x5mm which isn't that solid. But if someone's going to hack off the rolltop, they might as well hack into the side. The security mesh will be built inside frames, so no exposed screws or bolts etc.

Originally Posted by soundman

Pay good attention to ventilation in your racks....if you need to force ventilate......... you problay should....... use 12V fans runn on a lower voltage....I frequently use either multi voltage plug packs or voltage reg boards to controll fan speed and noise......most 12V computer fans will rin fine at 6 volts....a good may will be fine at 5 volts..... use big fans or lots of & run em slow.....even at 9 volts the noise reduction is significant.

Now ventilation I haven't got my head around. I like the idea. Where would you put the fans. I'm thinking near the persons feet to get cross flow out the back.

I've also thought of putting some slim line flouresences or LED to light the racks and desk. But not sure how it would happen.

Originally Posted by soundman

For the LCD
there is a flup up bracket available for mounting LCD's under cupboards..... spring loaded all that...... you could just invert one of those or mount it under the back lip with the screen canterlevered so it pops up.

Yeah, not following 100%. Need to keep thinking about this one.

Originally Posted by soundman

or just lay it on its back & shut the top.

not on a roll top

Here's some pics of the current sound desk... you have too look hard.

My thoughts were to follow the theme of the existing wood... but I just don't like it.

the best option I have come up with for ventilating racks is to make the back section of the rack pretty well airtight and blow the air in from the bottom at the side or the bottom right near the back.
if there is a desk...putting the intake fans under the desh also lowers the noise aparant in the room.

for exaust air fit 1RU vent panels at various places in the rack....leave no empty spaces if there isnt a piece of gear or a vent panel put a blank plate in to fill the hole......the air will then enter at the back and the whole cabinet will be preasurised and a flow will come out between equipment.
manipulating what equipemnt is where and where blank and vent panels are you can realy get heat under controll.........remember to allow a 1RU blank between some items to minimise hot spots.

if you want to run with the door closed..... the best bet I have found is to fit the dorr accurately for width but leave a gap of 10 to 20mm....depending on airflow required at both top & bottom.

the air space between the front of the gear and the door acts as a plenum taking exaust air and providing a muffling effect for fan & other noises inside the rack....... remember your amps may have fans also that make noise.


one other problem with roll tops is they are realy easy to break into....unless they are the metal or plastic ones you get from hafle all you need is a knife.
just stick the knife between a pair of slats toward the front & slit the backing cloth It the whole top section just rolls back

then there is the problen where some idiot jumps on the roll top popping the slats out of the track..

cheers

Cooling.
I've been pondering this. The current design includes large areas of secruity mesh to allow open ventilation.

I was pondering your thoughts and strangely my computer case. An antec number which has tunnelled ventilation.

I found these 200mm 12v fans. http://www.antec.com/pdf/flyers/BIgBoy_sellsheet.pdf.

Roll Tops.
Hmmm... secruity... the idea of breaking in with a craft knife... or sharped credit card doesn't excite me very much.

Options as I see it:
1. roll tops - as above problems
2. multifold top - I like it
3. solid top
4. solid top - slides back into box... original plan

Doors

Pros
Cons
Roll Tops

Easy to open/close
Relatively easy to build
Allows cables to be easily tunnelled through sides.
Sides open for ventilation.
Space saving.
Wood panels are held together with canvas... any one with a craft knife will be able to cut the canvas and separate the panels. Not much security, but it is locked within building anyway. Could place lock at top, so that if cut the locked panel won’t move and keeps it closed.
Multifold (byfold) doors

Space saving.
Simple.
Ugly.
Simple Door

Simple.
Large swing space required and will stick out.
Doors which slide back into unit

Technically impressive, easy to open/close.
Space saving.
Easy to secure.
Will have to cut into support slide to allow cables through side.
Will have to redesign ventilation as sides will be covered.
Slide off
Simple.
Removable parts that could get damaged.
Ugly.
Remember need design for racks and for mixer.


Power
I thought a simple way to give power to the desk was to use a computer PSU and use case mod parts...
Cooling
Was looking for low voltage fans and found antec 200mm fans, that have speed control and should be relatively quiet. I’m using a antec case it’s pretty quiet.
~$40 each.
www.techbuy.com.au

Could leave the system open and for passive ventilation or could develop a duct system and develop a cross flow effect.

Lighting
Was pondering LED lights, a friend suggest slim line florescence... I fold this cold cathode ones that reviewed nicely.
~$40 for 2
www.techbuy.com.au

Finishing
There are various finishing products available. The two products I’ve been most happy with are Organoil oils and Feast Watson Satinproof poly.
I prefer to use organoil hard burnishing oil.
http://www.organoil.com.au/woodcraft/index.html
http://www.feastwatson.com.au/ClearSatinproof.asp

Tools
I plan to join up with the Wauchope wood workers group.. they have a Men’s Shed where members can use thier machines as I don’t have thicknessers, planers, jointers etc.
I’ll need to pick up some router bits and a few other things.

LCD mount
I’ve done a fair amount of searching on the net for LCD mounts... nothing’s come up that’s very impressive. Either very expensive (1-$3000) and for plasmas or fixed non movable.

Price
I added up the wood this morning for the frames and panels and bench... not including the internal system and misc pieces.
Wood came to around ¼ cubic m – wood will be around 1000-2500 cubic m.

Wood - $500-750
Oil - $40
Metal (hinges, latches, locks) - $100 (depends on design... haven’t thought much about this yet.)
Lighting...
Cooling...
Total.... less than $1000.

Ways to save money... use cheaper wood, use ply for the interior, use milk crates...

Hi, i just starting researching on the net for some ideas for a new sound desk console and stumbled across this thread, very informative thanks! i was just wondering how boyfromoz ended up and if he has constructed anything yet? cheers

Unfortunately the church leadership opted for something else. I have a great dread of MDF on saw horses but anyway.
Perhaps next summer when I have more time I'll check in on them and see how it went.