Requesting Help from Jarno and Jamsire

[Drumstruck]

Glad to hear you gents are all ok - earthquakes are one of those things that make one feel very insignificant and powerless. fyi my Mrs and I were over there in 1993 when the last big one hit..... luckily we'd just gone to 'Vegas for a few days - I was on a scenic flight over the Grand Canyon and oblivious to it all - my lovely wife told me about it when I returned - said she felt the tremor in the motel.

 

[Gravity Jim]

Yeah, Capt... everybody says we're officially Californians now.

 

[waterstrum]

Hey Jim,
Welcome to California!
Glad to hear you're on safe ground.

Hey Capt,
Happy to hear that you are O.K.
It was a scary one.
Any advice on strapping down the near field monitors?
Mine are about due for that.

 

[captdan]

Any advice on strapping down the near field monitors?

I'll take some pix later today and post 'em.

I have mine positioned with Auralex absorption beneath each monitor (was getting an annoying resonance around 100hz), and secured with vinyl strapping over the top of the speakers and fastened into my console. Essentially, they 'float' while being topple proof in a quake.

CaptDan

 

[captdan]

Sorry - it took a little longer. Life gets in the way.

As promised here are some pix of the monitor strapping. Again, the main reason to secure them was because they sit seismically-inopportune on the Auralex. Of course, better safe than sorry in any case.

The material is obtainable at any hardware store - "perforated vinyl strapping."

CaptDan

 

[waterstrum]

Many thanks CaptDan!

You've inspired me to figure out a way to do something similar.
My monitors are on top of other monitors.
I have Auralex between them.
Nothing is strapped down.
I'd better get on the case.

 

[Gravity Jim]

Hmmm. Mine are on a pair of Ultimate Support stands... I should secure the stands to the "modesty panel" on the desk and straps the boxes to the stands somehow. Now that I've experienced a real quake I can see that monitors woul be the most vulnerable thing in the room.

 

[captdan]

Yeah, most pro near fields are heavy units; last thing you want is for one of them to pay an unexpected visit to your mixer or some vulnerable device.

Here are two thoughts:

Jim: you might get away with a few 10 or 15 pound sandbags on your monitor stands' legs. If you can place each at the center of the legs' triangle, the weight will be evenly distributed, keeping the monitors upright in a multi-directional roll.

And that perforated vinyl is an unattractive grey (it's industrial after all). I haven't tried this, but it should work: after the strips are cut to size, they can be lightly sanded with 100 grit sandpaper, and spray painted a suitable color (black?) using Rustoleum Plastic Formula spray paint.

CaptDan

 

[Gravity Jim]

Now that I think of it, the Ultimate Stands I have feature built-in isolation pads of hard rubber about an inch thick, and holes between the pads. An invisible solution would be to bolt/screw the boxes directly to the stands. It would put a few small holes in the bottom of the boxes, but what the hey.

 

[captdan]

Wouldn't be the first time fasteners found their way into monitor cabs.

As long as the stand geometry is relatively topple proof, you could probably get away with just securing speakers.

CaptDan

 

[Drumstruck]

and a 4-way harness on the studio chair? ;-)