Design/plan for mini-studio in my garage - many questions!

Hi studio design fans! As this seems to be THE place about studio design, I thought I would run my ideas by you before building my future mini-studio in my garage. After waking up my wife or my children at night several times while trying to record new songs [the night seems to be my most productive moment], we decided it would be time to finally dedicate some part of the garage only for my studio - Woooohooo! :yahoo: After quite some reading around, I settled for a design based on the "box in a box" approach, and trying to have correct proportions for acoustical correctness, within the constraints of the space I can use. * All the house walls of the garage are 24cm brick/concrete carying walls. * The studio would be standing on a floor made of acoustipad + OSB Board +sheetbolck + concrete 2" + hardwood floor (pergo) * Ceiling sitting on the walls. And here are a few questions I have! Floor 1. As the ground of my garage is already concrete, with no basement, will a floating floor really bring something fpr isolation? 2. Hardwood floor or carpeting? Walls 1. Will the mix of materials isolate that room properly from the rest of the house? 2. I'm planning to use metal studs. Would wood studs be any better? 3. Wall isolation makes me loos a lot of space on the sides. Including the 2'' air gaps on each side, I loose 7.5'' of space on each side! That makes my room only 237cm = 7' 9'' wide. Acousticly wise, I think it would be better if it was slightly wider. Would it be worth loosing some of the sound isolation (for ex. by reducing the air gap and / or the mineral fiber between the studs) in order to get a better acoustical result? Or should I rather treat the room with sound diffusers/absorbers to fix the defects? 4. I plan thinner rooms on the front and back in order to gain a few cm and get closer to a correct acoustical proportion, and also because the back and front walls do not support the ceiling (I plan to use some special metal studs for the side and top that together hold the ceiling right.) Will that have much impact on the sound insulation? 5. Will my small closet make the angle wall ineffective? 6. Should I make double windows (on the box + on the house) or can I just keep the house windows? Then what happens to my "box in a box" - isn't it flawed then? 7. Instead of creating angles in the corner, should I rather use that space to create bass traps? Ceiling I haven't planned for any angle on the ceiling - is that a problem? Can I fix that with sound diffractors/absorbers? Any suggestion or idea would be greatly appreciated! (nb: I moved that topic from the other forum to here)

Aloha and welcome to the forum! :D Congrats on your studio build and nice job on the skp and renderings! Any chance you could please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

You'll probably get more of a response by doing so and this will really come in handy two or three posts down the road. It's also part of the forum guidelines. Thanks! :wink: That said, you may want to flip your monitors & mix position to be facing the opposite wall to use room geometry better. :wink: For more info, check out both of these links - http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Looking forward to your build! Aloha 8)

Hi Kendale, sorry for missing out the location info. I have also uploaded the images as recommended. Maybe the only thing that is missing is budget: that's not so much my concern. I'm more constrained by the room size! Still, let's say, I'd rather do things myself than buy ready made stuff. It's more fun! (well, OK, I'm not gonna make my own fiberglass, but you got the point I guess) Now one question: why would I use room geometry better by flipping my monitors & mix position to be facing the opposite wall? Looking at the plans posted around, they all seem to have the window in front rather than in the rear? Can you be more explicit? Thanks in advance for your help. Xavier

Reading around, I see I am in the same situation as Rafal in this thread: the room I want to treat is surrounded by 24cm concrete walls. Here was one of Knightly's comments about this situation:

adding a single layer of 12.5 mm wallboard on a separate stud frame inside your walls would improve the isolation to around 70 dB at 500 hZ, and still around 45 dB at low end. The advantage of doing only ONE layer of wallboard is interior sound. This inner wall will act like a bunch of panel bass traps, saving you the trouble of building as many as you normally would have to.

Sounds like a dream! It would save me some space all around + give me some valuable acoustic treatment - when I was just wondering how to deal with it with my mini-space and needs for acoustical treatments! One more question then: will resilient channels help me at all in this situation? Anybody can add/comment about this?

this is looking like something im planning aswell. except ive got turntables to fit in somewhere.

Just sharing here a few comments I received: 1) As my floor is already concrete on ground, an floating floor will not help me much (nb: I don't do drums) - this totally matches this sticky. 2) I should put carpet on the ground - I have doubts - I thought hardwood floor was better, cf this post 3) I definitely need double windows and double door. 4) my small closet in the corner should be avoided - it defets the purpose of the corner. 5) absorber panels on parallel walls, to be evaluated once the room has been built. 6) angled ceiling: rather use absorbers/diffracters in my case. 7) sheetblock would not be of much use in my case; I should rather have a triple layer of plaster board than use it. 8) I can reduce the air space to 1/2'' (instead of 2'') as I already have 4'' within the frame - that sounds a little bit short to me 9) I should use 30 Db grade doors 10) I'd rather not put the speakers on the box structure; rather put them on HP standers + silent blocks/acoustipads

in order to benefit from the "wall as a series of panel traps" you want to ensure they are sealed because if they leak into your space then the effectiveness will be minimal if any and you may end up with a bunch of buzzing panels... you might also want to use various thicknesses of plywood depending on where particular modes fall. heavy panels in the corners and middle, lighter panels in between. rigid insulation is need to dampen the "panels" but you don't want them to touch. definitely stick with the 3x drywall if you need isolation instead of the panel absorber walls. add the panel absorbers later if you need them. presumably you're using 2x 30db doors...

So long for the imaginary easy panel walls solution. I'll have to add the multiple layers of plaster board then. But then, can I give up on the RC? With triple layer plasterboard, that sounds kinda tough!

build the entire frame to be decoupled. using isolators under and over the tops as well as sides to ensure proper support. or use isolation clips and hat channel or if using RC, use RC-2 instead of RC-1.

Thanks, I think I will build the entire frame to be decoupled, and the ceiling sitting on the structure (not hanging from the ceiling over it) - see p.9 of this documentation. If I understand well, I then do not really need to use the RC.

Même avec la structure indépendante, vous aurez toujours besoin d'isoler le cadre. Il semble être un système bien conçu mais je ne vous inquiétez résonance de la structure à moins que certains des vibrations est appliquée.

:lol: Thanks for answering in french ;-) If I build my frames with wood, you think there would be less resonnance/vibrations of the structure? What do you mean about "isolating the frame". Is the goal of the RC to isolate the frame from the studio walls? Why isolate the frame from the walls if the frame is sitting on the floor which itself is sitting on Acoustipads, on concrete, on ground? I thought the vibrations would not propagate much with that kind of layout... what do you think? Or maybe the role of the RC is to damper the wall vibrations? But is this still relevant with a triple layer of plaster board? Thanks for the help :P

Hey I just noticed this advice on SAE web site:

Adding another layer of gypsum which is glued (not nailed) to the first sheet and should be a different thickness than the first sheet. i.e. 16mm (5/8") and 12mm (1/2")

If I do that, should I use a special glue?

[quote="gullfo"]Même avec la structure indépendante, vous aurez toujours besoin d'isoler le cadre. Il semble être un système bien conçu mais je ne vous inquiétez résonance de la structure à moins que certains des vibrations est appliquée.[/quote] Yeah, it sounds like RC really helps... see http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/ir761/ir761.pdf