Quay Cuts Studio : Pics update

Hi my name is Brian O’Callaghan, I am writing for help and guidance in the construction of a new studio I am planning to build with a friend Steve Fearnley. The studio will be located in Warrenpoint, N Ireland and we hope to be able to operate the studio both as a commercial venture and as a base for our own music creation. We would welcome any advice anyone can offer and greatly appreciate your help. Its our intention to document or own efforts here as best we can. I’ve done my best here to give a rough idea of the buildings we will be creating the studio in and some of the areas we will be concentrating on . Our budget is small (about £ 8,000 or $16,000) but we’re hoping to make best use of what we have and will be doing most of the work ourselves. Ok some details about the space we will be using We have been offered the opportunity to rent 3 rooms in an old outhouse located in the grounds of a country estate. ( the first jpeg shows a rough floor plan with pics of the external surroundings of the rooms) We have permission to make room alterations , though some of the changes we will make need to be reversible ( for example we can block off some of the doorways, but they must be easily reopened if ever we leave the studio) . The building itself was built circa 1886 and falls under restrictions as a ‘listed’ building which means no alterations can be made to it’s physical appearance from the outside, but we are free to make alterations internally. The estate presently operates as a working farm with a variety of livestock and farm machinery being the main sources of noise pollution. There is a concrete yard to one side of the studio building and this is also up for rental, we don’t know what the likely noise pollution will be from this, but the yard has bays suitable for storing sand and stone and would possibly attract a builder. Our landlord is our nearest neighbour so we have no worries about complaints from the neighbours about noise coming from the studio ( unless we fail to pay the rent ). It’s hard to say what music will be played as it will vary from heavy drum n bass to rock, blues and folk. Our set-up includes equipment for mobile recording so we will probably be mixing some live sets in addition to any artists we record in house. About the rooms The rooms are basically empty shells at the moment so we have the ‘luxury’ of being able to make a number of choices on how we design various features. Both the external and existing internal walls are 0.45m thick and are coursed granite rubble with stepped brick dressings to openings and a single brick eaves course. The roof is an A frame timber construction with slates on the exterior and the rafters are exposed to the rooms. The timbers used are 5” * 1.5” at 16” spacings. All three rooms have recently laid concrete floors and we have been told the floors have 4 inches of concrete on hardcore, we don‘t know the mix ratio of concrete used. The landlord has put a drainage channel under the floor with outlets to each room. Room dimensions Room 1 Control Room : length 4.5m, width 4.15m, height to top of wall 3.2m, height to middle of roof 5.1m. Room 2 Live/Tracking room: length 6.6m, width 4.15m, height to top of wall 2.9m, height to middle of roof 4.55m Room 3 General purpose : length 8.9m, width 4.15m, height to top of wall 3.15m, height to middle of roof 4.8m. Doorways: Room 1 has 3 doorways, 1 door leads to a grass ‘courtyard area’ and is 1.24m wide, 2.47m high and .45m deep, 1 to a veranda area 1.0 m wide * 2.1m high, and the third into room 2 is 1m wide* 2.1m high. Room 2 has 4 doorways, 1 leads to a courtyard 1.2m * 2.1m,1 to a concrete yard 1.0m * 2.1m, the last to room 3 1.0m * 2.1 m. Room 3 has 3 doorways, the one leading to room 2, a double doorway to the courtyard area 1.5m * 2.1m + arch 0.4m and a door leading to part of the building we will not be renting. Windows: Room 1 has 1 window dimensions : 1.0m * 1.5m high Room 2 has 1 window dimensions : 1.1m * 1.45 high Room 3 has 2 windows .6m * 1.35m high (arched) Wall vents: There are a number of wall vents, each is approximately 0.3m * 0.3m and run through the wall to the yard area. We are proposing to use Room 1 as the control room and Room 2 as the live/tracking room, these will form the main basis of the studio. Room 3 will be subdivided to create a toilet, a small office, and an area for people to hang out in with kitchen facilities. We may also use the open areas here for occasional recording. At present there is no electric supply to the rooms and we will have to install all electrics, (we have ordered the electric supply). Our ideas/plans Our starting budget is £ 8,000 ( approx $ 16,000 USD ) some of which is needed to purchase equipment such as snakes etc… I know this is quite small but we feel that given the mass of the walls we should be able to achieve a high level of sound isolation for most applications without having to build rooms inside rooms, although we do intend to build a vocal booth in the tracking room. We have identified the roof, doorways, windows and wall vents as being our main vulnerable spots and our plan is to tackle these first, test the levels and then make further adjustments as necessary . For the doorways we intend installing double doors in each doorway, we will most likely use heavy firedoors for most of these but between the control room and tracking room the doors will need to have glass. For the windows we will install second double glazed windows. We will seek advice on the necessity of the wall vents, but assuming they aren’t needed it is our intention to close and insulate these. If room ventilation is needed then we may install an air-conditioning unit and use one of the vents to carry the ducting for this. The roof is our main worry at present, I have been reading through this forum and it lead me to our own local building control (permits, code type stuff) and this has raised some questions and worries about our plans to isolate the roof. Put simply can the present roof structure take the additional loads imposed by our plan and if not is there another way we can produce the desired result. I have included a simple plan of our proposed roof isolation strategy and would be grateful if anyone with good knowledge of these things could point us in the right direction. The rafters and cross bracing timbers are 38mm * 122mm, I'm not sure of the type of timber. One worry is that the cross bracing may not be capable of carrying the intended load of 2 sheets of drywall, the only calculations for safe spans I can find are for ceiling joists supported by a wall, as the cross bracing is simply nailed to the rafters I'm not sure if the safe spans I have identified are relevant. Is there a safe way to strengthen the support for the cross bracing or should I be looking for other ways of isolating the roof. Steve reckons that adding additional joists to the other side of the rafters using bolts will create a safe structure to carry the load required. Any advice here would be of great help. The floor has also become a source of concern, we had started out with the notion of building a floating floor, but as I read through the forum and the debate on to whether to float or not to float, I have become more and more confused. With the base of concrete we have do we need a floating floor or would we just be creating a new set of problems for ourselves? Could we possibly experience problems in the future with our present floor if for example a builder begins to use the yards beside us and regularly uses a scoop bucket to pick-up sand from the pit? Does a wooden floor set on rubber cradles qualify as a floating floor? If we build a wooden floor what problems might we encounter and how do we overcome these? ( a raised wooden floor would allow us the easiest way to run cabling from one room to another, our only other realistic solution for this will be to drill holes through the walls which may be quite problematic) At the moment we are thinking of laying a 2” screed floor to level the present floor and creating channels in this to run the cabling, what are your ideas? When we have completed the basic sound isolation of the rooms our plan is to build a vocal booth in the tracking room. We have plenty of space and are hoping to build the booth with an exterior dimension of 8’ * 8’ * 8‘ (approx), I will post our design for this later. When all this has been completed we will then begin to work on improving the acoustics of the rooms and in particular the acoustics of the control room. I will post more details on this later. I intend keeping a diary of our progress here and share our experience and hope to find answers to the some of questions we will face. I would welcome any views people have on our solutions and will do my best to provide the best information I can. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Hi I've just completed some plans of each room/area and thought it best to post these as well, you will notice 2 possible layouts for the control room, of these we will most likely go with the layout where we are directly facing the live room. The main problem with either of these is where to place bass traps and other acoustic treatments, we can possibly block up the door to the left of the drawing freeing up that corner for a bass trap but we will need to keep the other open, any thoughts? Would bass traps placed above the doors be as effective as traps filling a corner?

Just a quick note to say we have started our build, since my last post we have signed a rental agreement and have begun work on the rooms. Our first job was to clean the rooms down which proved a slow process, the building had lain derelict for quite a few years and were in quite a bad shape. So far we have laid a 2" screed floor and have placed insulation into the roof-space and 2 layers of gyp board on the ceiling rafters, we have also begun the process of making the current doors and windows better for sound insulation. Through reading many topics on this forum and Rods book we have changed the plans for the layout of the studio area and will now be placing the vocal booth and control room in the larger room( originally to be the live room and vocal booth, and will use the other room as the tracking room, I have included a rough plan of the layout. Basically we will be creating room within rooms to create the necessary isolation and will be following the 2 leaf system as much as we can, however in some places this is not possible( between the control room and tracking room there will be a 3 leaf system with the middle leaf being the 18" dividing wall which already exists). We have done the3 best we feel we can do with the roof and have created a ceiling and will be putting inner ceilings on each of the rooms we create. More updates later, all the best for now, Clunk

Just a quick update on our progress, we have reached the point of wall construction and have about 3/4 of the walls built. I couldn't find any info on how best to fit an independant ceiling to our rooms inside rooms. Our plan is to notch the ceiling joists and sit them on top of the walls, should we use neoprene around the notch or just screw them to the wood directly? We will be drywalling, as per advice here, so does it matter how we do this? I have searched here but can't find any advice on how to do this. I have attached a few photos of some of the framed wall assemblies, hopefully we will be finished framing by this weekend so theres a bit of urgency to our question on the ceilings so any advice would be welcome. Thats it for now, all the best, Clunk

Hey Clunk Dont notch the ceiling joists. It weakens the 2x4 Use a saddle of sorts OR set it on your top plate full width and toe nail it I know its a little late in seeing these slight problems you have, but it looks like you are out in the country side?!! Triple leaf on your ceiling /roof. Not an issue if your not worried about the best inside to outside isolation And your floating floor hopefully you packed it full of something dense And too bad you are covering up those killer rock walls. :o Looking good Peace Tom

Hi Tom thanks for the reply and advice, we have 6 x 2's for the ceiling joists and in a few places in the control room we will have to use 7 x 2's, it's probably overkill but we want to leave an ability to double the inside drywall layers if we ever need to. Although we are kind of in the country isolation from outside to in is not a major issue at the moment, there are however plans to restore the remainder of the buildings in the complex over the coming years so , the future is unwritten as some would say and daytime noise levels could be up quite a bit at busy building periods in this renovation. ( If we can persuade the landlord to contract us some of this work we can control when this work takes place a little better, make ourselves a few extra pounds and thus subsidise our income while building the studios reputation) I think I'm happy enough to set the joists on the top plate and toe nail as you suggest but is there any advantage in hanging the ceiling independantly from the walls supporting it by using a hanger lined with neoprene? On the floating floor, we plan to fill the frame with sand ( we have thought of using offcuts of plasterboard as well) supported by plywood sitting on battens within the frame. This will give a depth of about 2 3/4' of dry sand, which hopefully will be dense enough for our purposes. Yeah it's a pity about the walls but they really were in a poor condition, we will leave some of the walls exposed in the recording section of the the lounge/office area so we don't lose the look all together. Allt he best for now , Clunk

Hey Clunk, Make sure you use dry sand when filling your floor . Might be a no brainer but wanted mention it. From your pictures and your drawings it appears you are building a room within a room concept. As long as your rooms are not physically connected to each other (you dont want flaking) there is no need to hang your ceilings independent from the walls. And about your sheet rock/drywall !?! I would be more woried about sound from room to room with only one layer. Maybe someone else can chime in about that. Peace Tom

Clunk etc.,.. I would consider doing something like JS Inside Out walls for the Vocal Booth if it's not to late... It it too late for that, then double up your sheetrock, first layer hung vertically, second horizontally. Don't forget to stgger the joints/corners and fill with backer rod and/or acoustic sealant. When you have gotten that far. Shine a bright light over the whole room and stand outside to check for light/air leaks. Leave about 4-6" air space between your rooms. Each room is it's own little 'house' in that the walls and ceilings don't touch the adjoining room. MASS / AIR / MASS is your friend. Insulate all the walls with Roxul SAFB or similar in your area of the world. Best of luck on your build, Jon Frost Easthampton, MA USA

Hi guys thanks for the advice, we have planned to put up 2 layers on each of the internal walls in all rooms, with an additional 2 layers in the vocal booth ( i.e 4 layers), I realised I didn't make our plans clear enough on this, by doubling up the drywall layers in the control room I meant going to 4 layers on all walls and ceiling. I was wondering though if the air lock needs 2 layers, we may use it occasionaly for recording but it is more of an access area with panels to the small trangle formed between the control room and vocal booth where we will route the audio and electrical cables as well as the fresh air inputs to these rooms. We have also considered the inside out walls for the vocal booth but the stone walls are pretty uneven and it would mean having to pull the walls further away from the existing walls to ensure a minimum of 4" of air-space all around. We also intend to use the booth for recording a variety of instruments including drums ( I set my kit up in it today and theres ample space for a good sized kit). We plan to make the room treatments easily removable to allow us to alter the acoustic properties of the room according to the recording we are doing. We are presently considering using the inside out wall type in the live room which is divided into 2 sections, the current drawing (gettinthereoverview.png) doesnt show the second set of walls we will be building in this area so I'll post full updated plans as soon as I get them finished ( we have been working of our rough plans and adjusting these as we learn). There are other aspects of the design that I haven't yet had time to put here so please keep coming back as I post these details, your advice is greatly apreciated. All the best Clunk

Hi all time for a quick update with some pics of where we are at with our build. Ventilation has dominated the last few weeks with building of baffle boxes and fan housings etc... If you notice any glaring mistakes please let me know, thanks.

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The vocal booth has at last been erected and is now ready for plasterboard. The framed floor is filled with about 1/2 ton of dry sand.

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Great Pix! Great job.

I get it...an AIR head!!!! :) Cool!

Awesome thread and pics Brian, man those silencers and some of those void shots look so familiar! :wink: Keep it up Dude, looking great. :D Regards, Lou. 8)

The pictures are really great Brian. Gave me a lot of inspiration; so thank you for posting! I was wondering if you could post some pictures of the floating floor that you talked about earlier in this thread.

clunk wrote:

On the floating floor, we plan to fill the frame with sand ( we have thought of using offcuts of plasterboard as well) supported by plywood sitting on battens within the frame.

If you do not have any pictures yet maybe you can explain some more in depth how your final floor construction ended up? Thank you. /Gash

Hi guys, thx for the compliments, means a lot. I really don't know where you would have seen such an original design before Lou :wink: Gash on the floor I have checked but it seems I have no pics of the floor during construction but here it is from ground up - The whole floor sits on 12 2" x 2" x 1/2" neoprene pucks. I simply phoned the company that supplied the neoprene and gave them the approximate weight of the room ( just over 2 tons) and asked them to calculate the amount of neoprene I should use to obtain a 7% compression and a few hours later they got back and told me. Not very scientific but looking through other threads the amount we have used seems fairly consistent with what others have done. We placed 8 of the pucks around the perimeter of the room at the corners and midway between the corners, and the remaining pucks towards the middle of the floor. Hopefully this will give our room the correct spring to create the desired effect. Between the pucks and the floor frame we have attached 2 layers of 1/4" ply, mainly to hold in the sand. There is a plastic membrane attached on top of the ply to help keep the sand dry. The floor frame is made using 2 x 4 timbers and is filled with 1/2 ton of kiln dried sand. We were a little short on the sand and used some plasterboard off cuts to help fill the compartments. Next there is a layer of 3/4" ply and finally a layer of 3/4" MDF. We have also put pipes in to run our electric and audio cabling into the booth. We had put the floor together prior to getting the sand to test it out and it acted as a great amplifier. Now with the sand in place the floor sounds totally different, nice and dead. The pics below show a little of the detail, best I can do I'm afraid. All the best, Clunk

Hi all, it's been a long time since the last update but work has continued and heres the photos to prove it. Only a few weeks of completion so here goes.

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Yeah even more

Ok thats it for now but I promise i will upload a few more pics soon of the completed works. All the best for now. Btw I'm not sure as to why the pics all come out so small but when i tried to upload earlier it wouldn't allow me to so I scaled them down a little.