FINISHED GARAGE STUDIO CHECK IT OUT

Hey Guys i just finished converting my 19x22 x8.5 garage into a studio.. here is a link to my moble me picture gallery ask me if you have any questions or comments i would love to help you guys out http://gallery.me.com/jontaylor4#100015

Hi Jon, There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post. Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will not reply if you do not do what is written in the post. Many others who are very helpful, will not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes. - Stuart - PS. I guess it must just be the camera angle, but I can't see how you decoupled the inner leaf walls form the ceiling. From the photos, it looks like they are still coupled.

Nice layout! I like the laminate floor. A couple of questions: IMG_0217.JPG seems to show two electrical outlets on opposite sides of the wall, practically back to back. How did you isolate those from each other, or is isolation between those two rooms not important? Or maybe it's just the camera angle again? IMG_0313.JPG and IMG_0315.JPG seem to show a very low coverage of Green Glue on some of your sheetrock panels, maybe half a tube or so. (That is Green Glue, right?) Was the photo taken before you added the other two and a half tubes of coverage, or did you really use so little GG on each panel? If you used such low coverage, what was the reason for that, and how well did it work? Is there any reason why you didn't soffit mount the speakers? It looks like you would have had the space to do it. The final photos of the finished room (IMG_0509.JPG and IMG_0516.JPG for example) show the speakers on stands, and it loos like there is glass at your first reflection points. Is that because you haven't finished the treatment yet? (I'm guessing that it must be not finished yet, since there doesn't seem to be much bass trapping in the corners behind the speakers either). Just curious!

Greetings, Your Studio looks great. Questions. How does the studio sound to you? How is the isolation to the rest of the house? neighbors? between the rooms? What would you have done different ? Stay Gold, Ken Hamilton

Axiom Studio wrote:

What would you have done different ? Stay Gold, Ken Hamilton

Good question Ken. I am interested in what jontaylor4 has to say about this as well. Greetings to you both, Brien

Soundman2020 the electrical outlets... basically my budget was arount $14,000.00 us dollars so i had to work with it and the freaking heating and air was 6k so construction was 7-8k i had to really pick and choose where the money went.. the walls are 6 in with 2x4 staggered and cotton insulation .. i did nothing to isolate the electrical outlets and light switches.. i was more worried about keeping the sound in the garage and away for the neighbors first. green glue. i was a little tight with the green glue that stuff adds up quick. i wanted to make sure i had enough to finish the whole wall and it turned out i had 4 sticks left haha. i am gonna use them to make some guitar amp iso boxes.. but i am pleased with the isolation it did on the outside wall.. the soffit mount i wanted to do that at first but in my design the windows are in the way so i just felt ok using speaker stands ... i am about 95 percent finished with the project i have to install another single pannel window on the other side of the wall.. i need to make some more sound pannels and make bass traps and trim around the doors.. i have just been so busy with sessions i cant finish them..haha i guess thats a good thing... any way take a look at the song i posted http://idisk.mac.com/jontaylor4-Public?view=web hopefully maybe.. see ya

Axiom i really like the sound so far its all new to me now so i quite haven't settled in yet.. but if you go to my Mobile me site i posted the first song i did in here. let me know what you think.. the isolation between the rooms are good,, drums in the drum room are 110, in the vocal booth through the door the drums are 83-88 db. through the wall to the control room the drums are 80-85.. the drums in the house are very quite you cannot hear them if you are watching tv at a normal level. its awesome.. the isolation outside is great five feet out the wall the drums are 70 db and at the curb 60db at this point the drums get lost with the wind and traffic noise... i can track late at night and my wife can sleep and the neighbors are happy !! things i would have done different.. i wish i had a bigger budget... and a bigger room to start with. but other than that i am very happy with it..

Thanks for all the explanations, Jon! Much appreciated. So it would seem that even a very low coverage of Green Glue is still effective to some degree, which is what I always suspected, but it would be interesting to see just how effective it still is. Did you use about half a tube per panel? I'm just guessing from those photos in your album. That's what it looks like, to my untrained eye. I was wondering if you'd be interested in doing a sort of non-scientific test on your wall, to see just how well it works? All that you'd need to do is to play pink noise loudly in one room, and measure the sound first in that room where you are playing the sound, then in the rooms around it (with the doors closed) using something like ETF for the analysis. Or if you don't have ETF or an SPL meter, you could even just record the sound and post links to the sound files here, so someone here can analyze it. Would you be able you do that? It would help answer some questions that I've been curious about for a while. OK, it would not be very scientific, but it would at least give a basic indication. - Stuart -

Stuart i would love to help you with this... the only place i used green glue was on the wall replacing the old garage door... there are two walls there.. the outside wall is a 2x4 thick wall the layers include from the outside in 1/4 in panel 3/4 plywood cotton insulation and two layers of sheetrock i did not use green glue between these layers.. now the second wall is about 1 inch away from the first wall it is insulated with cotton insulation and on this wall i floated the sheetrock.. there are some good photos of this.. but i used hat channel and clips to float the layers of sheetrock and here i used the green glue.. i used about half a tube panel but the panels are about 4x5 i had to cut them in weird dimensions to fit the wall the wall was 8.6 feet and a 8 foot sheetrock was two short... so i guess i used about 3/4 a tube per 4x8.5 section of wall.. i did not use green glue on any interior wall. i was not two concerned about the isolation between the rooms.. i ran a test on drums just to get a idea in the drum room drums are 110 , 5 feet outside the outer wall they are 70 and at the curb 60 db which is about 18 feet away i hope this helps

jontaylor4, In the spirit of coming here to help folks, maybe you would take a few minutes to explain what information you used to develop where the garage door was. It is a very costly three leaf wall and based on what I have read on this thread or seen in your pictures, there is not enough mass to justify it. I would also welcome why you chose not to use any type of isolation technique on receptacles, but any penetration you decided to ignore in general would be helpful. Maybe why the ceiling was no concern maybe a good place to start? Brien

there are two walls there.. the outside wall is a 2x4 thick wall the layers include from the outside in 1/4 in panel 3/4 plywood cotton insulation and two layers of sheetrock i did not use green glue between these layers.. now the second wall is about 1 inch away from the first wall it is insulated with cotton insulation and on this wall i floated the sheetrock..

If I understand what you are saying correctly, that sounds like either a three-leaf wall or maybe even a 4-leaf wall. I read it like this: From outside to inside: 1/4" panel 3/4" plywood 2x4 studs with insulation 2 layers of sheetrock 1" air gap 2 layers of sheetrock with Green Glue Hat channel 2x4 studs with insulation Hat channel 2 layers of sheetrock with Green Glue Is that pretty much how you did it, or did I misunderstand what you said? Also, from what you say, I understand that you removed the old garage door and replaced it with this wall? Or is it that the "1/4 panel" that you mentioned is the original garage door? Or is the garage door still there, on the outside of all of the above? Also, I'm trying to get a handle on the orientation of your layout: I'm guessing that the original garage door is at the right hand side of your diagram? Right next to the drum booth and the vocal booth? The reason I'm so interested in the garage door issue is because I'm also building my studio in the garage, and my live room (drum booth) will also be right next to the gararge door. So I'd really like to get as much info as possible on the success of completed studios in isolating garage doors! When you mention those sound level readings, how did you measure them? In other words, is that dBA or dBC? Short. medium, or long time integration? Etc. At high SPL levels it doesn't make much difference, of course, but it does at low levels, and I'm a precision nut in any case (some would call me a "perfectionist"!), so I like to understand exactly what your readings really mean! - Stuart -

OK, I took another look at your photos, and I think I get it now. You removed the original garage door and replaced it with the new wall. The construction of the new wall is (from outside to inside): 1/4" panel 3/4" plywood 2x4 studs with insulation 2 layers of sheetrock 1" air gap 2x4 studs with insulation Hat channel 2 layers of sheetrock with Green Glue Is that correct? I'm basing that on photos IMG_0183.JPG through to IMG_0189.JPG. Now, in IMG_0189.JPG there seems to be some blue "stuff" between the second wall studs and the sheetrock on the first wall: What is that blue stuff? Or is it just a shadow? Hard to say. - Stuart -

I would also welcome why you chose not to use any type of isolation technique on receptacles, but any penetration you decided to ignore in general would be helpful. Maybe why the ceiling was no concern maybe a good place to start? Brien, i had to keep telling myself during this project how much isolation do i need and where was it needed most and or course what to i have the budget for.... this is really the foundation of all my decisions...before my studio was in the house using two 10x10x8 normal 4inch walls with no insulation and it was ok for what i was doing and recording.. except my wife could not watch tv with drums going on and when we were doing vocals or acoustic instruments the had to tip toe around the house.... so the new studio needed to meet these standards.. 1. more room so i can track full band and not set up drums in the living room 2. have more privacy for my wife so all these random people are not hanging out in my house.. 3. have a outside entrance to help to separate the studio from a house 4. and make it where my wife would not be disturbed if i have a session going on.. 5. make sure the the neighbors would not be disturbed.. 6. make if have a real studio and professional look.. and stay within a very small budget.. 7. get it done as soon as possible so i can start making money.. 8. knowing also that we are planning to in the next 5 years moving . so not to go overboard with costs when it is only some what a temp.location. i had to do this in two phases phase 1.. i had to pass a city code.. the guy at the city was really cool i took him my plans to get a building permit. he said you are going to have a hard time getting this approved..being it is a business in a non business zone. he said i should just turn the garage in to a living space first and after you pass your final inspection we will never be back and you can go on to phase two in building the interior walls to your studio..so i did.. alot of the little details i found out about during construction.. like the ac outlets and light receptacles. so i did nothing about them hopeing for the best.. the ceiling was on my mind the whole time i wasn't sure if i needed to drop the ceiling and building another one. my thoughts were try it how it is and if i needed more isolation i could always build it later..i did put about 4 times more insulation above the drum room to try to help.. and as of right now i have no plans to add another ceiling i am very happy with the isolation and the neighbors are really cool about everything and they cannot hear it during there normal everyday life..

stuart the blue you see is just a shadow there is nothing there. and yes you are right on the order of layers of the wall .. if you read in the last post i had to do two phases. i had to pass final inspection with no suspicion of any other construction was going to proceed. kinda under the table a little but i had no choice can not afford a business building and needed to get it out of the house...

and yes you are right on the order of layers of the wall ..

OK, thanks. So it is a 3-leaf wall, which would explain why you are not getting such good isolation out to the street for drums. 2-leaf with more mass would have been better for low-frequency isolation, and probably cheaper too. But I understand your "2 phase construction" issue. I'm wondering why you used hat channel instead of resilient channel, when hat channel basically has no acoustical advantages, and RC isn't all that much more expensive? Regarding the ceiling construction: It looks to me like your new framing just goes up to your existing ceiling, which is probably just one layer of sheetrock hung from a 2x4 frame. Is that right? And what is above that? Is there another room up there, or is it just a roof over the garage?

stuart the iso clips i used required hat channel http://www.soundisolationcompany.com/so ... quietclip/ above the ceiling is the attic air space which is at peek 5 foot the the roof. yes the ceiling is just the original layer of sheetrock and the walls just butt up against it.

the iso clips i used required hat channel http://www.soundisolationcompany.com/so ... quietclip/

Ahh! OK, that makes sense. I missed seeing those in the photos.