Garage studio again - please, i need your help

Hey Guys, I posted this post about six months ago and didn't get a response, and i'm pretty sure it's gone now. I'm renting my apartment and with it comes a 1 car unit within a three unit garage. I have the middle unit. The ceiling and rear external walls are legit walls, but open studs, no insulation or anything. The side walls (that are shared with the left and right garages) are simply a couple studs with some 6"x8' wood planks. The other wall is a the aluminum panel garage door. The garage is 17' deep, 9' wide and 9' high. I'm going to be in this place another year, but i need a good place to record, i'm growing out of my bedroom. i'm having more and more real clients and my wife's sick of click click click and lights late at night..... you catch the drift. I was thinking of building a wall just inside of the garage door, and having the rest of the space open. In that wall i would install a door and an air conditioner. BTW, i'm having an electrician come this week to install 4 dedicated breakers and all that in my unit. i was checking out the different design on this forum and it made me think of installing a slider or something to create separate control and tracking rooms.... what do you guys think? i do record drums a descent amount, with headphones in the same room blows though.... would it be better to have two rooms inside the garage that are essentially 9'x8' or one room that would be 9'x16'? Maybe you guys can suggest or guide me to some designs that i haven't seen. The dimensions here are somewhat similar, but i have the garage door. http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Pages/Container.htm I'd really appreciate it! Thanks, Drew Allsbrook http://www.myspace.com/drewallsbrook

Hey Guys, I got most of the stuff out of there today, had a garage sale and started painting. I attached some new pictures so you can see where i'm at. I'm thinking more and more about splitting the room in half. Having the back 8 or 9 feet be my tracking room and the front 8 or 9 feet my control room. i was thinking about building a wall with a sliding glass door between the two sections. should the wall be at an angle to the back wall, or should it be parallel? does that mess with stereo imagery of drums or stuff like that? should the control room be a specific ratio of dimensions for width and depth to height? i'm going to build bass traps and diffusers and stuff like that shown here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm again my thoughts is to build a wall just inside the garage door with a man door and an A/C unit. along the back wall, should i fill that with 702, or regular insulation, should i drywall that or is it better to have uneven surfaces? should i fill it with 702 and then do the spaced panels? would that work like a resonator? what about the ceiling? ideas? it's studs spaced 16" i think. 702? in the gaps? regular insulation? should i put a drywall or something over the studs with insulation or leave it exposed? probably insulation and then put a fabric or something right? should i do the hard plastic over the insulation and then fabric? i'd really appreciate some input/advice. thanks guys. drew http://www.myspace.com/drewallsbrook

If you are in any way concerned with your sound bothering the neighbors...you need mass on the interior of this unit. Mass is what stops sound, not insulation. And you need a lot of it, mass that is. Also, your overhead joist layout is more likely 24 inches, just from looking at the layout. If you are going to do anything with this overhead area, adding additional joists to develop at least a 16 inch layout is important to support the added weight.

Hi Drew,

should the wall be at an angle to the back wall, or should it be parallel? does that mess with stereo imagery of drums or stuff like that?

That would depend on the shape of the inner leaf of your control room. You can probably design it so that the door can be angled.

should the control room be a specific ratio of dimensions for width and depth to height?

Absolutely, most definitely, YES! Search this forum for "room ratio" to get an idea of how to figure out the best ratios for your room. This is important!

i'm going to build bass traps and diffusers and stuff like that

Well building bass traps is a good idea, while diffusers probably not such a good idea for a small room like yours will be. And you can't really decide too much on what treatment you are going to need until you actually have a design!

again my thoughts is to build a wall just inside the garage door with a man door and an A/C unit.

You want to put an A/C unit inside the air gap between your two leaves? I'm not sure how that would work. Not very well, would be my guess.

along the back wall, should i fill that with 702, or regular insulation, should i drywall that or is it better to have uneven surfaces? should i fill it with 702 and then do the spaced panels? would that work like a resonator?

All of that would depend totally on the way you design the two rooms. It is impossible to even guess at how you should build it, without first seeing the design of what you plan to build, in terms of layout, dimensions, construction, etc.

what about the ceiling? ideas? it's studs spaced 16" i think. 702? in the gaps? regular insulation? should i put a drywall or something over the studs with insulation or leave it exposed? probably insulation and then put a fabric or something right? should i do the hard plastic over the insulation and then fabric?

Once again, until you have your design in place, and have posted details about the usual questions regarding sound levels, what your expectations and budget are, etc., it's impossible to say what you need to do, except in very, very broad terms. Like xSpace said, if you want to stop sound getting out and bothering the neighbors, then you need mass, and lots of it. Ditto, if you want to stop sound getting IN, such as the sound of traffic, machinery, noisy neighbors, etc., then you also need mass. Sound goes both ways through walls. If you want to block sound going either way (inside to outside, or outside to inside) then you do it the same way: with mass. Insulation does not stop sound. Mass does, and more specifically, mass when used properly as part of a "Mass-Air-Mass" system. Insulation is for treating the room once it has been properly isolated. Mass is for isolating it. (You do need insulation as part of the isolation, but that is NOT part of the treatment. Two different things). I'd suggest that you start looking over this forum at some of the design and construction projects that are about to be done / are being done / have already been done, in spaces about the size of yours. That will give you a god idea about how to proceed with your design, and then once the design is finalized, then you can start building. Don't make the mistake that you'll see here repeated several times: people starting to build before they have a proper design in place! It NEVER works. Design first, then build. - Stuart -

thanks for the input so far. i'm trying to figure out the design of the room, as we speak. currently i'm trying to decide between having it be one large room (9wide15deep9high) or two rooms divided by a wall with a sliding door or something, control room would be 9x7 and living room 9x8. the side walls of my garage unit are tongue and groove wood panels with studs about every 6 feet on the other sides (the other tenants garages). i have their permission to put insulation and drywall on the other side of the walls (in their garages). i'm having an electrician come and put either 3 or 4 breakers with plugs and switches and lights. that's gonna cost about $700 because there's no electricity in the building right now. i probably have about another $800 to spend. I will be tracking drums here but i do track drums for most of my higher budget projects at a local studio that i engineer at, http://www.sound-asylum.com i know it's not a ton of money to work with but i typically do overdubs, acoustic guitars, vocals, bass, keys, electric guitars at my place. and i'm only gonna be in this apartment for another year. however...... i've gotta get my recording rig out of my bedroom. too unprofessional. and to top it off, i'm going to be buying a Lynx Aurora unit to up my AD/DA conversion. all that to say, i'm not building a major recording studio here, but i do want it to be great for the league i'll be competing in. i understand my limitations and i know this isn't going to be some fancy recording studio, but i do want to do what's best with what i have. i want decent acoustics and isolation. the AC unit will be between a future wall and the garage sliding door (cracked open). when you guys say that i need MASS, you're talking about drywall, or sheet rock or the like? should i insulate and drywall my side walls? i attached another sketch, please take a look and tell me what you think. this is one way. the other way would be to not have the wall in the middle (the one with the sliding glass door) still have the wall by the garage door and have the computer and speakers where the retarded looking drums are. having a room that is basically 15deep9wide9high. i know this would be better acoustically, but harder to contain noise and a bitch to also have to track with headphones. thanks so much for you guys' help, it's invaluable. drew