JB's New Studio, the build thread

Guys, whats a common contractor's handwork fee ? I just received quotation from mine today, and even tho its an acceptable price , there are items that doesnt make any sense. For example. They are charging me twice the cost of a rockwool sheet, what for? Installing them its not any nuclear science. Same with drywall, almost twice the price for handwork. Is that the common fee? (for what I see here, almost 80% to 100% of material costs) There are things that I can DIY for sure! but others like framing that would be a major pain in the ass. So I either go with them, or DIY.

Well. after emailing this contractor and having him telling me in a polite way "you are on your own", welcome me to de DIY world ! :) However, I'm gonna hire a guy to do the hard work (framing and drywalling) I'll do all the caulking and everything else from there

good onya mate :)

By the way today I just got Rod's book. its pretty amazing Great to have it now since it has very cool pictures for window and door seals!

John, The stud spacing you used on you model was 16", should I stick to that or change to 24"oc I need to know that since I'll be ordering the timber studs in a few days and need to count them :)

16" preferably with horizontals at 4' spacing. We call them Noggins. check Lilith's framing - She's using Noggins - it's the law here.

Well. after emailing this contractor and having him telling me in a polite way "you are on your own", welcome me to de DIY world ! :) However, I'm gonna hire a guy to do the hard work (framing and drywalling) I'll do all the caulking and everything else from there

Well, Javier is going to have a bit more help than that! I just stopped by his place this evening, met him and his girlfriend, and we spent a great couple of hours chatting about his construction and my construction, looking around, figuring out what to do, discovering a few hidden pitfalls, etc. And to cut a long story short, I'll be helping him out a bit with some of the building, since I have some of the tools he'll need to speed things up, and I've done framing and dry-walling before. He'll still be hiring some guys to do other work, but we'll do most of the framing ourselves, probably. So Javier's studio should come together a bit faster, since we'll both be working on it, as time allows! This is going to be cool! - Stuart -

excellent. :thu: Good luck guys :)

Yeah, Stuart is a great guy and I'll be in debt with him for his help which I really appreciate ! Thanks Stu!! I'll probably make him a couple of high end preamps for his future studio as well. Thanks John as well for the amazing layout you came up for me! Now, about the building, yeah we discovered a few modifications the house owners did and I wasnt aware of by just looking at the plans. Things like they re built a couple of walls of the recording room, so the wall next to the door is a simple stud wall, as opossite of the rest of the walls that are made of concrete. I'll probably have to live with that, and reinforce the new inner wall with more drywall of something, but like and old friend always said to me.. "I'll make it work ! " Also, Stuart convinced me to futher isolate the control room. thing I didnt care much about before, since my budget is limited, I only focused on making a good isolated and treated recording room, and a not isolated but treated control room. We'll see how my budget is after we start with the recording room. This might take more time than I thought but that will leave me some time to re think things like above. However, I have to finish mixing an album... thing I'll probably do in my bedroom for now! gee

The ceiling! You forgot to mention that curious, mysterious ceiling above the future CR! :) I should have thought to take a camera... nobody will believe us if we just describe that ceiling... Javier and I were trying to figure out just what they did to the ceiling in there: it looks like it might be some kind of painted cloth, since it sags down in the middle, and is flexible. If you poke it with a stick, it can be lifted up and it acts like painted cloth, but there is something solid just above it, which seems to be wood or drywall. We suspect that the "cloth" might, in fact, just be fifty years of accumulated paint layers that has detached itself from the wood / drywall above, and is merely holding together by whatever force it is that holds paint together!! It sure is weird, and one of the first things that needs to be done is to figure that out.... I hate to think what might be above it! :shock: There also seems to be a doorway that was covered over, between the booth and the CR, but it is only covered over with some framing and drywall. We need to poke a hole in that to figure out what to do about it. Then there is the issue of the wall where the window from the booth to the CR is supposed to go: we are not convinced that it is a concrete wall after all. Javier's girlfriend suspects that it might even be adobe ( :shock: ), and I fear she is right. We need to dig into it a bit, to find out for sure. And if it is adobe, then we are fresh out of ideas about how to build that window.... And then there is the floor. The booth is fine, and has a concrete floor, but the CR just has a wooden floor over joists, and it is very uneven. Perhaps the best idea is just to lay plywood or MDF on top of that, to get a more level surface for building the CR. Any other suggestions from anyone on how to handle that? - Stuart -

HA ha. Yeah That will be fun to destroy.. I just hope a bunch of dead rats doesnt fall over us when we take that crap out ! lol

Hi, I´m new posting here but I check this forum from time to time, I´m friend of Javier and I will try to give him a hand if I can, electric and light work maybe... just a small tip, if you want to know what kind of wall do you have and you don´t want to destroy it or make a hole you can open a electric box where the electric outlet is, the most of the time you can see part of the wall there. I dunno if it could work on your ceiling cheers Rafael

Rafael - you can run your wires down the space between the walls - just make sure that where you break trough the plaster to get into the room that you seal it up completely with a quality flexible caulk. Are you familiar with star earthing?? http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... l.htm#star

We visited the new space again (we moved all my equipment from the old studio) so we took a more detailed look at the structure. Sadly, there was a door between the CR and the Recording Room (that I wasnt aware of before, we noticed it by hitting the wall with our hands), that was sealed with a simple stud wall (drywall on each side, no insulation inside) That will probable be the weakest point between rooms. HOWEVER, the stud wall that seals the old door opening, isnt just the mass that separates each room, because there is more mass (adobe or similar) on the recording room side. As you can see, this is a very weird construction!! (the stud wall is only on the CR side) An option would be just leave it like that and beef up just that part of the new inner leaf of the recording room. (that will create 3 leafs but its just the size of a door) Maybe I'll just live with it and don't burn my head with more things

you mean there is a stud wall on the control room size, then an adobe wall with a door in it?

yes I´m familiar with star grounding. i´ve built some tube amps and I´m electronic engineer :wink: I´m thinking Javier will need an audio panel betwen the control room and the recording room for mics lines, guitar lines and speaker lines (an audio snake is not enough Javier!) greetings Rafael

No, there seems to be a door that was sealed with a simple stud wall on the control room side. The recording room side seems to be adobe or similar. However, I'm not sure if the stud wall that seals the door goes all the way through the recording room. Here are pics of the two possibilities.. I cant tell which one is my case yet since its very hard to recognize what has been built.

OK Blocking the window and door with brickwall started Some pics I told the guys to leave a 20cm hole in the wall to put the ventilation duct. I know I have to caulk properly the duct edges after going through the hole. but how do I prevent sound from scaping through the duct itself??

but how do I prevent sound from scaping through the duct itself??

Silencer! We have to build a couple of silencers, and I think they will fit nicely in the space just outside the "bricking up", where the window used to be. Or where the door used to be. Or both. Tell the guys to also leave holes for your mini-split air conditioning pipes! They need to leave a gap big enough to get two sets of pipes, plus the condensation drain out there. I forget to mention that the other night, when we spoke on the phone. Sorry! I reckon the easiest will be to run both sets of lines (CR and LR) out through that window, or the door, and also all four ducts. Four? Yup, four: You need a fresh air inlet, and a stale air outlet for each room, so two inlets and two outlets, with separate silencers on each. I guess you could combine them somehow, but that's more complicated. I'm thinking that the gap where you are bricking up the old doorway will be just the right size for four silencers. - Stuart -

Stuart, So far I'm only considering AC for the CR, and ventilation for the LR In that case the AC pipes will go through the CR exterior wall I got a 280 m3/hr for $70.000 pesos, its claimed to be absoutely quiet. Now, I'm not sure if leaving the extracting fan INSIDE the room, then run a duct to the outside, or pur the fan OUTSIDE and pull air out through a duct to a grille on the LR. Same question for the fresh air supply (active?) the girl at the company told me I could use the same (another) fan but wired backwards, so it blows fresh air from the outside. So.. Im thnking about leaving 2 holes. one in the doorway for the air out, and one in the window for the air in (or backwards). hopefully that will create a good airflow PD: answer your phone :P

Update Window seal was done and door seal is almost there. I will leave two holes for fresh air supply and extractor fan. Also, about the strange "doorway" I talked about, I'm gonna seal it with brickwall as well, so I have just ONE solid brickwall wall between the CR and recording room. We made the hole in the wall for the window as well! That took a couple of hours Also, 3x2" pine (110 units) and 250kg of 40kg/m3 insulation arrived (that thing is itchy as hell !! i just moved it on their packages to another room and i still feel itchy) I have to pick up the drywall tomorrow and start framing! Sorry about the pics, I left my cam at home and used my cellphone

PD. Maybe a moderator could move this into the construction or any apropiate forum since I already started the build(maybe change topic name as well ? :P

We started puting brickwall on the "old" doorway that was hidden by a crappy stud wall.. you had to see how they built that!! We left two holes for the air ducts on the LR... but you can hear everything from the outside by those little holes.. we'll have to seal those fuckers after we put the ducts! Brickwall is your friend!

Wow I got sticky! Thanks! I'll upload more pics later tonight!

More pics Everything seems good here. LR is completely isolated (exterior leaf = brickwall), now I have to start framing for the inner leaf. However, for budget reasons, I dont think i'll be able to go room in a room on the Control Room, and since everything is brickwall already, i hope i wont disturb anyone when monitoring/mixing. Now, the only thing that worries me is the drywall sealing that you can see on the "control room left side" picture. There was an old opening (probably from living room to dining room) and it was sealed probably by a couple of drywall layers. Even tho its solid, its not as massive as the whole left side (and all sides) brickwall wall. Now, how could you go about this? Sincerely, brickwalling it would be killer, but that will cost me quite a bit, since you can see its a large section of the wall. and I'm not in a condition whether I can spend more money on that. Any opinions?