Building first ever studio. NEED HELP

My name is Mark. I am building my first studio. I am planning a little garage like structure beside my new house in Co. Cork, Ireland. I am not very far in the procedure as 1. we have yet to move (summer job) and 2. I have no experience in the building side of studios and am pretty unsure of my ideas. It new house is in an estate with many houses quite close! So the inside of the studio needs to be as close to 100% soundproof as possible, while still not spending a HUGE fortune! There will be full bands playing in the studio if all goes right, so there will be huge amounts of sound made! Drums included especially (i'm a drummer, so there will be drums playing in there constantly!!!) Budget, In terms of just the contruction etc. I would be thinking as much as needed to get it as close to sound proof as possible! As without the soundproof I wont be able to opperate the studio due to complaints etc.! The only thing not mentioned at all in the file is sizes, dimentions, etc.! I have not decided on these yet as I am hoping that people with experience will be able to help me out with minimum sizes, there is a big space to the side of the house so I am not limited, but all the same, the smaller the cheaper and the more room for the kids in whats left of the garden! So who ever has time to look at this and reply, can almost decide everything! Literally, because its the side of music recording I dont have any experience in as I said before besides reading numerous articles! Please have a look and tell me if I'm going wrong! And what I'm leaving out and forgeting! Thanks, Mark

I'm sorry but I don't think anyone would give you an answer other than this link at this point Do some reading first, then ask. You forgot to mention the dimensions of your room btw. Good luck! Martin

Do yourself a favor and buy Rod's book. All of your questions are pretty much answered there

Another very useful book I would recommend is Master Handbook of Acoustic by F. A. Everest ;-) edit: btw. "Rod's book" refers to "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like The Pros" by Rod Gervais

Is your main reason for build the "studio" to produce quality recordings? That will translate to the real world and be a sellable product? If so (though I'm not sure of the size) your control room is prob a bit small, it is also not Symmetrical. Stereo imaging is an important aspect of pulling a great sound from your recordings. On the other hand if you just what to jam without distrubing the neighbours, then it should be a fine design. Walls- will you be sharing the top and bottom plate? Do you have the space to build a seperate inner leaf with no connection to the outer wall? You will get a much better STC with NO connection.

also check out this reference section http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... lindex.htm

Hey Mark. Welcome! Adding to what others said: I agree with Lilith about the shape and size of your control room. It should be bigger if you can spare the space, and it must be symmetrical. Regarding what you said about size: "The only thing not mentioned at all in the file is sizes, dimentions, etc.! I have not decided on these yet as I am hoping that people with experience will be able to help me out with minimum sizes,": What everyone here will tell you is: make it as big as you possibly can! Small rooms are really hard to treat acoustically and make sound good. As a general rule of thumb, the bigger a room is, the better it will sound. I guess the basic question here is: how much space do you have available? You might want to check your local zoning laws and building code, to find out what you can build, and how big you can make it. There may well be restrictions on the percentage of the land that can be built on, how close buildings can be to the property line, how high it can be, etc., etc., etc. Check on that first, to make sure you can actually build something at all, and if so, how big it can be and how close it can be to the property line. that will probably define some of your dimensions already! To answer your questions:

-Is there simple ways of making walls better?

Yep! Since your outer wall is concrete, forget the layers of drywall on that side, and forget the staggered studs! You don't need it. Waste of money. Just seal the concrete well, then build a single stud frame about 3 inches away from it, put two layers of 5/8 drywall on the side facing the room, fill the entire cavity with rock wool, and you will have a great wall. If you have a concrete outer wall, then those two layers of drywall up against it are not doing much at all, and might even do some harm to the isolation if you end up with air gaps between the concrete and the drywall.

-Green glue is to be entered as well but not too sure where best place(s) to put it?

Forget the "Roll roofing", and use the Green Glue in there instead (between the two layers of drywall). It will be much, much more effective than asphalt roofing felt. So from outside to inside you will have this: Concrete - air gap filled with mineral wool - stud frame - 5/8" drywall - Green Glue - 5/8" drywall. That will give you excellent isolation.

-Air conditioning or some source of fresh air will be needed as only way in and out for air is outside doors which will be closed when recording obviously. No idea how to go about it without letting too much sound out?

Use a "mini-split" air conditioning system for the cooling, and run two ducts with fans for the fresh air. One duct brings fresh air in, the other takes stale air out. Put silencer boxes in line with the ducts, to keep the sound in and the fan noise out. Search the forum for "silencer" and "min-split" and "HVAC", and you'll find numerous examples of how to do it. And a few of how NOT to do it! :) Ideally, the ducts should be insulated on the INSIDE, not the outside.

-There will be wires going from control from to live room for boxes etc., Is there a way of doing it so too much sound isn't left into the control room?

Yup! Run the cables through conduit, but cut a small section out of the conduit mid way and wrap some kind of rubber or foam around that gap to join it again. This will decouple the two pieces of conduit so that sound does not travel along the conduit itself. Also, where the conduit comes into each room, cut a hole a bit bigger than the conduit, and seal the gap between conduit and hole carefully with acoustic sealant. Plug the end of the conduit, around your wires, with some type of closed-cell foam, to help prevent sound traveling through the conduit.

-The double doors, is there anyway of making them better besides just adding foam inside and that type stuff?

Foam wont help. Foam does not stop sound, and does not isolate. Mass is what you need. Add lots of mass to the doors, such as by adding sheets of plywood or drywall to the basic door, which must be solid core doors to start with, not the usual hollow core type. Do NOT cut holes through the door for the handle! That destroys the isolation. Just use surface mounted handles. You also need air tight seals all around the door, top, bottom and both sides. Two seals per door is good. Three is better.

-Would it be a huge loss if I went for wood on outside instead of concrete or will it be relatively the same?

Yes it would be a huge loss. Concrete is about three to fives times more dense than wood (depending on the wood), and therefore much better at isolating. It is also stiffer (more rigid), which is good too.

-I have not put much thought into the roof and floor yet as I decided I am going to get each part right first before I move on! Please answer questions as clearly as possible as I am still getting used to the terms on the other threads on the site, etc.

Floor: Jut leave it as plain old concrete slab. Do NOT try to float your floor! Big mistake. Read here to understand why: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173 Concrete slab is a great floor already. You don't need anything on top of that. Hard reflective floor, soft absorbent ceiling is a good plan. If you don't like bare concrete as a floor, then lay laminate flooring directly on top of it. The roof and ceiling need to be built as two separate things, with no mechanical connection at all between them. The ceiling rests on the inner stud walls, and the roof rests on the outer concrete wall. Once again there must be no connection between the inner leaf and the outer leaf. They both stand on the same floor, but apart from that there is no connection. Other comments: You need a two-leaf wall with double doors (back to back) between your control room and live room. Single leaf with a single door and a single window will not isolate very well at all. The window also needs to be double (two panes of thick laminate glass, separated by a large air gap). - Stuart -

yes, get rod's book. read it. let it sink in. all or most of what's above is in there. the room within a room design is just that. the outer room does not touch the inner room at all. if it were an electrical circuit the current would have to flow across the slab from inner to outer. so no stagger studs sharing a bottom plate. i'd say keep the ceilings to 10" min. as others say the bigger the room the better. you may be able to do a dual use live room/control room. that way you can mix in a bigger room that needs less treatment to sound balanced. but that really depends on how you plan to use the space. regular insulation...fluffy figerglass may be a more inexpensive alt for rock wool. seems for your app it should work the same. i'd plan on 2 curcuits. one for musical stuff. one for lights. better for group loops. also think about lights. some are very noisy, both in terms of noise signal in your gear and actual audible noise. we've all played near neon lights and florescent ones right? as mentioned master handbook of acoustics is good. wide in score. but i think for an orientation that focuses on construction get rod's book. i think the key for you is to start reading from good sources and firmly understand the basics well before building. you will save yourself a big headache. oh, and you won't be able to get this thing sound proof. it's really hard and expensive to get a live band at 115 db to sound like 20-30 db. what you can do is make it so the sound in minimal and not an issue.