Low Budget cellar studio

Hi all INTRODUCTION Been reading for a while and already got plenty of good information and insights from this place! However compared to most projects discussed here, mine is probably rather simple and I'm willing and forced to compromise. I plan on using my cellar room (or rather parts of it) to build a compact project studio for electronic music. I recently downgraded my monitors from BM6A to BM5A from dynaudio to reflect the small room size available. I do have a sub (BM9s) to go with it. I do not plan on recording anything in this room. What I'm after is a cosy litle studio for my hobby. I will use it on weekends and in the evenings so it should protect neighbours and my family from too much noise. I am not working at huge volumes but I ain't quiet either. In summary what I'm looking for: Not the perfect solution but some tips to prevent me from making wrong choices. I'm particularly looking for some advise on room layout, simple building of a room-in-room and maybe some other tips relevant to my situation. I guess I'm in the planning stage but would like to get started asap. ROOM Cellar room (owned property but with neighbours in the same building. However I live on top of the cellar room in question). Room dimensions (L/W/H) as is: 6.64 x 4.16m x 2.21m. This is the total cellar. I can only use a part of it so my initial room I came up with is 4.16m x 2.6m x 2.21m outer dimensions) Room walls are with the exception of the outer wall solid brickwall of typical Swiss sturdiness (means about 15cm thick). The outer wall facing the road / other appartments is concrete (approx. 20cm.) and sports a 15cm outside insulation. Window: Small window (double glass). Dimension is: 45x90cm (only the glass) and 76x110cm (the full window incl frames). Door: I plan on putting a double door where shown on the picture. Floor: Concrete MY STUDIO "IDEA" My idea is to build a room in room as shown in the picture. I would use wooden frames, 10cm Rockwool insulation and drywall panels. I was planning on using 1 leaf for the three existing walls and a double leaf construction (meaning an additional drywall) for the newly built wall in the middle of the room. I was also planning on using my existing IKEA shelf (150x150cm) filled with records at the back wall of the studio. I'm not sure if this helps accoustically but I need somewhere to put my records. To simplify things I was planning on building a square room and only add bass traps etc. later on if required. For the floor I would simply lay some wooden parquet with some light insulation below. No priority as nobody lives below the cellar and I don't want to lose too much height! The ceiling is still unclear to me.. BUDGET I plan to spend about 1'500$ max. including a proper wooden floor. Bear in mind prices are relatively high here. I am not going to buy pro-type stuff but usual DIY material readily available. QUESTIONS 1) Room layout: I know that this room is not ideal in terms of dimensions. Alternatively I could put it in a different corner of the cellar but would need to build two full walls instead of just one. I would not have to bother with the window then.. It is already very small but that's as much as I could negotiate with my wife :roll: 2) Construction idea: Am I correct that I don't need much more than 1 leaf for the existing walls. Nobody lives next to this cellar! 3) Ceiling: I need som help here: What is needed to achieve a good level of sound damping? I ran some tests and could barely hear anything in the room above. 4) What kind of acoustic treatment would be needed in this small room assuming a wooden floor and drywalls anywhere else? 5) Other comments? Tips? Recommendations? Thanks for your help and sorry for the poor illustration. I'm just not getting my head round sketchup!

Hai bengston, welcome to JLS. Before you start with the "basics", please read this forum. It'll take you a few weeks, but you'll find much needed info. This forum is a treasure, read and learn. Then, if you have any specific question please don't hesitate to post'm! kind regards, Róman

Hi "Bengston", and welcome. Just a couple of quick comments: The basic layout and size look workable to me. Not a big room, but then most rooms built by folks here are not big either! Many are even smaller than that. 1) Floor: If it is in decent condition, you can save some money and just leave it as plain concrete. Stain it maybe, for aesthetics. Search the forum for stained concrete floors to get an idea of how great they can look. That way, you won't lose any height, which is is great because you don't have much height! Concrete floor and soft ceiling make for great acoustics.

2) Construction idea: Am I correct that I don't need much more than 1 leaf for the existing walls. Nobody lives next to this cellar!

Not really true! That's kind of like saying "I want to build an aquarium for my fish, but nobody will ever look in from the sides or the back, so I only need to put glass in the front, and nothing on the other sides, right?" :) Get the picture? :) Sound is like water: if you do not contain it completely with a 2-leaf MSM system all around, then you did not contain it at all: In other words, all four walls and your ceiling must be 2-leaf construction if you want to have decent isolation. Just because nobody is on the south side, or north side of your room does not mean you can forget about that wall, since the sound WILL get out through that wall, WILL bend around it, and WILL get to all the other sides as well. Studio isolation is an "all or nothing" proposition. Either you do it completely, or you don't do it at all. A studio with only three sides is not a studio and will not keep the sound in, just like an aquarium with only three sides is not an aquarium since it will not keep the water in. Just like the aquarium, your leaves must be totally sealed, airtight. If not, then you don't have a studio: Even a 1cm hole in the wall, or a 1mm gap under it, destroys the isolation.

3) Ceiling: I need som help here: What is needed to achieve a good level of sound damping? I ran some tests and could barely hear anything in the room above.

same as for the walls: Just put some joists across the top of your inner-leaf walls, NOT TOUCHING the outer-leaf walls or the outer-leaf ceiling at any point, and put a couple of layers of 16mm drywall on that. For a low ceiling such as yours, the best idea is to put the drywall ON TOP of the joists, not underneath it, to gain a bit of head room. That leaves the joists exposed to the room, which is great because you can fill that joist space with rockwool or fiberglass, for acoustic treatment. "Hard floor, soft ceiling."

4) What kind of acoustic treatment would be needed in this small room assuming a wooden floor and drywalls anywhere else?

Corner bass trapping, ceiling cloud (not needed if you build the ceiling "inside-out" as I described above), thick absorption at your first reflection points, absorption on the rear wall and behind the speakers (unless they are soffit-mounted), and maybe some slot resonators or additional absorption on the walls, as need after you do the final measurements.

Thanks for your help and sorry for the poor illustration. I'm just not getting my head round sketchup!

Keep trying! Search for tutorials on Sketchup: it's a GREAT tool for designing. Once it all goes "click" in your head, then it is easy. It's just very intuitive until you get used to it, but once you do it is great.

5) Other comments?

Have you figured out your room geometry and room ratios yet? If not, I'd suggest that yo do that first, to figure out the best place for that divider wall (based on ratios) and the correct position for your speakers and mix position. Oh, and like Ro said: Read the forum! There is no place better on the entire Internet. There are mountains of solid advice from some of the top experts in the world here, and all for free! take a look around, and keep on reading. Follow the entire threads of builds similar to yours, to see where the potential pitfalls and problems are, so you don't have to make the same mistakes that others already made: (you get to make some entirely different mistakes, instead! :) ) - Stuart -

thanks for the comments! regarding the floor its in good condition but I prefer a wooden floor. It won't need much height but I need to feel at home in my studio and a concrete floor won't do. thanks for the tips regarding the walls. I'll make sure to properly isolate the whole room. now as for the room geometry: I have toyed around a lot with the dimensions but I didn't get to something "ideal". Any help here? The room height is fixed and I'm somewhat constrained by the dimensions of the cellar. Does anyone have a good suggestion on this? Regarding the speaker / listening pos I just went with the 38% rule. thanks!

Your dimensions give a 1:1.88:3 ratio. Reduce the length slightly to bring into line with ITU etc specs. There are numerous ratio spreadsheets around. Good luck! Andre

thanks for the comments! regarding the floor its in good condition but I prefer a wooden floor. It won't need much height but I need to feel at home in my studio and a concrete floor won't do.

It's not about the height YOU need: it is about that height that good ACOUSTICS needs. A low ceiling is not good acoustically, so make the floor as thin as you possibly can. I'd suggest laminate flooring, if you like the look of wood. It's only a few mm thick, and even with the underlay it shouldn't take up more than 1 cm. The ceiling is a different matter: It will take up at least 15 cm, total. So your final inner-leaf dimension is going to be 2.05 m, at the very most, and that is low, both acoustically and aesthetically. That is the fixed dimension over which you have no control. At least one of the other two dimensions will have to be adjusted in order to get you to a good ratio. As André said, you aren't far off, so it won't need much adjusting, but everything depends on your decision of floor and ceiling construction, so you'll need to decide on that ASAP.

thanks for the tips regarding the walls. I'll make sure to properly isolate the whole room.

Take a look around the forum, or better yet buy Rod's book and read it over several times, in order to get the concepts behind how the MSM system works, and what needs to be done. There are about a million ways you can do it wrong, and only one way to do it right.

now as for the room geometry: I have toyed around a lot with the dimensions but I didn't get to something "ideal". Any help here? The room height is fixed and I'm somewhat constrained by the dimensions of the cellar.

Yep, the room height is fixed at a maximum of either 2.05 m, or 2.14 m, depending on if you plan to build the ceiling inside out or not. And it could be even lower, depending on your decision of what kind of floor you are going to use. For the above, I'm assuming a 6mm laminate with 4mm underlay. If you go with parquet or some other kind of solid wood, then your ceiling height will be even lower. Once you have that dimension fixed, then decide on which of the common ratios you'd like to shoot for, and adjust the other two dimension to get there. Assuming a ceiling height of 2.05m, you are close to Louden's second ratio. At 2.14 you are even closer to it. But there are others you could get to as well, once you decide. IF your ceiling height is less than that, say 2.00, then things start falling apart. Your closest ratio would be Louden's 6th best, but you can't even get to that as you'd have to make the room both wider and longer than it is to get there, and of course, you can't do that. You'd really have to cut the length and width quite a bit to get to another god ratio.

Regarding the speaker / listening pos I just went with the 38% rule.

38% isn't a rule so much as a guideline, a good starting point, but even then it doesn't look like it is correct on the diagram. The idea is that it is your ears go at 38% of the room depth, not the apex of the speaker triangle. The apex of the triangle will be about 15 or 20 cm or so BEHIND your ears, since your head is round, not flat, your ears stick out on the sides, and you want the acoustic axes of the speakers just grazing your ears, not entering your eyeballs! So once you have your head position set, the speaker separation decided on, the intersection angle decided on, and the apex of the triangle set as above, then everything else will just fall into place naturally. Simple geometry. And if that doesn't fit in with the rest of the room for some reason (like it would mean placing the speakers in the corners, for example), then you can play around with the ear position, speaker separation and intersection angle until things do work out, always setting things up so that the axes just graze your ears and intersect at some distance behind you. It's just a matter of playing around with the geometry until it makes sense. Are you going to soffit-mount your speakers? - Stuart -

I decided for the room dimensions: 2.10 height, 3.96 lenght and 2.82 width. I also decided to go for a laminate floor. Now I am very confused still with the wall design. The more I read this forum and other sources, the more I get confused! so the standard advise.. read this forum did not work for me. reason: I do have two walls which are double leaf already (brickwall) and one which is not (concrete). And I do have one wall which I still need to build. How do I properly go building the walls with this situation? Am I not ending up with three leaves on the concrete and four leaves on the brickwall? Please can someone explain or adivse? By simply putting a layer of gypsum, insulation and another layer of gypsum all around the room am I not ending up with spending a lot more than necessary?

"I do have two walls which are double leaf already (brickwall) and one which is not (concrete). And I do have one wall which I still need to build. How do I properly go building the walls with this situation? Am I not ending up with three leaves on the concrete and four leaves on the brickwall?" Probably not, but you must produce a picture of what it is YOU see so we can SEE it as you do. You may very well have a coupled concrete/brick wall. If this is the case, then this is essentially one mass, but every picture tells a story.