Building a studio in Sweden

Hello! My name is Jon Davidsson and at the moment I live in Gothenburg, Sweden. Me, my brother and our father are planning to build a small studio for recording and mixing purposes. I’ve been directed to this forum by a friend and thought I should post some questions I’ve got about the project. Hopefully this initial post will contain all the information that are required regarding to the “BEFORE YOU POST, YOU MUST READ AND FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS” post. Overview We’re currently doing some research about the project to see if there’s any idea of going on with the project. The studio will be built in an existing building owned by my father. How loud are you? We’ll I guess we’re going to be pretty loud since we want to be able to record drums, guitar amplifiers etc. However the location of the property is remotely situated, so we will not have any problems with neighbors. Details of the building The building is an old school where the walls are some kind of wooden board and the isolation is sawdust/chip (not sure about the correct English term, hopefully you get what I mean). The studio are planned to be built on the upper floor where the floor is beams and the isolation is also sawdust/chip. The ceiling and the floor is the same and there is an attic above. We’ll hopefully can build three rooms. A control room, live room and a vocal both. Dimensions for the live room is (Length x Width x Height): 3.7m x 6.4m x 2.7m. The total size for the room where we want to build a control room and the vocal both is: 8.4m x 3.6m x 2.2m The initial drawings we’ve made for dividing this room is control room: 5.8m x 3.6m x 2.2m and the vocal both: 2.6m x 3.6m x 2.2m. But this isn’t written in stone since this wall doesn't exist. As you can see there’s a height difference, 0.5 m. The difference lies within the floor level where the live room is leveled further down. Budget The budget for the project is about (USD) $15000-$20000. This is mostly for the material since we’ve got contractors almost for free. Conclusion What I’m hoping to get out of this post is mainly if it’s even possible to build a studio in this place. But from what I’ve seen at this forum it might be since there’s some studio project with smaller areas than we’ve got. But even then, you never know. I’ve attached a rough drawing for a better overview. Thanks for a great resource! Best regards, Jon Davidsson

I just want to add that we are planning to hire a studio designer since we don't have enough knowledge about acoustics, and that way we hopefully will avoid unnecessary mistakes. What do you think? Is it a waste of money or do you think we can get a decent studio out of this place? Thanks! Best regards, Jon

"This is mostly for the material since we’ve got contractors almost for free." You get what you pay for. edit: you say isolation but I think you are wanting the word "insulation". I have no idea what a sawdust or chip type insulation is...it sounds dangerous to me, this is an old building? You mention the second floor as the place this build will happen. You want the ground floor...the concrete floor. You don't even want to start a second story project with your budget, free help and quite possibly an old building. That's my 2 cents before inflation, Brien

I'm with Brien here: Building on the second floor is not a good idea, for many reasons, but mostly due to the huge amount of weight that you will be putting on that floor. Much, much better to build on the ground floor, on the concrete slab. - Stuart -

Thanks for you answers!

xSpace wrote:

"This is mostly for the material since we’ve got contractors almost for free." You get what you pay for.

I totally agree! Even though, the contractors we've got for help are experienced. The reason of the almost free part is because one of them is my brothers father-in-law and one of them is a really good friend of my dad, both with about 35 years experience.

xSpace wrote:

"edit: you say isolation but I think you are wanting the word "insulation". I have no idea what a sawdust or chip type insulation is...it sounds dangerous to me, this is an old building?

You are absolutely right, the word I'm looking for is "insulation". With sawdust/chip I mean the thing that will be all of your room if you're cutting wood inside. :oops: This was a very common insulation material in Sweden. It's pretty old, built around 1920. Consider the weight is no problem, what are the other problems with building on the second floor? Thanks! Jon

Consider the weight is no problem, what are the other problems with building on the second floor?

What kind of floor is it, and how is it built? You mentioned "beams", but that could mean any number of things. Is it a more or less standard wooden floor, with something like 2x6 joists, 16" OC, a plywood or OSB deck on top of that, then the final finish floor on top of the deck? Or is it something else? The more detail you can give, the better. Photos would help greatly.

Consider the weight is no problem,

That's hard to assume! We are talking about adding many THOUSANDS of kilograms of weight on that floor. If it is the usual kind of floor found commonly in most houses and some offices and commercial buildings made out of wood (which is what you said), then there is no way that weight will not be an issue. Unless this is some kind of industrial building, then it's hard to see how adding many TONS of weight to the floor will not be a problem. But you said it is an old school, so I'm not so sure that the floor is designed to support the kind of weight we are talking about here. Put it this way: Could you drive a large truck across that floor? - Stuart -

worthingtoni wrote:

It's pretty old, built around 1920. Consider the weight is no problem, what are the other problems with building on the second floor? Thanks! Jon

Everything matters Jon, so I cannot consider that the additional weight is not going to be an issue. I am aware that an 90 year old build is going to have larger timber and framing lumber simply due to the way it was milled back in that time period. So this can allow a larger than usual load. But load is considered by many factors, one of which is the actual weight that will be placed on the existing structure. By the build alone from those days, there are <often> built in chambers that allow air borne sound. The process was called balloon framing (if it exists in your building) that uses framing members that reach from the ground/slab level all the way to the top wall that the roof sits on. This building practice is outlawed in my country (America) due to these open chambers that allow no stop in the event of a fire. Doesn't matter where it might start, at ground level or from the very top, the air space is all the flame needs to move around. So if you have this type of building, and I am cautiously certain you do, sound will move up/down and thru every air space of this building. Which is deadly to your isolation. You simply cannot isolate sound if it is allowed to move so freely about from the walls below to the floor above or from the floor you want to build on to the walls that will surround your acoustical environment. Site unseen and based on these unknown concerns I cannot suggest that it is a good idea without knowing in some small part what the actual design is(existing) and what will be imposed onto that existing structure from the new build. The issues that people run into from an elevated acoustical environment are plentiful. The building itself tends to be the creator of the vibrations that flank and move around the structure in many unpredictable and some that are very predictable ways. Your floor will not be heavy enough to overcome this. There are a few options you could use to make an elevated floor using rigid insulation and additional heavy panels but this may not be enough, depending on how active the structure is currently with flanking and air borne sound taken into consideration. Let's say you did get an elevated floor that was able to produce a reasonable amount of damping and decoupling to satisfy the structure borne and air borne sounds. What about the walls and the ceiling/roof? Existing windows and any/all exterior wall penetrations will have to be eliminated from the upstairs area. But this will not stop the buildings ability to produce structure borne or air borne sound, it will only seal the exterior so what ever is being produced will now be more available to the interior. A building of this age I assume it has some type of lapped siding, correct? All of this siding would have to be re-nailed, holes plugged and the entire wall area re-caulked/painted, upstairs and down. So there are a lot of things to consider for an overhead acoustical project...it isn't unheard of and it can be done, but the problems associated with it can make it a "job" and where is the fun in that? Pictures are always a welcome item since it is mostly guesswork based on what I have experienced and seen. Good luck and keep us posted, Brien

Thanks again for your answers! I'll try to get my father to take some pictures of the framing etc. He'll also have a contractor to check about the weight issue. You may already have answered this in your posts so excuse me for being slow in that case. But assume it's balloon framing, will this affect the sound in the room or is the problem to isolate the sound from the rest of the building? Jon

You said: "will this affect the sound in the room or is the problem to isolate the sound from the rest of the building?" I said: "...due to these open chambers that allow no stop in the event of a fire. Doesn't matter where it might start, at ground level or from the very top, the air space is all the flame needs to move around." There are ways to install blocking in the open areas that exist that will terminate the open access and stop the air borne sound from having an unrestricted path, if it exists now. You may find that you have a typical platform framed building, this is where the walls are framed, the joists/band/deck is installed and the second story walls are placed on to the joists/band/deck. However, it may still, there again due to common practice in this time period, have an open air path. Reason being is the joists in those times would be placed on top of the first story wall and nailed to the studs that were framed for the second story. Then the floor and interior sheathing would be installed. The result is an air cavity that goes all the way around starting from the floor goes into the walls and can have access to the attic air, depending on how the ceiling joists were done, especially if it was not a trussed type or girder roof system. The concern is that these are large open holes in your walls that go straight to the ground floor. Have you ever seen or maybe as a child your tied string to the bottoms of two metal cans and used that as a walkie-talkie? Basically this is what each bay between studs will be. An open walkie-talkie, for lack of a better analogy. The saying goes that if air can pass through it then so can sound. And this is what you do NOT want. Any kind of leakage that allows sound to get into your room will also allow sound to escape your room. So preparing an old building for production work is a challenge that will require some doing for you to have a workable and usable area. Have you played any music in this building yet? If not, I recommend that you do it. Get a guitar and AMP a bass guitar if you can, heck bring the drummer along too! Set up on this second story floor and let the guys play and then you walk around downstairs paying close attention to the walls. Get a ladder and place your hand on the overhead ceiling and note the vibration. This isn't scientific in any stretch of imagination but to get your ears around what that building is capable of to know what you can be up against as far as vibration and how sound can move around from one place to another. Like I said, keep us posted, it isn't something that cannot be done but the hard part hasn't even started yet :)