Steve's new Mullumbimby studio build - advice appreciated!

Well, I’m building my studio at last. I’ve spent 25 years dreaming about it – and suddenly it’s on. I’m a musician producer (amongst other things) and my focus is on making this studio a really nice playing environment. I play mainly acoustic music – won’t be too much loud rock n roll here – so acoustics are important. That said, I do get drums going plenty of the time in my projects, so it has to work for them too. Let’s say I’m an acoustic and world music kinda guy – that should cover the volume question. Not too many neighbors but living in the country I definitely want to avoid outside insects and frogs from disturbing things! Also is a road that gets intermittently busy not to far away. I live in Mullumbimby on the far north coast of NSW, Australia. I’m building a new structure next to my house. It’s a post and beam arrangement as this property does flood occasionally so I had no choice but to elevate it as you can see. I’ve done the outer frame structure and roof (just finishing the deck off at the moment), with the intent to sit with it and really sus out how to best make the all important inside bits work best. I think I’ve got some good things going on that front and if I execute them right it should make for a lovely playing and recording space, but I’m fast coming across some important decisions that I could use some advice on. Firstly, check out pic 1- the building so far from the NW corner: And here's the same with an overlay from Sketchup showing the building shape more clearly: (the roof gets cut off by the overlay) You can see the extended section on the left, which if you look at from the inside you’ll notice combines with a raised floor and creates a “projecting stage area” that my intent is to use as a platform in the big live space. I’ve always loved the sound of drums or acoustic instruments playing off a raised area that projects out into a larger space. I think this building shape accommodates that pretty well. Here’s the view of the raised platform in the building’s current state from the inside back (South wall) (ignore the temporary bracing struts): and courtesy of Sketchup: And while I’m at it here’s a full SketchUp view from the South looking through the back wall to the front (North) of the building (prior to any inside build of course): So I’ll fill you in in soon as to what my layout ideas are for the inside, but in the meantime I would love to get some advice re completing the outside skin (leaf), which I’m hoping to do in a way that will get me off to the best soundproofing start when I start the interior. I’m being pestered by my builder to make some decisions soon – so I’m hoping to keep up with him by focussing this first post on my uncertainties re the outer leaf. Hope you’re still interested…. My intent is to completely cover the exterior with bracing ply to help make an airtight outer skin, and then fix the cladding to that (with the normal blue insulation wrap between). The first photo above shows the bracing ply as it is now, but apart from the windows and doors the plan is to use ply to cover every exterior surface beneath the cladding. I will seal up any cracks and gaps from the inside through the framing, which of course is still exposed. The ply is only thin (4ml) so not much mass there, but it will help me get a good seal. I’m thinking either Weathertex (masonite type manufactured wood) cladding or else cement fibre weatherboards. The house next to the studio is an old weatherboard Queenslander so I want the look to match, but of course want to choose the best cladding for sound as well. The sub-floor is yellow-tongue particle board sitting on the joists, a few gaps at the moment but they’ll be gone soon. Looking forward to sharing some stories later about the floor and resonance etc. (on another post). The roof is corrugated iron on top, with air-cell then cement fibre sitting on the rafters. Windows: As you can see there’s a few windows involved, and because there’s some nice bush to gaze out at while playing, I have felt the need to include a reasonable number of them. Also, because I will be spending a fair bit of time inside the live space when not necessarily recording, and because I live in Mullumbimby NSW which has a lovely sub-tropical climate, I’m actually keen to be able to open some of them. I realise that to function as a soundproof studio for recording purposes I will no doubt need to double up my windows when I build the inner walls, which I imagine will be a similar arrangement to twin sliding doors between rooms (I’ll be having them too). But the outer skin is what concerns me now, so here’s my first questions while I still have the chance to choose the best options. Windows and cladding choice – I’m thinking about using 6-8 ml laminated sliding windows with airtight acoustic seals in the sliders for the ones I want to be able to open. This is the outer skin windows I’m talking about. And a similar arrangement for the outward opening sash style windows that will be in at least two of the upper window run between the skillion roofs. (They’ll operate via a remote winder). I haven’t quite worked out the arrangement for their matching internal window partners yet, but I need to make the decision now regarding the outer windows, as they’re not standard size and need to be ordered very soon. As for the doors, there will be a door of some sort into the control room directly from the outside (see sketch below), and also a door out of the live space to a bathroom on the east wall that will eventually be built. The main doors into the studio will be the north entrance off the deck, a sliding glass one most likely, again with laminated glass and sealed sliders, but there is a small entry way that will lead to additional doors into the control room or recording rooms. It’s clear that the windows (and doors) need to rate a similar STC to what the rest of the outer skin will be and there’s not much point in wasting money trying to go higher if sound simply flanks through the walls around them. I want to get a consistent STC for all the outer skin – and build on that with the inner leaves. I’m hoping to maximise that of course, so that leads me to my questions if anyone can help…: 1. Will there be much difference between the Masoniste cladding and the fibre cement? Both will be combined with the layer of insulation wrap and the 4ml bracing ply. (which itself is nailed and glued to the framing). 2. Will the windows described above (6-8ml laminated sealed sliders) be about right to match the outer leaf of the walls STC wise? I guess in effect the windows have to match both the outer and future inner leaf sound wise, cause the next layer in will be the third inside leaf. Would 8ml make much difference compared to 6? 3. Is there a good STC calculator or something similar that I can access to work these things out? There are double glazed sliders available, but the glass is thin and the panes are very close together. The manufacturer says sound wise the laminated single panes are the go. I'd be interested to hear anyones thoughts on the matter. The super tall windows won’t be opening ones, and I’m not sure yet about the vocal booth window to the outside, but the rest I’d like to be able to open. Budget wise I hope to get the windows done for $6000 or so – The building itself is turning out really nice so I don’t mind spending on nice new ones. Just don’t want to spend more than I have to by overdoing them to no good effect. Sliding doors for the deck entrance and interior I know are also costly, – and I’ve yet to work out what’s best for the two doors that go directly to the outside. Probably custom build them for the best sound proofing and fit. Any advise on this point right now would be great to get. Rest assured that I’ll be back soon with plenty more questions as I continue the build. This is an amazing forum so I’m really hoping some of you knowledgeable types out there can help me on my journey. And though I haven’t done it in Sketchup yet, here’s a very rough layout of the floor plan I’m thinking of. Please excuse the photoshop hack job – I did this before I found out about Sketchup. Ignore the look of the inner leaf – I’ll update with a better version soon, but this will give you an idea of what I’m thinking re the studio lay out. (ignore the black post markers too because they are not inside the space – only underneath and in the walls) Also in this pic north is to the left, east is to the top... By the way, I intend to be doing a lot of playing while engineering from the control room, so that will also function as a playing space, and am also planning on building big dividers on wheels that can roll up against the raised floor, locking into the roofline above to turn the big space into a smaller drum room and separate live space. It’s still early days so feel free to comment - Always open to suggestions! Thanks heaps – Steve Berry (BTW not quite sure how to get my file size down on sketch up - when I work it out I'll post the .skp files too! :)

Ha - I read all the way through only to find it's you Steve :) Mate - contact me directly - we'll sort it out. cheers john

Hi again, thought I'd give anyone interested an update of my studio story, as there's been a significant change of direction since my last post. Big thanks to John Sayers for a generous contribution in putting in some time to ensure the design is right (believe it or not we started designing something 7 years ago - in another building no less!). Anyway, John convinced me that a complete re-think of my pokey and inefficiently shaped control room previously posted was necessary, and he came up with the following re-design: Here's the design in parallel projection from directly above: As you can see, the wall down the guts of the building creates the two major spaces that will be the main functional rooms, and by shifting the location of the vocal booth it's enabled the CR to be a decent width and length. Big plus to turning the CR side on also means that the upper bank of windows can let light into both the CR and the big space. The builders are certainly relieved as this makes construction much simpler. So we've done the deck out the front now, and are ready to continue the building. First point to address is the floor, currently a single layer of 20ml yellowtongue particle board sitting on the joists, but there's a problem on the side with the high roof, where the yellow tongue was exposed to the weather for a bit too long before the roof went on, AND we made a mistake laying it by not running it across the joists in a herringbone pattern, but instead ran it in line with the joists side by side. Don't ask me why we didn't know better at the time, but thinking back it was actually because the lengths of the board happened to fit the room side on exactly so by doing that we saved a bit of time. Unfortunately all I did in the end was proove that time is money. Alas, each sheet is only sitting on three joists, so with the weather on them they pretty much all cupped and warped - not severely but enough for me to be very afraid of trying to build a proper floor on top with any hope of achieving stability from transferred vibration. Feeling those boards shifting just walking on them was not leading me to believe that it would be possible to make a control room and live space work and share the same subfloor without needing a major revision of some kind. So in the end I've decided to bite the bullet and install another layer of yellow tongue on top of the cupped one, taking the time first to plane it down level, and then really fix the proper herringbone-pattern layer down hard to lock the whole subfloor into a much more stable structure. From testing how this will feel just by sitting a few boards on top I'm confident it will solve the problem, while at the same time doubling the mass of the bottom skin - since we'll seal up both these layers it's going to have the added benefit of being more soundproof, so I'm certainly not complaining about that! Anyway, onto the plan for the floor proper. More good advice from John has led us to plan sitting the inside wall frames on the subfloor, and building the floors between these frames. There will be an upper layer of floorbase (yellow tongue) fixed to 70 x 35ml pine battens, themselves which are floating on 12 ml EVA foam strips underneath, and no fixing of the upper floor to the subfloor beneath. On top of this upper floorbase will be the tongue and groove timber floor - a must for my acoustic focus. This will mean each room is isolated from the other rooms thanks to the independent upper floor assembly sections that are not fixed, but floating and cushioned on the foam rubber. We'll be getting the foam in the form of interlocking gym mats from Clark Rubber. Same material as the stuff you can get in big sheets or even adhesive rolls, but half the price! Not bad seeing as Clarks will even cut it into strips for us... So here's the planned floor profile for your enjoyment.... So that's the update for anyone interested. Big thanks to you John for your help, mate! And this site has been fantastic to while away the late night hours as I try and educate myself. I look forward to providing more updates as things continue. Any comments or thoughts from afficianados out there will be much enjoyed, and suggestions or constructive criticism would be appreciated! Cheers all, Steve