Studio out of 2 bedrooms! Underway...

Hey everyone, Well, my plans are in motion now. I've been surfing this forum for a while (and read Rod's book of course) and am finally able to start on my studio! This is my first studio - I eagerly await your feedback and constructive input! First things I need to take care of include wrecking the room a bit. So while I do that, I was hoping I can get some feedback on my plan? Please see the attached pics for references. In the control room, I will not be doing a room-inside-a-room. In fact, hardly anything will be done at all insulation wise for that room. I'm far enough away from my neighbors to where the level I'm mixing at won't be an issue. Recording drums and other loud equipment in the rec room, however, is a different matter. I need to keep the rooms square/rectangular for resale, so to help negate some of those deficiencies I'll put in non-permanent sides later, making it 6 sided. I don't know if those should be giant bass traps or just wood panels... what do u think? Recording Room Outer Leaf: 11' 9" x 10' 9" x 9' tall 2x4 Wooden Frame 1/2" drywall Inner Leaf: 2x4 Wooden Frame spaced 2" away from outer wall 5/8" drywall (two layers, glued together with GG) 1 wall will be wood paneling instead of drywall... no details to provide on that yet Floor: Wood built directly on concrete slab Budget: Under $5000 would be great... I'll be building everything myself with friends and a few professional carpenters / electricians for some tricky stuff I'm not experienced with. I hope to begin construction within 3 weeks. Rockon, have a good one! ~Neal

Hi Neal, and welcome! A couple of comments: 1)

In the control room, I will not be doing a room-inside-a-room. In fact, hardly anything will be done at all insulation wise for that room. I'm far enough away from my neighbors to where the level I'm mixing at won't be an issue.

Aren't you concerned about the possibility of outside noises disturbing your mixing sessions? Such as wind, rain, road noise, neighbor noise, noises from inside the house, etc. 2)

I'll put in non-permanent sides later, making it 6 sided. I don't know if those should be giant bass traps or just wood panels... what do u think?

Bass traps don't really have "sides". They are just bundles of absorption, so I doubt that they will do much to change the geometry of your room. Are you concerned about flutter echo, or room modes? 3)

Recording Room Outer Leaf: 11' 9" x 10' 9" x 9' tall 2x4 Wooden Frame 1/2" drywall

1/2 inch drywall isn't much! :shock: Especially if you are hoping to isolate a drum kit! 1/2" is too thin to be useful, and has other undesirable characteristics. You need at least 5/8 drywall, and probably a couple of layers of it. 4)

Inner Leaf: 2x4 Wooden Frame spaced 2" away from outer wall

Are you going to build that inside-out or normal? 5)

5/8" drywall (two layers, glued together with GG)

Green Glue is not glue: You cannot use it to "glue together" two sheets of drywall. You still need to nail or screw the second layer of drywall into the studs. 6)

1 wall will be wood paneling instead of drywall... no details to provide on that yet

In order to get good isolation, that "wood paneling" needs to have the same mass as the two layers of 5/8 drywall. If you go with less mass, then your room will not isolate well. 7)

Floor: Wood built directly on concrete slab

When you say "wood built directly on concrete slab", are you talking about laminate flooring, parquet flooring, sold wood flooring, or something like that, that is laid directly on the concrete with on air space below it? If so, great! If not, then beware... 8) What about the ceiling? You didn't mention anything about how you plan to do the ceiling. It should be the same construction as the walls (two-leaf, lots of mass) if you want to isolate your room. If you just do the walls and not the ceiling, then you wasted an awful lot of money on the walls... The entire room must have the same level of isolation, on all sides, including windows and doors. If you don't treat any one part, then that part defines the isolation for the entire room. 9) You also didn't mention HVAC and electrical. Those are two very important points for a studio. The HVAC alone could eat up your entire budget. 10) What are this big square things in the rear of the control room, on each side of the door? Are those closets? How do you plan to deal with them? - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, thanks so much for your response! Man that was fast :D 1)

In the control room, I will not be doing a room-inside-a-room. In fact, hardly anything will be done at all insulation wise for that room. I'm far enough away from my neighbors to where the level I'm mixing at won't be an issue. Aren't you concerned about the possibility of outside noises disturbing your mixing sessions? Such as wind, rain, road noise, neighbor noise, noises from inside the house, etc.

That's a good point. I've never had the convenience of a personal studio, so this kind of a disturbance hasn't really occurred to me. I was planning on isolating the crap out of the window at the end. The outer wall is brick as well. I guess, for the time being, I'll put this on the shelf. Spending the funds into the Recording Room is my priority for a while. 2)

I'll put in non-permanent sides later, making it 6 sided. I don't know if those should be giant bass traps or just wood panels... what do u think? Bass traps don't really have "sides". They are just bundles of absorption, so I doubt that they will do much to change the geometry of your room. Are you concerned about flutter echo, or room modes?

hmm.. well, both I guess. I remember reading somewhere that having a box room creates **insert word here**. I'll dig around for more info so we can hammer it out :p 3)

Recording Room Outer Leaf: 11' 9" x 10' 9" x 9' tall 2x4 Wooden Frame 1/2" drywall 1/2 inch drywall isn't much! :shock: Especially if you are hoping to isolate a drum kit! 1/2" is too thin to be useful, and has other undesirable characteristics. You need at least 5/8 drywall, and probably a couple of layers of it.

Unfortunately the 1/2" drywall is already built. If you take a look at shot3.jpg, you can see the outer leaf's drywall. I suppose I can slap some more drywall over it where I can... but if I can't double up on the entire perimeter, is it even worth doing? 4)

Inner Leaf: 2x4 Wooden Frame spaced 2" away from outer wall Are you going to build that inside-out or normal?

I'll attach a pic of how i intend to layer everything in a day or two... I'm a bit Sketchup'd out at the moment :| 5)

5/8" drywall (two layers, glued together with GG) Green Glue is not glue: You cannot use it to "glue together" two sheets of drywall. You still need to nail or screw the second layer of drywall into the studs.

Noted* Thanks man! 6)

1 wall will be wood paneling instead of drywall... no details to provide on that yet In order to get good isolation, that "wood paneling" needs to have the same mass as the two layers of 5/8 drywall. If you go with less mass, then your room will not isolate well.

Ok, thanks. It will probably end up being more mass... is that an issue? 7)

Floor: Wood built directly on concrete slab When you say "wood built directly on concrete slab", are you talking about laminate flooring, parquet flooring, sold wood flooring, or something like that, that is laid directly on the concrete with on air space below it? If so, great! If not, then beware...

Yessir,laminate flooring!

8) What about the ceiling? You didn't mention anything about how you plan to do the ceiling. It should be the same construction as the walls (two-leaf, lots of mass) if you want to isolate your room. If you just do the walls and not the ceiling, then you wasted an awful lot of money on the walls... The entire room must have the same level of isolation, on all sides, including windows and doors. If you don't treat any one part, then that part defines the isolation for the entire room.

ah! Totally forgot to mention it. Yeah, I'll be building a roof over the room. Same exact layering as the walls and such.

9) You also didn't mention HVAC and electrical. Those are two very important points for a studio. The HVAC alone could eat up your entire budget.

There is already air conditioning in the existing room, as well as electrical outlets and such. After we build the inner room, we'll just relocate the outlets a few inches inside the new room instead of the outer one. Same with the AC... though that's new territory for me and I'll probably get a professional to drop it for me.

10) What are this big square things in the rear of the control room, on each side of the door? Are those closets? How do you plan to deal with them?

Yeah, they are closets. No plans for em - I was going to use them for storage. I'll probably hang a panel trap on each of em though. Whew* Thanks for the thorough response. If you spot any ridiculous ideas, please go ahead and throw em at me, I'm here to learn from the pros! ~Neal

Hey Stuart, here is an image of how I'm layering the walls. The 1/2" drywall is the outer leaf - but also the inner wall for neighboring rooms. That's why it's already there. Though I suppose I could just take it down and replace it with two layers of 5/8"... I guess I'll need to. Damn, hoping to tear down as little as possible. :? Any idea how much sound isolation will be lost by not installing two 5/8" layers on the outside leaf?

Well, demolition has proceeded well. We now have the drywall and flooring removed from the original room. We spent a bit of time repairing the floor where the carpet tacs we're nailed in. Now it's (mostly) a completely smooth surface for whenever we get to hardwood flooring down the road. I'll spend some more time sanding any problem areas later this week. We got the basic window frame installed! Well - one of them. We still have to build the entire inner room and it's frame of course. The fact that I can have a conversation between the two rooms has been very exciting and inspiring though! :D It's gonna be me by myself for the next 3 weeks or so, so progress will be minimal. I'll post some more pics if any major goals are met! Cheers, ~Neal

Great to see progress, Neal! Now that you have the walls open, you have the opportunity to "beef them up"! Meaning that you can install strips of drywall INSIDE the walls, between the studs, to add extra mass to the leaf. Carefully cut strips of drywall so they fit in neatly, hold them in place with cleats, and seal around the edges with caulk. Repeat as necessary (adding more layers of "beef"). Presto! Instant mass. Regarding the 1/2" stuff: If possible, remove it and replace it with 5/8, or if you reay cannot do that then at least beef it up with an extra layer of 5/8, either on top of the exiting 1/2, or beefing up from inside the wall, same as above.

Any idea how much sound isolation will be lost by not installing two 5/8" layers on the outside leaf?

Lots! Using just a single layer of 1/2" for one of your leaves is not very useful, for several reasons. One of those is the low mass, another is the lack of stiffness (which is what governs your very low end isolation), and yet another is the high resonant frequency of the drywall itself. Combined, they rob you of isolation. So I'd really suggest that you beef it up with extra layers of 5/8, or just bite the bullet and replace it with 2 layers of 5/8. - Stuart -

Thanks dude - I'll be sure to take my time building in the strips of drywall. What about the side of the room facing outside? I wasn't planning on doing it there since it's covered by brick. Thanks again for ur help Stuart!

I believe I'll have to glue the drywall strips to the outer leaf's drywall. Does anybody know of any good glue for that? I tried searching the forums, but "Green Glue" was mentioned about 2500 times to much to try to sift through the results. :/

Carefully cut strips of drywall so they fit in neatly, hold them in place with cleats, and seal around the edges with caulk.

I'm not sure what you mean by cleats here dude? We have Home Depot and Lowes around here, though I could order something if that's what it came down to. Thanks in advance!

I believe I'll have to glue the drywall strips to the outer leaf's drywall.

Nope! Bad idea! They need to act as two separate layers, not one monolithic layer. Just lay the second layer on top of the first layer, between the studs, and tack small pieces of wood sideways into the studs to hold the drywall in place. Or even just plain finish nails, driven diagonally into the studs right behind the drywall. Those are "cleats".

but "Green Glue" was mentioned about 2500 times

Green Glue actually isn't glue at all: It is a special acoustic damping material, that you spread between layers of drywall to greatly improve low frequency isolation. Great stuff, if you have the budget. - Stuart -

Hi everyone! Here's some pics of some progress. We got all the slits of drywall cut and put inside of the existing room. Pain-in-the-ass since whoever built the frame didn't care to make things perfect; each cut of drywall was a different size and had to be cut and measured individually. bleah So, although it's not much to show I'm excited to be done with it and moving on! Cheers, ~Neal

Cool! Always good to see progress! - Stuart -

Hi everyone, Construction has been proceeding well! I find myself either out of money, material, or helping hands at any given point so it's taking me a bit longer than expected. I guess that's just the way this goes! :) Since last time, we've painted the control room (and stripped up the flooring), finished caulking the recording room, sealed off the window, and built 3/4ths of the inner room! Check out the evidence below! Work will be slow again for a while... got a whole bunch of green glue and putty pads as well. I'm closing in on 1/2 of my estimated budget.... uh oh. Cheers! ~Neal

The frame work is complete (including the roof) !! I had already ordered the putty stuff, so I'll be applying it soon after I get some feedback about my question below. The wall panels should also be arriving soon. Next on the todo list is the insulation! I've decided to just go with the normal pink fluffy insulation since it's cheaper and accessible. Take a look at the blue electrical box image below. This is what I have to work with. The things are designed to fit next to the 2x4 stud, then get nailed right into it. The outlet then sticks out enough to compensate for the 1/2" drywall. Obviously, the issue at hand is that I have two 5/8" layers of drywall to worry about. When I slide the electrical box out to accommodate my drywall, the nails completely miss the 2x4 (well... graze it). I've got some ideas that should hopefully work fine to keep it in place, but I wanted to see how others dealt with this little issue first? Thanks for reading everyone, cheers! ~Neal

I've got some ideas that should hopefully work fine to keep it in place, but I wanted to see how others dealt with this little issue first?

What I have done with similar (but not identical) situations here in Chile, is to sink the box into the wall as deep as you need, then just use longer screws on the faceplate. It works fine, and passes code here, but you should double-check with an electrician or inspector in your part of the world, to make sure that code allows that. - Stuart -

Or get a box extender: