New Studio in Turbenthal

Hello to all in this very instructional, most exemplary forum. A virtual treasure trove of information, ideas and technique here! I guess it's about time I introduced myself, having been lurking about for a few weeks now. I'm a Canadian who is living for the past 20 years or so in Switzerland. Until recently we (my wife and 2 sons) were living in a house in Winterthur (Kanton of Zürich). Once my son's finally moved out into their own places, I managed to secure one of the rooms in our apartment for use as a Project studio. The other apartments in the house were being used as offices for various businesses so in the evenings and weekends there was really no one in the house to be disturbed (well, apart from the wife LOL). I was able therefore to get away with just a bit of treatment and didn't worry too much about isolation - the room was basically a sieve. The imaging at the desk however was excellent and the frequency response was very good and acceptably flat - well most of the energy was leaving the room anyway and the rest was well taken care of with several broadband absorbers and assorted panels. Well, the building was sold end of the year to a company who decided they wanted to use the remainder of the house (our apartment) for offices - so we had to move. We've now bought a condominium and are waiting 'til next June when it should be finished, and we can move in. The new house (in Turbenthal, Zürich) is being built to Minergy standards (exact Minergy rating will be applied once the building is complete), heating is in the floors and supplied by district heating (across the street) in the form of wood pellet. All windows are triple pane, and the structure is amply insulated (for heat anyway). The apartments are virtually airtight and air circulation is independent for each apartment (11 in total), and fresh air over heat exchangers. Here is a picture of my Studio as it was before we had to move. Attachment: Studio Winterthur.jpg [ 53.32 KiB | Viewed 8 times ] In addition to our apartment, I've purchased a cellar room which I intend to use as my new Project studio. Although far from ideal in size 5m x 3m x 2.5m, I'm going to give it a go. So I will continue from here with a new thread in the Design Forum where we can get into the specifics. TFN Brian

Welcome! sorry to hear you lost your previous space but hopefully your new one will become a space as nice!

Thanks Glenn, Just getting to terms with Sketchup, then I'll have something for a design thread.

My original thread in the Wombat Topic area has since been moved here so I will continue my studio specifics in this thread… Location: The studio will be located in Turbenthal in the Tösstal valley not far from Winterthur in the canton of Zürich, Switzerland. Goal: I enjoy recording and mixing more as a hobby for myself. Most instruments are recorded direct using softsynths, an old analogue PAIA synth, digital drums and a Variax guitar over POD XTLive and Roland GR-20 Guitar synth. Only vocals and the odd shaker etc. will be recorded acoustically. My son’s may also from time to time mix here. I don’t anticipate amplifiers but not emphatically ruled out. Loudness: Generally 65 – 85dB sometimes louder but oft times dimmed. Style: Progressive rock, pop, (I’m not into all the labels) pretty much anything that comes out. Budget: I’m expecting to lay out a few thousand Sfr (about par with the Canadian dollar). I haven’t really set a limit, but if it goes much over, I might need to postpone some of the “like to have” things, and just concentrate on the “need to have”. Project Stand: (Existing Structural details and important restrictions and considerations) The house is still being built. The studio will be in a basement room with a small antechamber or storage room. There is a single door and no windows. Room dimensions are L: 5.02 m, W: 2.82 m, H: 2.4 m Not exactly Ideal, but that’s what I’ve got to work with, so I’m not going to worry too much about ratios. The floor is 250mm reinforced poured concrete, under that there is a 140mm thermal insulation layer. (Possibly there is a 30mm hard concrete layer on the top surface – not sure, if important I can find out, my brother in law is the structural engineer for this project) The front (South) wall (i.e. opposite wall to the room entrance) is also 250mm reinforced concrete (inner leaf) then 60mm Glass wool insulation, then 114mm brick wall as an outer leaf. On the other side of this wall is the garage or park hall. The right wall is 150mm Brick, and the remaining walls are 120mm Brick. All brick walls have a neoprene strip underlay. There are similar “hobby rooms” and cellars on either side. The ceiling is 250mm reinforced concrete to which 80mm dressed, rigid glass wool panels have been affixed for general reverberation control (this is applied throughout the entire cellar i.e. all rooms). Above this there is a 20mm layer of thermal insulation (kind of like styroboard with aluminium foil on each side) then a 20mm acoustic insulation layer (footstep), PE Foil (vapour barrier?) then 80mm cement poured over the heating pipes (floor heating), finally a 10mm layer of fine cement (screed?), then either parquet or ceramic tiling. This is then the floor of an apartment above. There are a number of pipes on the ceiling toward the rear of the room, as well as a floor to ceiling drainpipe against the rear wall, plus there is an air duct below the ceiling at the front wall. Overview: No intention of making a room in a room, the floor should be adequate; the front wall is already a 2 leaf structure as is in principle the ceiling. Only the right, left and rear walls should require improved isolation. I really want to do some dB level tests but they haven’t finished blocking the pipe through-holes, nor are there any doors installed yet. My intention is to construct “Inside out” walls on the left, right and rear walls using 2 sheets of 16mm Drywall. This will give space for the abundant treatment I’m going to need. The ventilation duct I shall insulate (shroud) and soffit. Within the soffit I will construct or purchase and mount a silencer which will also direct the ventilation to the front middle of said soffit. I’m considering extending a step from this soffit to house 3 or 4 LED downlight spots over the desk. I still don’t know for sure, but I believe this is an exhaust vent. I haven’t seen any fans yet, perhaps they will be external to the building. These hobby rooms are not heated! I’m given to understand that the fresh air is supplied by a similar, supply duct in the anteroom – the air then passes through a vent in the door. This will probably require some kind of specialized silencer on the door. There is a wash basin with cold water tap available in the anteroom which may come in handy if I need some kind of AC eventually. I will also have to soffit a drain pipe running vertically at the rear wall (don’t want any flushing sounds getting into my recordings – then again it could be a trademark sound :D . I’m thinking also to soffit the piping on the ceiling, again with downlight spots over the couch position built into the soffit. The majority of this soffit will be soft i.e. acoustical treatment supplementary to that already on the ceiling. The floor I intend to finish with laminated flooring. I’ve had this room put on a separate circuit breaker, The lights should be on the same breaker as the small anteroom. Additionally I’ve had them provide a separate grounding terminal. I understand that the reinforcement in the concrete is also grounded, and the cellar is a very effective faraday cage. Additionally I’ve had 2 Automation cables (CAT5e) run from the apartment on the 2nd floor to this room to provide Internet and telephone access.

First question, Is it recommended to apply some sort of brushed on sealer? Is this applied to the concrete walls, floor and/ or just the brick walls? What is recommended to use for this? And finally, does this bring a noticeable improvement in isolation or is the idea to make the wall less absorptive acoustically, or is it only a measure taken against moisture?

mostly sealing the block and concrete is to control moisture or if you're finishing the floor (stain and polish) the sealant will help keep it looking good.

Thanks Glenn, I thought I had read somewhere on the forum that a slight iimprovement in STC can be achieved by sealing the bricks. Perhaps the term sealing was misleading. The proper terminology appears to be rendering which seems to refer simply to painting. I just did a search and found http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Pages/STC%20Chart.htm and http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13934&p=97273&hilit=brick+wall#p97273 So really the question remains, Would painting just the one side of the wall add any effectiveness, as I have no control over what they do to the other side of the wall. Seems though somewhere I read somewhere here that it was bad to paint both sides...

i think painting it shouldn't be an issue, overall you want to make sure they are thoroughly sealed in terms of air gaps and such so a light plaster coat, caulking, etc etc to patch, seal, and seal more would be the idea. since you cannot do anything about the neighbor you have to do what you can on your side to control the isolation including decoupling your inner isolation walls from the dividing wall.

OK, then that's what I'll do. They have a product here called dispersion, I'll check that out, otherwise maybe just a very fluid plaster mix. I’ve been at odds with the wall construction tool in Sketchup, it seems to me it doesn’t work well in metric. I wanted it to give me 62cm OC spacing between studs, as the insulation is 600mm x 1200mm, but it ended up much wider spacing. Just wondering, what you guys do when drawing these walls. Do you draw them in situ, or off to the side of the main drawing, or in a separate drawing. Do you use the tool to draw the initial wall then explode it into it’s separate pieces (2x4s) so you can customize sections or do you edit it in the group? What about adding cross pieces and other members? There seems to be no way of cutting a member to size, you can only scale the length which can be tricky sometimes. Using the intersect seems complicated in this respect and with groups/component even more so. I thought of making a “Blade” a couple mm thick to represent a saw cut (includes blade loss) and intersecting this with the component to be cut – but the procedure seems complicated or eludes me at present. I made a component of a standard drywall sheet and rigid insulation sheet, plus a 2X4 according to the standard length sold so I can count later how many sheets and how much lumber I will need. My idea was to be able to cut the members from the raw material components and keep the leftover pieces in a pile off to the side – more like the real world. All in all I must say, it’s probably easier to get to grips with Sketchup having no background in CAD. I am trained in CAD (Medusa, AutoCAD, Caddy3D) and it’s difficult to get away from preconceived notions of how something should work. Unfortunately I’m learning these things in my studio model and have inadvertently lost surfaces, distorted objects by moving - just lately I thought I’d shorten the wall by scaling so now the members in that plane are no longer 2x4s. Probably best to begin again.

Just installed a ruby Script called OSCoolean which does the Boolean functions as in the Pro version – unfortunately it doesn’t work on dynamic components like the walls (even if you explode them). I’ll have to fool around with it a bit, but this is probably exactly what I'm looking for.

housebuilder scripts work really well if you stick with the normal settings 600mm 400mm etc etc if you start trying to adjust then things tend to get a bit off. i tend to use the scripts for quick framing and then once i've settled the opening etc, i manually adjust the innards. if you try to edit them using the scripts after that they reset... then anything intricate i do by hand like complex angled soffits etc

I may have to build the walls in sketchup from scratch as I’m not sure that 2x4 here is really 50x100, plus I need to know the optimum lengths to order. --------------------- I’ve mentioned that the brick walls are under-laid with a neoprene (or something similar) strip. Q1. Should the inside out isolation walls I put up be similarly isolated? I’m assuming yes. What thickness (assuming I/O walls using 2x4 studs and 2x16mm gyproc). I don’t foresee any danger of moisture and do intend to monitor and if necessary, control humidity. Q2. Should the wood in these walls be pressure treated or impregnated? If so, does this apply only to the base/footer of the wall? Q3. What is best used to anchor the wall to the floor - Heavy screws into plastic anchors hammered into predrilled holes in the concrete? Or heavy bolts into metal threaded expansion anchors hammered into predrilled holes? Q4. It seems to be recommended to use a rubber washer under the head of the bolts/screws. What about drilling oversized holes in the wood and inserting flexible plastic tubing (like that sold for fish tanks) the inside diameter of tubing larger than thread diameter? Q5. Should the holes in the wood be a tad oversized anyway to minimize mechanical connection to the bolts? Q6. What would be the recommended spacing of these anchor bolts? Mid point between each stud or every other stud?

yes, decoupled the inner isolation walls as well. check your moisture carefully and fix it first. pressure treated lumber will only solve the problem for the lumber, not the rest of the construction. anchors could be either type but yes, isolate them from the frame using soft rubber under the washer and around the shank (which presumes an over-sized hole to fit). spacing will be dependent on building codes. same approach if anchoring the wall above. also consider isolating stabilization brackets (like Mason Industry WIC) to ensure the inner structure is supported correctly. on the dimensional lumber - 50x100 is often 45x89 in practice to accommodate the drywall (12mm). just like a 2x4 is really 1.5x3.5 to accommodate 1/2" drywall... and for housebuilder-metric script, changing it to true sizes causes all kinds of errors because of rounding etc which i have yet to fix on my customized version...

Yes I know only too well that the dimensions of lumber, depending on the grade and finish, diminish in their dimensions. I have noticed though that this is not necessarily the case here in CH, I've bought finished lumber that is bang on. As I said I'm going to have to check what they have on offer at a local lumberyard or 'bauzentrum'. As for the moisture, the building is now still in the drying phase, so I'll have to wait. In consideration of the logistics of assembling these I/O walls and the available floor space, it appears I’m going to have to construct the walls as modular sections (2 or 3 /wall) and bolt them together. I am encouraged to read that John Sayers has also on occasion (Somewhere Studio) used a modular technique. Q. Would there be any advantage, or is it more work than necessary to route dados or bevels along the edges of the studs to be joined in order to provide a channel for the caulking? Remember too that it will be impossible to mud and seal the gyproc on the other side! The channel shown in the drawing is probably wider than necessary. I think the resultant channel (formed by the two studs) should be 10mm deep and 5mm wide (dado 2.5x10) perhaps a bevel would be easier resulting in a V channel. Also, perhaps the channel should continue on the face of the header and footer elements. Assumed too is that a “squiggle” of caulking is to be applied to the mating faces of the wall modules to create a seal when they are bolted together.

The bolt together approach is good. One option to help seal things is to use double sided thin foam tape and caulk. The routing would seem a bit much.

You might also be able to "stagger" the drywall layers on the other side, then caulk them just before you lift each section into place, for a better seal. I think it was Lilith that did that on her corners. I might be wrong on that.... - Stuart -

Thanks Glenn, that info will save me a bit of unnecessary work. I think I've seen something here like a silicon rubber or neoprene weather stripping from 3M which will probably foot the bill. Hello Stuart, I thought about doing something like that but thought it might be a bit precarious - danger of breaking the drywall where the pieces overlap from moving the wall into place. Perhaps if just the outermost layer were to form a lip it might not be so tricky. After seeing the ceiling insulation which has been applied, I am concerned that my isolation walls should go right up to the concrete to establish an airtight cavity and true MAM construct. It appears I can’t take the insulation down apparently because of building codes or certification (Minergie) so, for the isolation level I’m likely to need (the walls are supposed to have an STC rating of around 50 as they are), and as I’m not doing ‘room in room’ I’m going to make the following compromise. The main considerations are the breach in the dead air space between the walls, and in the critical corner boundary. I will take the Isolation wall up to the Insulation, leaving just enough space to attach 30 – 50cm wide MDF or gyproc sheets to form a lip or partial ceiling at the top of the wall. These panels will be attached and sealed to the top of the isolation wall and will fit snug against the insulation panels affixed to the ceiling (also perhaps with acoustic caulk or acoustic weather-stripping between). This construction should hinder the sound flanking directly over the top of the wall, re-establishing the integrity of the corner acoustically, and increase the insulation path to the outer wall improving the seal breach in the dead air space (perhaps also acting as a kind of ½ meter deep trap). Keep in mind this a compromise and is not an ersatz for RIR isolation nor deemed as effective as full floor to ceiling construction. Below is a diagram (not to scale) of the technique I’m considering. Perhaps 2 layers of drywall should be used to match the wall isolation. I would probably need to add 2x2 or 2x4 support members affixed, and at right angles to the studs for stability i.e. hinder sagging. I will also apply a layer of rigid wool on the surface and possibly Masonite pegboard panelling or wooden slats to cover, or perhaps just corner trapping wedges, foam, or wool in fabric. This lip, or partial ceiling I will form into shallow soffits with layers of rigid wool strips covered with thin pegboard or short slats and then mate this up to the soffiting front and back of the room to create a perimeter around the edge of the studio ceiling, similar to that mentioned in a design on the RealTraps site by Ethan Winer and Wes Lachot : “For a border, you can use 1/8-inch plywood or Masonite, or even thin plastic or heavy card stock, painted for appearance. The goal is to reflect mid and high frequencies around the ceiling edges, yet allow bass frequencies to pass through to the fibreglass above.” This refers to a technique applied when the entire ceiling is covered in fibreglass panels as opposed, but similar in effect, to a cloud. This will also give me an edge on the ceiling where I can possibly hide some LED RGB lighting strips for indirect mood lighting.

the simplest option (to me) would be to put isolation clips into the concrete ceiling and hang hat/furring channel then your 2x layers of drywall. keep it decoupled from the walls. i'd also make sure you get isolation brackets to support those walls to ensure they do not tip. Mason Industries, PAC International, Kinetics Noise, etc make/sell isolation clips and brackets that will provide you with what you need. having just the insulation there won't help and adding rigid framing to attach it to the ceiling above will not help either.

Digesting your advice Glenn. In a previous post you mentioned WIC sway braces, which I remembered from Rod's book. I thought however that they were inappropriate because of the space between the structures. Nevertheless, I'm working on the concept I had in mind with the soffits, which may render them unnecessary, and I'll present that soon, then we can discuss it better. In the meantime, I was on the site and found them putting these sheetrock panels on the attic ceiling. Do you think they would be good for my walls? 1 or 2 layers?

if it can support the weight, then 2 layers.

Thanks Glenn, Back again soon.

OK, so at long last I’ve finally got the plan going with Sketchup. I’ve been trying to deal with all the little details, and have been ‘baffled’ (;-p) with the speaker mountings for quite a while – the angles have been driving me nuts, especially where they interface with the rest of the framing. Anyway, I thought I should post what I’ve done so far (planning that is, the construction has not yet begun). Here with the soffits and ceiling frame. Sway bracing is integrated into the front wall framing. If the side walls are bolted to the front however, they may not be necessary. Here again shown in context with the duct, vents and proposed silencer. I’ve tentatively added a duct to the floor. As these rooms are not heated, and as far as I know, this is an exhaust duct, then should I have to heat the room in winter, it makes no sense to have my costly heat be directly sucked out – the room will never warm up. So in this case I can switch via vents or plenum to have the air exhausted from near the floor as opposed to near the ceiling. Here you can see how the proposed ceiling lip will be supported by the ceiling frame. The cavities thus formed will be filled with FG, plastic film, and perhaps a layer of acoustic tile or slats. Also shown are the front down-light holes. Strips of RGB LED lighting will be run along the ceiling framing sides and rear. Shown here is the finished soffit with the rear down-lights (over the couch position). Since designing this soffit, I’ve decided to maintain the isolation at the egress of the pipes themselves instead of requiring the entire soffit to be airtight, so apart from the sections directly covering pipes, the rest will be soft absorption instead of the OSB as shown here. Shown too is the encasement for the drain. This will be stuffed full of RW and a layer of rigid FG. Not really visible is an access panel to the drain. Also not shown are the corner absorbers And here with the partial drywall ceiling. The double layer of drywall forming the lip will be screwed into the frame wall and ceiling using screws into plastic plugs as opposed to direct into the wood. And further strips of neoprene (Randdammstreifen) applied for the interface to the ceiling insulation. These strips are not shown complete, and/but may not be necessary anyway

Views from above.

The left and right isolation walls will be constructed in 2 sections each. The sections abutting the front wall will be bolted to the floor (isolating the bolts as discussed earlier. The walls will rest upon strips of something here called Randdammstreifen. The interface to the front wall I am considering either doing it the same as the floor with Randdammstreifen and bolting, or glue a strip of 12mm compressed rigid fibreglass along the stud where it butts against the front wall then backer rod and caulk. The latter idea is shown in the following clip. The inner drywall wall shown (grey) is only a small panel near the ceiling which I will show in a later clip. Also I was thinking here that with the rigid FG, backer rod wouldn’t really be necessary as the FG would itself serve this purpose. Again this section could be bolted if necessary to the front wall. The second section will be bolted to the first section, bolted again to the floor. Where the sections must accommodate pipes and vents, the contour of the wall will be adjusted accordingly. The missing section of 2x4 will be added after the wall is in place. The rear wall will mate with the side walls using the same technique of rigid FG and caulk

Shown here are the speaker walls and slat absorbers. The speakers are Cerwin Vega E310’s which are directed at the couch position (@ 38% from rear wall although I’m not certain I will even have a couch) in a wide angle. I’m flush mounting these to subdue the bass (ported rear) a little more than is possible with the adjustable X-over. I’ve had these speakers in this configuration for a long time and find them excellent as an alternative listening pair – typically HIFI and different than the monitors proper. Though in the past they have always been free hanging – I’ve always felt that the Bass from the rear needed a bit more absorption. The main monitors will be on a stand behind the desk in near-field configuration. Here are the hangers. The upper cavity behind the speakers will be filled with loose FG and the speakers allowed to port down to the hanger cavity. I’m still debating on whether the speakers should be mounted in boxes or just on shelves fixed in place with neoprene or foam decoupling. I’m tending toward the latter. I know the port is missing at the bottom of the trap, Haven't gotten around to drawing it yet. The slat walls will be constructed pretty much standard. They will be in two registers – the lower for bass, the upper for mids and highs. The upper section continues to the speaker wall, the lower ends abruptly leaving only an absorber in the wall. This is to avoid constriction of the desk space and accommodate positioning of the desk and isolation box etc. The Sketchup file is 2.1 megs and I can’t seem to reduce it any more so it seems I can't post it. I’m really anxious to get some level readings but the room has temporarily been commandeered as a storage room for building materials. Also I bought some ‘Tiefgundierung’ and a big applicator brush last weekend to apply a sealing coat to the walls. Now I’ve seen they’re painting all the cellar walls anyway. Well maybe I can use some of it for the floor and maybe some in our winter-garden.