Small Basement Studio With VERY Low Ceiling

Hi All, This is my first post on this forum and I am a complete novice to studio designing and the science behind it so please bear with me. I have not been reading long (about 4 weeks) so I am a bit intimidated. I would just like to say in advance THANK YOU for any and all help offered. It did not take me long to recognize that this was the main source for this kind of information on the internet. First, an introduction to myself. I started out as a young mobile DJ in Brooklyn in the late '70s and so my earliest experiences were in sound reinforcement. I learned plenty about making a space it's loudest or bassing it to the max, but never anything about isolating the same. In the early '80s I went into Electronic music and have been doing that ever since. I am known in some circles as a Hip-Hop and Electro Funk pioneer. I have also had some good success in House music. In 1985 I built my first studio in the basement of my mother's house which followed no true isolation or acoustic design whatsoever. It was just a long rectangular room, about 30' X 12' with maybe a 6'8" ceiling. The speakers were setup in the corners widthwise! We did use a lot of baffling though, keeping only one wall live. In about 1990 I split it in half and made one half the vocal booth, but still setup the speakers in the corners widthwise. I guess I never looked beyond setting things up like I was DJing. Still, over the years I produced a number of records out of there (12 track Akai tape until 1992, Pro Tools thereafter) that managed not to sound too much like crap. Of course, mixing in there was a CHORE! In 2008 we bought our detached, corner house in Easton, PA and moved here from Brooklyn. One of the things that sold me was that there was a nice space in the basement to eventually build a studio, though like my mother's house it too had very low ceilings. For the time being I just preliminarily setup the DJ equipment in one part of the space and a small workstation with my gear (computer, synths, Event Bas 20/20s) in another. The first night I tried to get some work done I knew I had trouble when our new next door neighbor came knocking to complain. Long story to short… I have since learned the painstaking art of mixing in headphones. Finally, this year I decided it was time to take the plunge and build a PROPER studio. I wanted something at least semi-professional and of course adequately sound isolated. The basement I knew was too low, but I was willing to consider extending my attic. I hired an architect, who promptly found out that the borough in which we lived would not give us permits for either the attic or the basement. So, my contractor comes up with this plan to build an extension over our first floor 13' X 12' sunroom extension. I gave my architect the go-ahead and he made the plans (which cost me $5,000). The final result was a very small control room and vocal room. He did an exemplary job for the most part, something that I have discovered from reading this forum, though, he did want to float the floor. The contractors went over the plans and quoted me about $47,000. The plans also called for my wife and I to give up our bedroom (best one in the house) to make a hallway to the studio. I would have to put new equipment in it. The final straw was the man in charge of permits from the borough showing up at my house saying that I would need to do this and that before they would even consider it and then the plans would have to be approved by a board. It was at this point that I realized that I had made do for 23 years in a ridiculously configured studio, and I would do much better by holding onto my money and building a BETTER studio than what I had before in the basement that I have now. The architect explained that he could not put pen to paper since our build is without a permit, but he would give me any friendly advice that he could. The contractors of course are gung ho. That was when I got on the internet and found this place, and have been reading ever since. OK… so here we are. Thank you so much if you are still bearing with me! :lol: How loud am I? LOUD!!! I have never measured it and have no way of doing so since all of my gear is broken down and the space is cleared out, but I have been yelled at for being too loud all of my life. I do electronic music of all genres. There will be no drum kits (not envisioned anyway), but plenty of drum machines, drum samples, and lots of synth bass and sub bass. I plan to put Adam A8X speakers in the soffits. Everything will be computer based. The area of the basement we are building in is 21' X 20'. The bottom of the 2' X 10' floor joists above are only 82" high. Even worse, there is a 6" wide steel beam with 1 round steel support pole that runs through the middle of the space that is just 74" high. The side walls are concrete bed 5' of which are below ground. There is 1 small window in each that we will be blocking or filling up with concrete. The back wall is concrete bed. The front wall will be built. The floor is concrete slab. We recognize that our isolation problem will be the ceilings by far. Seeing nothing that I could do with the beam, I decided to put my control room and vocal booth on one side of it and my unattached DJ room on the other and leave it in the airspace between. Hopefully that makes sense. I decided that we would make use of the architect's building instructions where applicable. He called for walls that consist of 2" X 4" studs, 2 layers of 5/8" "X" type gypsum board with green glue between, and R13 insulation, maintaining a 1" air gap between walls. That appears to jibe with what I've read here. I've scratched out a design somewhat based on John's shipping container studio, since I am dealing with a similar space for the control room and vocal booth (19' X 9' with low ceiling). The doors between the control room and vocal booth will have glass windows. On the right side of the DJ room I have left a corridor in the air space as there are pipes that run there and a water meter and gas meter and valves in the back all of which we figure needs to remain serviceable. OK, I hope that I have included enough info. Here are my questions. :) I plan not to add laminate flooring so as to preserve height. Is vinyl tile or sheet a good acoustic flooring over concrete? Do the concrete outer leafs need to have insulation layers added to them, or can they just be bare? Will the subtle angling of my control room walls be effective or should I just employ a straight rectangle to gain space? Does my pipe corridor make sense, or would it be better to soffit those pipes inside the (extended) DJ room and make some sort of insulated panel or closet for the meters and valves? Does leaving the beam and pole in the air space make sense? (I can't imagine what else I could possibly do with them…) OK… now, the hard part… the ceiling. We are alternating the 2' X 6' ceiling joists between the floor joists in order to obtain maximum height. The contractor wants to use 2 2' X 4's in an upside down "T" instead 1 2' X 6'. I'm guessing that is OK? Both the architect and the contractors believe that the only way to get any real isolation on the floor above the ceiling is to spray foam under the boards between the joists. Is this true or is there a better way? The architect believes that the foam should be sprayed after the ceilings are put up and filling the gap between. As far as I understand that would eliminate the room within a room principal. Which would be better, foam filling the gap or just enough to leave the 1" air space? I don't know if we can squeeze it in height wise, but if possible would adding a 3rd layer of gypsum and green glue to the ceilings make any difference? Thanks everybody, I really appreciate it! I hope that I covered all the bases, I've only been at it for 5 hours. :lol:

Oh, I see I forgot. We are across a 6' ally from our only next door neighbor (who is quite sensitive to bass). Both of our houses are brick. We are on a corner lot with all other neighbors either across a street or past our next door neighbor. Construction has already begun as they have cleared out the space and have been waiting on my plans, which I just gave them. They want to spray the foam in 2 days. I will research further to see if that is the right way to go. Thanks again! :)

OK, please forget the questions about the spray foam. My research has answered that and the appointment has been cancelled. Now digging into beefing up the floor above and looking into resilient channel for my ceilings. My problem is there is no subfloor, the tounge-in-groove hardwood flooring (I am learning so much :lol: ) is laid directly on the joists. I am gathering that I should lay more than 2 layers of gypsum to compensate for this? Thanks again! :)

Hi Cosmo, and Welcome to the Forum! :)

This is my first post on this forum and I am a complete novice to studio designing and the science behind it so please bear with me. I have not been reading long (about 4 weeks) so I am a bit intimidated.

That's cool! We all started out from the exact same position, so there is hope! :)

First, an introduction to myself. I started out as a young mobile DJ in Brooklyn in the late '70s and so my earliest experiences were in sound reinforcement.

Oh yeah! That was me too, back in the day...

The speakers were setup in the corners widthwise!

:shock: :!:

The first night I tried to get some work done I knew I had trouble when our new next door neighbor came knocking to complain.

Ouch! So clearly "isolation" is high on your list of priorities!

The basement I knew was too low, but I was willing to consider extending my attic. I hired an architect, who promptly found out that the borough in which we lived would not give us permits for either the attic or the basement.

That's probably a good thing, for the attic at least: Isolating an attic is a really tall order, and not for the feint of heart... or for thin wallets!

The contractors went over the plans and quoted me about $47,000. The plans also called for my wife and I to give up our bedroom (best one in the house) to make a hallway to the studio. I would have to put new equipment in it. The final straw was the man in charge of permits from the borough showing up at my house saying that I would need to do this and that before they would even consider it and then the plans would have to be approved by a board.

to be very honest, it's probably good that you didn't go that route either! Building a studio on anything but the ground floor (or below it) is a hard thing to do. High levels of isolation imply lots of mass, which implies lots of structural support if you are not on the ground, which implies money...

I would do much better by holding onto my money and building a BETTER studio than what I had before in the basement that I have now. The architect explained that he could not put pen to paper since our build is without a permit, but he would give me any friendly advice that he could.

Smart man! IT si never wise to build without permits, for a number of reasons. The biggest one being that you invalidate your home insurance, completely. If you do build without a permit, and anything at all happens to your house, even if it is totally unrelated to what you built, your insurance company will very likely refuse to pay, and you'll be left with all the liability. For example, if there is a fire in the kitchen, you can bet that the insurance assessor will figure out some convoluted reason why part of the cause was what you did in the basement without a permit. And if anyone else was injured in that fire (a visitor for example), you'd be liable for their medical expenses as well. If your neighbor's house was also damaged in the fire, you'd be on the hook for his repair costs too. These are just some things that you should be aware of, if you decide to go down this path: you are letting yourself in for major legal and financial liability. But the big question is: why will they not give you a permit to finish your basement? Perhaps it was the way that you presented the project? It's probably a lot easier to present it as a "Home Theater" than a recording studio. Or perhaps just call it a sound-proof games/recreation room. Surely you'd be able to do that and get a permit for it? To be very honest, I would work on the aspect of getting some type of permit for finishing your basement. There must be SOMETHING that is allowed for basements in your area. Everything that follows below assumes that you get a permit.

How loud am I? LOUD!!! I have never measured it and have no way of doing so

You really should try to figure that out too! A decent sound level meter will cost you about US$ 100 on eBay or Amazon, and you should be able to beg, borrow or rent a good full-range speaker that can put out 110 dB or so for the test. That's all you really need: play it at the level you judge is what you normally work at, and measure that in the basement and all around the house, bit inside and out, in many locations.

I plan to put Adam A8X speakers in the soffits.

Yes! :yahoo: I'm a big fan of Adam speakers: Not their manuals or support, but their speakers are great.

Seeing nothing that I could do with the beam, I decided to put my control room and vocal booth on one side of it and my unattached DJ room on the other and leave it in the airspace between.

Right. That's the best plan for those situations. Keep the beams and supports inside the MSM wall cavities, where they remain part of the outer leaf.

He called for walls that consist of 2" X 4" studs, 2 layers of 5/8" "X" type gypsum board with green glue between, and R13 insulation, maintaining a 1" air gap between walls.

Sounds good, except that there's a terminology issue there: Technically, the "air gap" in an MSM wall is the distance between the leaves, regardless of whether or not there is any insulation in it. Insulation is mostly air anyway. So I assume that you mean a 1" gap between surface of the the outer-leaf concrete wall, and the framing for the inner leaf, which works out to a 4-1/2" air gap. Is that the plan?

I plan not to add laminate flooring so as to preserve height. Is vinyl tile or sheet a good acoustic flooring over concrete?

Laminate flooring is just a few mm thick: about the same as vinyl: There's only a tiny difference in overall thickness, even considering the underlay. Just a fraction of an inch. That's neither here not there. If you are really concerned about that, then don't lay anything! Plain old concrete is an excellent floor for a studio. There are several ways it can be finished, such as staining or polishing, that can look really nice, and you save yourself that 1/4" or 3/8" of height that you'd lose for either vinyl of laminate.

Do the concrete outer leafs need to have insulation layers added to them, or can they just be bare?

Yes, you do need insulation in the cavity of any MSM wall, and you will also need a vapor barrier on the warmer side of the wall: Check our local building codes to find out where that has to go, and what the acceptable types ans specs are.

Will the subtle angling of my control room walls be effective or should I just employ a straight rectangle to gain space?

That depends on the purpose of the angling... :) if it is just for flutter echo, then minimum 6° per side is what you need (total 12°). But if you are going for an RFZ design, you'll probably need a lot more than that.

Does my pipe corridor make sense, or would it be better to soffit those pipes inside the (extended) DJ room and make some sort of insulated panel or closet for the meters and valves?

can you move them to a different location that does in interfere? That would be the best option.

Does leaving the beam and pole in the air space make sense?

Yes, absolutely.

OK… now, the hard part… the ceiling. We are alternating the 2' X 6' ceiling joists between the floor joists in order to obtain maximum height. The contractor wants to use 2 2' X 4's in an upside down "T" instead 1 2' X 6'. I'm guessing that is OK?

You cannot guess here! Hire a structural engineer. You cannot play around with huge amounts of mass hanging over your head. The few hundred bucks that an engineer will charge for his visit and report is money very well spent.

Both the architect and the contractors believe that the only way to get any real isolation on the floor above the ceiling is to spray foam under the boards between the joists.

Bad idea, but you already found that out, so I won't comment further! :)

Is this true or is there a better way?

Yes: beef up the floor above you between the joists, using strips of drywall cut to size. Caulk in place, and use cleats to hold it.

I am gathering that I should lay more than 2 layers of gypsum to compensate for this?

Right! I would go for at least two layers. Caulk them independently, as each one goes in. Seals are critical! - Stuart -