I started planning (i.e. dreaming) to have a music room before long before I had a chance to build a new home.
For reference I had Rod Gervais' "Home Recording studio: Build it like the Pros" and to fill in the missing pieces I signed up at this wonderful forum. I spent countless hours planning, measuring and thinking about how everything would come together well before I took my first swing of the hammer.
For your reference; I'm an electrician by trade, and have done many home renos in the past. I also owned most of the tools I needed to complete this job.
What I wanted: I room that I could have band practice in at any time of the day. I also have considered, one day, using the room to do professional recording and mixing.
My wife and I were fortunate enough to have a custom home built for us in 2015 -2016. A music room was part of the plan from the beginning. With that in mind, we had the basement built accordingly. ( No window in the music room, 8'4 ceilings, in floor heating)
From there, I built a "room within a room" complete with an independent ceiling. All of the walls had a double layer of 5/8" drywall with green glue in between each layer. I also added a double layer of 5/8" drywall to the underside of the existing floor.
For a finished ceiling I built a "reverse ceiling"; the drywall is on top of the ceiling joists with insulation in the middle and burlap fabric as a finish material. (the idea is, that you end up with your whole ceiling being sonically treated.) That's the concept, read further to see how it turned out.
The finished room dimensions came to 10'8" x 18'4" with ceiling heights of 7'11 and 6'9". Size wise, I can fit a 4 piece easily, and could probably cram in a 5th or 6th. The big question will be how well the a/c keeps up in the summer with that many people.
Here's the room before I started, with some pics of the ceiling joists to show what I was up against
Scotth's studio build thread. 95% complete..
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 21779.
Here's the prints and drawings that I drew up.
The music room is directly beneath the main bedroom. The two kid's room are upstairs, on the opposite side of the house.
the 1st construction step was to "bulk up" the underside of the floor with two layers of 5/8" drywall. the edges were filled with backer road and acoustic sealant. This was very long, very dirty, tedious process. Lots of measuring, cutting and re-cutting. I also made sure overlap the joints in the 1st layer of drywall.
I used drywall screws to fix the drywall to the OSB floor. I checked , re-checked the length of screw that I could use without going right through the main floor!
Next step was to build a bulkhead around all of the mechanical systems serving the master bedroom. This was the 1st planning mistake; I should have designed the layout of the house so that mechanical ran through a different part of the house. The bulkhead had a serious impact on the finished height of the room.
Finally, the fun part! framing the walls. (One tool that I did buy was an air powered framing nailer ) This was pretty easy, basic wall building. just 16" centres ons the east/west walls and 24" centres on the north/south walls. It's too bad the fun step is also the quickest step.
I realized that I didn't take any pics of the new ceiling joist framing, but it's just 2x4s ran at 12" to centre. ( the plans say 16" centres, but I went with 12" on the advice of the building inspector.
after the walls were up, I rough-in the electrical system. This is my trade; no problems here.
It's just one circuit doing all of the plugs and LED lights. I put in a few double plug outlets, because I can and I hate power bars. At the door at I put in two 3 gang switch boxes. 1st box does the lighting, separated into 3 zones. 2nd box does switched plugs mounted at ceiling height and one switch for the exhaust fan. I'll use the switch plugs for accent lighting.
next step drywalling. two layers of 5/8" with green glue in between. Again, great care was taken to ensure that all the joints on the 1st layer were covered by the second layer. (this led to some unusual length cuts)
My wife and dad both occasionally helped with this as I needed with the lifting. My wife also enjoyed putting in the screws.
After drywall was done, I hired a taper to come in and do the taping and mudding. I've never taken the time to learn how to do this; it's very hard for me to get right. This is the only person I hired to help me. He did an amazing job. Money well spent.
Hi there "scotth", and Welcome to the forum! :)
Thanks for documenting your build here. :thu:
However, it's a pity you didn't find the forum BEFORE you started building, as there's several things you could have done better.
First, a couple of questions:
What was your design goal, in terms of isolation? In other words, how many decibels of transmission loss did you design for?What I wanted: I room that I could have band practice in at any time of the day. I also have considered, one day, using the room to do professional recording and mixing.
How did you deal with the issue of anchoring your new inner-leaf walls into that floor, without damaging the heating system?in floor heating
I guess you mean: "the existing floor above this room" ?I also added a double layer of 5/8" drywall to the underside of the existing floor.
The correct term is "inside-out" ceiling. We know it's the correct term, since John Sayers himself invented this concept, and that's what he calls it... :) Question: How did you build that? How did you get the drywall on top of the joists?For a finished ceiling I built a "reverse ceiling"; the drywall is on top of the ceiling joists with insulation in the middle and burlap fabric as a finish material.
That's part of the idea, yes, but that's not the full concept, nor is it the complete treatment that your ceiling will need. I'm also wondering why you built the ceiling inside-out, but built the walls conventionally: you could have saved a lot of space by building those inside-out as well.(the idea is, that you end up with your whole ceiling being sonically treated.)
If your original joist height was 8'4", and you built inside-out, how come you ended up with such a low ceiling?with ceiling heights of 7'11 and 6'9".
Ummmmm... then there's a problem! That implies that you did not design the HVAC system correctly. That should have been part of the original HVAC design: The system should have been dimensioned to deal with the worst-case sensible heat load and latent heat load, on the hottest day of mid-summer with the highest humidity, full occupancy, and a ton of gear, instruments, lights, pizza, coffee, etc. The other thing I don't see in your photos, is ANY of the HVAC system: where are you silencer boxes, for example? Where does the fresh air come from, and where does the stale air go? What ventilation rate did you use for the HVAC design? What velocity at the registers?The big question will be how well the a/c keeps up in the summer with that many people.
Please post larger versions of those: it's very hard to make out the notes and dimensions on some of them. Also, please post the final actual plans that you built from, or better still, your full 3D model of the studio.Here's the prints and drawings that I drew up.
:thu:the 1st construction step was to "bulk up" the underside of the floor with two layers of 5/8" drywall. the edges were filled with backer road and acoustic sealant. This was very long, very dirty, tedious process. Lots of measuring, cutting and re-cutting. I also made sure overlap the joints in the 1st layer of drywall.
:shock: :?: WHY???? That is NOT the correct way to "beef up" the sub-floor above you. The correct way is to hold the drywall in place with cleats, at the edges. By screwing in thin strips instead of allowing them to act independently, you have decreased the isolation of that floor at some frequencies, notably around the coincidence dip. You have added mass, yes, but you added by basically sticking it to the existing mass, the same as gluing layers of a wall together. This is not good...I used drywall screws to fix the drywall to the OSB floor.
Right, but it only needed to affect that specific part of the room, not the entire room...The bulkhead had a serious impact on the finished height of the room.
And you probably could have re-routed some or all of that in various different ways, once you realized the mistake.This was the 1st planning mistake; I should have designed the layout of the house so that mechanical ran through a different part of the house.
:thu: Smart move! It goes MUCH quicker like that.(One tool that I did buy was an air powered framing nailer )
:shock: Say what? You sued 2x4's to span those distances with those loads? Did you not check the span tables, and/or get the advice of a structural engineer?I realized that I didn't take any pics of the new ceiling joist framing, but it's just 2x4s ran at 12" to centre.
I'm VERY surprised that he would approve that! Was he aware that you would be using two layers of 5/8 drywall on the ceiling, with GG? I'm VERY skeptical that your ceiling is able to support the load safely. What deflection did you calculate for? I'm afraid you have shot yourself in the foot there, since I don't see that you'll be able to hang anything acoustic treatment from that. A hard.backed cloud, for example, is heavy, and is anchored to just a few points. I very much doubt that you'll be able to do that, with just skinny, flimsy 2x4's up there. I'm also very confused by your inner-leaf wall photos: they seem to show that the wall tops are attached to the existing joists above you???? .... I'll keep on commenting, as you keep on posting further details... - Stuart -the plans say 16" centres, but I went with 12" on the advice of the building inspector.
air supply/air return:
I did my take offs from the duct work outside of the room, and ran flexible duct, inside their own chases, into the room.
Why are your electrical boxes located BEHIND your drywall? That implies that you have to cut huge gaping holes in your drywall, which totally trashes your isolation....after the walls were up, I rough-in the electrical system.
What exhaust fan? Why do you even need that? If your HVAC system was designed correctly, the AHU should be moving the air. Or was the static pressure of your ducts and silencers too high for that, and you had to add a booster fan? .... - Stuart -and one switch for the exhaust fan.
interior ceiling construction.
I built frames out of 1x2s that fit inside of the ceiling joists. The two layers of drywall sit on top of the frame. I then added 1 1/4" Roxul safe and sound to the remaining room inside the 2x4 joists. I finished it off with burlap.
*another issue that I had with the mechanical is that some joists were used as a return air for upstairs. I could not do an inverse ceiling in this area because it would have greatly reduced my sound isolation. I had to build the ceiling conventional style here. It's about a 3' section at south end of the room. I added a cloud with some pot lights here.
drywall 9.JPG <---- that one clearly shows that your INNER leaf drywall goes all the way up to your OUTER leaf joists.... Therefore I'm guessing that isolation was not really a priority here at all, since you won't be getting much...
drywall 3.JPG <----- that one clearly shows some typf of very small HVAC duct, with NO silencer box, feeding into a contraption that rotates the ar flow through 90° and RESTRICTS the airflow at the register, thus greatly increasing he airflow speed.... WHY???? Why on earth would you do that, if you read Rod's book? :roll:
Why did you use that size duct? What flow rate and flow velocity did you calculate? What is the static pressure of your studio HVAC system? Is your current house system capable of dealing with that? You did check, right? .... - Stuart -I did my take offs from the duct work outside of the room, and ran flexible duct, inside their own chases, into the room.
duct chase 2.JPG
duct chase 3.JPG
duct chase 4.JPG
All of those clearly show a sudden 90° bend directly into the room, with no silencer, no flow control....
return air 1.jpg
Shows several sudden turns, in a small diameter duct.... That's a very high static pressure drop, right there, for each of those... I'm not at all convinced that your existing house HVAC system will be able to handle that large extra load....
....
- Stuart -
more pics of the ceiling...
you used 2 x 2 framing????? With two layers of 5/8" drywall on top????? And your inspector approved that????I built frames out of 1x2s that fit inside of the ceiling joists
Ummm.... that's not true. With correct design, it would have been possible. The ONLY thing that matters for MSM system design, is the mass on each leaf, and the depth of the gap between them. Do that right, and it does not matter if you did it with conventional or inside-out construction. By the way, what is the MSM resonant frequency of your ceiling? You DID calculate that, right? finish ceiling 5.JPG <----- I may be wrong here, but it certainly looks like you cut a hole in your ceiling there, to fit in that light pot... Thus trashing your isolation... .... - Stuart -I could not do an inverse ceiling in this area because it would have greatly reduced my sound isolation.
flooring and paint
I had leftover paint from the house build. not enough, so I just combined two colours to get on you see on the walls. Only one coat. In the future I will paint again.
I got the flooring on sale. ( the burlap too). So there was no style co-ordination here! all the finish choices were budget driven.
the empty room had an odd echo, but after moving the gear back in, the echo disappeared.
I'm not going to bother treating the room until I decide to do some serious recording/mixing. It sounds very good just the way it is!! The drums, especially, sound excellent. ( I'm not sure why, maybe they just sounded really bad before.lol)
door construction. I added the detail as the 1st pic so that you could see what I did.
I kind of went over the top with this. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to seal the outside of the door. Right now, it works as is, but it does leak sound through the seals.
I moved back in for some volume testing.
Results: I can play guitar with a drummer and there is no sound in the kids room! You can hear playing everywhere in the house though. Upstairs, it can be drowned out if the tv is on at normal volume. (about 45 DBs)
guitar, by myself, I can play at about 90 decibels at any time of the day. I cranked a JMP 2204 and it got to 120 decibels. outside of the room it was about 60 dbs. ( as you know, you can't be in a room with a cranked Marshall for very long. I'm not worried about ever going over 95 dbs)
drums, by myself, I can play after the kids go to bed, but not when my wife is sleeping. ( I probably could, but it's best not to try!!)
I haven't taken the time to add up the final cost, but I'm just around $6000 Canada. ( I budgeted for 5K)
I started in August and moved in during last Christmas break. I spent most of my free time working on this. It was a huge undertaking.
Now that I can play in there, I haven't really been motivated to finish.
Here's what's left:
1)trim and crown moulding. my dad is retired and likes to do this kind of stuff. He'll be happy to do it, when I ask
2) acoustic treatment.
3) door seals. no rush here either. I'm happy with the isolation i'm getting in the living spaces. There is sound leaking out of the door and it is disappointing showing people my "sound proof room" that's not sound proof.
4) door handles and paint.
5) I'd like to get some Phillips Hue bulbs, but they're too expensive right now. I'm going to have to make this a future purchase.
and here's some pictures of the room today...
right now, it's set up in "practice drums mode".
with the leftover MDF from the doors, I built a super handy rolling cart/desk. (note that the laptop is missing, because I'm upstairs using it to post this thread). I also built a set of adjustable speaker stands.
Probably flutter. Did you do a proper REW baseline line acoustic test in the empty room, so you'll know hot to treat it when the time comes?the empty room had an odd echo,
Yup. Not surprising, since you did several things that would trash the isolation that you tried to achieve.... It could have been substantially better.I moved back in for some volume testing. Results: I can play guitar with a drummer ... You can hear playing everywhere in the house though.
I can imagine.... :) In short, as I mentioned in all of my responses on your thread, there's several things you could have done differently, if only you would have come to the forum BEFORE you started building, posted your complete design at the start, and posted progress images and descriptions along the way. Unfortunately, it's a bit late to fix those issues now.... there really isn't much you can do at this stage. - Stuart -it is disappointing showing people my "sound proof room" that's not sound proof.
Hi there "scotth", and Welcome to the forum! :) Thanks Stuart! I've lurked on here for quite a while, it's a wonderful resource. and If I can single you out; you especiallyWhat was your design goal, in terms of isolation? In other words, how many decibels of transmission loss did you design for? I just went for the best I could achieve. I built to the highest standards I could find available for my space.What I wanted: I room that I could have band practice in at any time of the day. I also have considered, one day, using the room to do professional recording and mixing.How did you deal with the issue of anchoring your new inner-leaf walls into that floor, without damaging the heating system? construction gluein floor heatingI guess you mean: "the existing floor above this room" ? You got it Question: How did you build that? How did you get the drywall on top of the joists?I also added a double layer of 5/8" drywall to the underside of the existing floor.If your original joist height was 8'4", and you built inside-out, how come you ended up with such a low ceiling? I used 2 x4s as the ceiling joist, plus a 1 inch air gap... so 8'4- 4.5 = 7'11 1/2"with ceiling heights of 7'11 and 6'9".Please post larger versions of those: it's very hard to make out the notes and dimensions on some of them. Also, please post the final actual plans that you built from, or better still, your full 3D model of the studio.Here's the prints and drawings that I drew up.I posted them the largest that I could. if you want any specific dimension, please ask:shock: :?: WHY???? That is NOT the correct way to "beef up" the sub-floor above you. The correct way is to hold the drywall in place with cleats, at the edges. By screwing in thin strips instead of allowing them to act independently, you have decreased the isolation of that floor at some frequencies, notably around the coincidence dip. You have added mass, yes, but you added by basically sticking it to the existing mass, the same as gluing layers of a wall together. This is not good... I searched a long time to find out why the cleats were added. The only reason why Rod suggested this, that I could find, was because he doesn't trust that screws will hold over time. If you have other quotes from MR. Gervais that suggest otherwise, please post them to help the next reader/builder of this threadI used drywall screws to fix the drywall to the OSB floor.I'm VERY surprised that he would approve that! Was he aware that you would be using two layers of 5/8 drywall on the ceiling, with GG? I'm VERY skeptical that your ceiling is able to support the load safely. What deflection did you calculate for? I'm afraid you have shot yourself in the foot there, since I don't see that you'll be able to hang anything acoustic treatment from that. A hard.backed cloud, for example, is heavy, and is anchored to just a few points. I very much doubt that you'll be able to do that, with just skinny, flimsy 2x4's up there. The plans were reviewed by a civil engineer and the building inspector. I never have considered adding a cloud, though. that might be an oversight. we'll see what suggest for room treatment in the future.. I'm also very confused by your inner-leaf wall photos: they seem to show that the wall tops are attached to the existing joists above you????There's a 4 1/2" gap between the inner leaf and existing joists to allow for the ceiling joist and a air gap. .... I'll keep on commenting, as you keep on posting further details... - Stuart -the plans say 16" centres, but I went with 12" on the advice of the building inspector.
Why are your electrical boxes located BEHIND your drywall? That implies that you have to cut huge gaping holes in your drywall, which totally trashes your isolation.... All electrical boxes are behind the inner leaf. I built sealed, double drywall boxes around them to limit any sound that enters through the face plateafter the walls were up, I rough-in the electrical system.What exhaust fan? Why do you even need that? If your HVAC system was designed correctly, the AHU should be moving the air. Or was the static pressure of your ducts and silencers too high for that, and you had to add a booster fan? exhaust fan isn't the right term. It's a on/off switch that's tied in with the AHU system. (it's the same way our bathrooms exausts air) .... - Stuart -and one switch for the exhaust fan.
drywall 9.JPG <---- that one clearly shows that your INNER leaf drywall goes all the way up to your OUTER leaf joists.... Therefore I'm guessing that isolation was not really a priority here at all, since you won't be getting much...that's a picture of the outside leaf. in the guest room (note the window) drywall 3.JPG <----- that one clearly shows some typf of very small HVAC duct, with NO silencer box, feeding into a contraption that rotates the ar flow through 90° and RESTRICTS the airflow at the register, thus greatly increasing he airflow speed.... WHY???? Why on earth would you do that, if you read Rod's book? :roll: that's the return air.Why did you use that size duct? What flow rate and flow velocity did you calculate? What is the static pressure of your studio HVAC system? Is your current house system capable of dealing with that? You did check, right? I used 5" supply which was what originally fed the room. And a 6" return. I ran this by the guy who installed the HVAC. He didn't have any problems. I should probably get him back now that i'm done, though As for the silencers, for the supply I used 15' of flexible duct run inside an insulated chase. The return is about 12' of insulated duct in it's own insulated chase. .... - Stuart -I did my take offs from the duct work outside of the room, and ran flexible duct, inside their own chases, into the room.
you used 2 x 2 framing????? With two layers of 5/8" drywall on top????? And your inspector approved that????I built frames out of 1x2s that fit inside of the ceiling joistsUmmm.... that's not true. With correct design, it would have been possible. The ONLY thing that matters for MSM system design, is the mass on each leaf, and the depth of the gap between them. Do that right, and it does not matter if you did it with conventional or inside-out construction. By the way, what is the MSM resonant frequency of your ceiling? You DID calculate that, right? Correction, I could not do a reverse ceiling here because I would have lost 12" of depth on the ceiling height to get the same air gap as the rest of ceiling. (because the ceiling joist acts as a return air in some of these joists in this area. Which is basically a 12" gap straight to upstairs.) finish ceiling 5.JPG <----- I may be wrong here, but it certainly looks like you cut a hole in your ceiling there, to fit in that light pot... Thus trashing your isolation... I believe that you're referring to the supply air duct, which is in it's own insulated chase. .... - Stuart -I could not do an inverse ceiling in this area because it would have greatly reduced my sound isolation.