Len Morgan's Studio Build Diary

No, Len -- recording a few seconds in an unfinished studio does not a finished studio make! :lol: Nice try though. :twisted: Well, even though you may not thinking such things as painting doors is exciting, it is still work and it is representative of the kinds of things one must do on projects like these. So, in that sense, you'd be doing a service to everyone by posting pictures and comments. Hey, digging a hole wasn't very exciting, but I sure posted a lot of pictures of that -- and I'm sure lost some of my audience in the process! :P You know, you might want to run some wiring now for security cameras. Wouldn't you like to have a peek of what's going on outside your studio when you're hiding out in the control room anyway? Plus, having some "Premises Under Surveillance" signs might also help in keeping people from messing with your air conditioning gear! :shock: --Keith :mrgreen:

sharward wrote:

Well, even though you may not thinking such things as painting doors is exciting, it is still work and it is representative of the kinds of things one must do on projects like these. So, in that sense, you'd be doing a service to everyone by posting pictures and comments.

'nuff said. I will not post pictures of things like nails in my hand and the various "spills" of fluids that have happened. After all, I have to protect some dignity. :-) [quote="sharward"]ou know, you might want to run some wiring now for security cameras. Wouldn't you like to have a peek of what's going on outside your studio when you're hiding out in the control room anyway?[/b] It's a little too late for that - at least to do it easily. I made the "brilliant" design decision to make the hole for all my audio cables symetrical in the room which happens to also be exactly in the middle of the window so dropping a new wire(s) from the top between the walls is problematic. Radio Shack does sell a nice little camera for an alarm system that is wireless (but not really designed for outdoors) that I'm thinking about getting. I also have the option of using a bow and arrow to shoot a wire between the trusses over the "big room" to the back where I'm going to have a couple of servers. This actually brings up a question: What are the best options if you find you have forgotten a wire or two and you have to "break the seal" of a finished room? Is there a good way to do this without destroying the isolation I worked so hard to get? len

len-morgan wrote:

What are the best options if you find you have forgotten a wire or two and you have to "break the seal" of a finished room? Is there a good way to do this without destroying the isolation I worked so hard to get?

For a single small cable, I wouldn't stress too much over it. I would think a 1/4" hole with a liberal amount of acoustic sealant that penetrates to all of the layers would be just fine. --Keith :mrgreen:

I guess that brings up another question: Can ANY perforation (sp?) of a mass wall (as in m-a-m), be "cured" with acoustic calk? There can't be that much mass involved in the calk. Where is the line between a big hole in the wall, filled with calk and no hole at all? As it turns out, if you go back to my original floor plan, you can see that I've got a "hallway" or sort of built-in airlock between my control room, drum room, and main room. The air-lock is really the entry/reception area of the studio. Since I'd want a camera from this area (or just outside the buiding of this area) into the control room, my room to room isolation shouldn't suffer that much so I guess it would still be possible to run a wire or two through the control room wall without hurting things too much. len

This was discussed at Studiotips some time ago. The consensus over there is that small (and I mean small!) areas of inferior thickness/density in a leaf really don't matter much, especially for low end TL. Think of my beef-up drywall strips between my studs in my outer leaf walls. Technically, the studs are less dense than the drywall! :? As long as it's made air-tight with acoustic sealant and the hole is small in the first place, you shouldn't have to worry about it. :) --Keith :mrgreen:

As long as it's made air-tight with acoustic sealant and the hole is small in the first place, you shouldn't have to worry about it. Agreed. Think of my beef-up drywall strips between my studs in my outer leaf walls. Technically, the studs are less dense than the drywall! Yup; about 2/3 as dense in most cases. Security - Dobermans and 12-gauges. Our overly liberal society is getting nearly as stupid as British law. A few dead bodies should get the point across :twisted:

knightfly wrote:

Security - Dobermans and 12-gauges. Our overly liberal society is getting nearly as stupid as British law. A few dead bodies should get the point across Twisted Evil

Since my worry is security when I'm not there, this would only work for me if I could teach the Dobermans to shoot the 12-gauges. On the other hand, if I could just teach them to HOLD the shotguns, that might be enough of a deterant - I know it'd scare the HELL out of me!!! :-)

Build 'em a nice doghouse/run ENCLOSING your HVAC, oughta slow MOST a-holes down a bit - in 40 years of having dobies I've only once had to supplement 'em with Mossberg motivation :mrgreen: Alas, these two have been gone for over a year now, we're down to a Kelpie (if she were as big as her attitude!!?!) and a Chow/Rottweiler mix - hope to get some time soon to shop for replacements... Steve

I miss my beautiful red dobermann pinscher, Leo... He left us a while ago. To this day, I can't even look at a dobie without feeling somewhat saddened.... K

knightfly wrote:

Build 'em a nice doghouse/run ENCLOSING your HVAC, oughta slow MOST a-holes down a bit - in 40 years of having dobies I've only once had to supplement 'em with Mossberg motivation :mrgreen: Alas, these two have been gone for over a year now, we're down to a Kelpie (if she were as big as her attitude!!?!) and a Chow/Rottweiler mix - hope to get some time soon to shop for replacements... Steve

knightfly wrote:

Think of my beef-up drywall strips between my studs in my outer leaf walls. Technically, the studs are less dense than the drywall! Yup; about 2/3 as dense in most cases.

Is that lower density 'made up for' since the studs are 3.5 inch deep? If drywall density is D/inch^3, then stud density is 2/3 x D/inch^3. Drywall thickness is, say, 3 layers of 0.625 inch = 1.875 inch. Then densities per square inch of wall surface are: Drywall: 1.875 inch x D/inch^3 = 1.875 D/inch^2 Stud: 3.5 inch x 2/3 x D/inch^3 = 2.333 D/inch^2 So, in the example of a 2 by 4 nominal stud wall with 3 layers of drywall strips inbetween them, the 2 by 4's actual still have a bit more cross-sectional mass per surface area than the drywall does... If there were only 2 layers of drywall, there would be relatively even more mass in the studs per surface area. Of course, this mass comparison does not take into account that wood seems to be a better 'conductor' of sound... due to other factors (stiffness, resilience ?)... is this correct? Use ironwood, live oak, or lignum vitae (lol) wood for the studs and the densities will skyrocket (actually MORE dense than any drywall, maybe even cementboard)... so won't the cost of the room, lol. K

If you figure that the "shortest point" on studs with beef-up strips is the point where the last layer of beef meets the edges of the studs (or joists), technically there is still inferiority there. While it's not a perfect solution and should not be a part of any brand new build, it's a necessary evil in retrofit builds. Hopefully the inferiority isn't that great of an issue. --Keith :mrgreen:

But when mass is mostly a factor, isn't it with the lower frequencies? And isn't it partially a 'total' mass of a particular 'large' area that stops vibrations? In other words, if the overall wall is very mass-y, wouldn't very small relatively 'thin' areas matter somewhat less? When beefing up a wall, shouldn't one still use cleats (like in ceiling beef-ups), so as to increase mass through that particular cross-section? Under the cleats would be backer rod and caulking for each layer of drywall, no? K

sharward wrote:

If you figure that the "shortest point" on studs with beef-up strips is the point where the last layer of beef meets the edges of the studs (or joists), technically there is still inferiority there. While it's not a perfect solution and should not be a part of any brand new build, it's a necessary evil in retrofit builds. Hopefully the inferiority isn't that great of an issue. --Keith :mrgreen:

I didn't use cleats over my beef. I used cleats to hold the OSB firmly to the outer wall, then I applied drywall strips and attached them to the OSB. The final layer of beef was installed with long drywall screws driven diagonally through the cleats and into the studs. I also didn't use backer rod... I should have though -- I would have used a heck of a lot less sealant if I had. That being said, I really don't think all of this makes that much difference. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any lab tests of walls or ceilings with beef-up strips at all -- so in many ways, the whole beef-up concept is an untested educated assumption that it is effective. --Keith :mrgreen:

Well my friends, I guess it's high time for an update. I took a two week vacation and had a bunch of "real" work come up so I haven't been able to update but I have been taking pictures. This first batch shows the mixer desk I built. It consists of a couple of boxes that I put rack rails in for equipment, a table top, and a "bridge" over the top to set the monitors on. The whole thing came together in a couple of days and we were winging it the whole way. Ok, here's the first batch of pictures:

A few more pictures of the desk...

And now for something completely different... :-) This is the SoundTile foam from Auralux getting put together and mounted in the vocal booth. It should be noted that this stuff is not easy to work with and get a really slick job. The problem is that it is only available in a charcoal (sp?) color and the spray adhesive is a yellow color. It is next to impossible (at least for me) to not see the seam lines of glue AND get the edges to stick together. You can fairly easily do one or the other but not both. The Auralux guys (who were VERY helpful by the way) gave me some tips and also after a lot of arm twisting said there was an alternative adhesive made by 3M but they wouldn't garrenty (sp?) it wouldn't eat the foam over time. It comes out almost clear (it's a little white) and the seams are a little easier to keep the joints clean. I tried it and it does seem to work. We'll see in 10 years if it eats the foam. What makes this difficult to do is that the adhesive sprays out like a spider web and since it's so thick, it sometimes "spits" a little and the stuff ends up going everywhere. Once it hits the foam, it can't be removed from the foam unless you pick off pieces of the foam itself. I strongly suggest you practice with this stuff (the adhesive) on some other kind of foam. The Auralux stuff is too expensive (and only available in $400/box kits). It would be nice if they would sell either individual pieces (or smaller boxes) or if you could get some of their scrap to practice with. The pattern I used was done by the Auralux people after I sent them the layout of the room and told them that I had one box of the stuff. It looks pretty nice once it's up (seams excluded) and it DOES deaden the room which was what I was after. Ok, pictures....

Now a few shots of various things that have been going on. I'll let them speak for themselves...

Nice pix Len! (they DO speak for themselfs indeed) That Auralex stuff looks like little fishes on the wall, is that an aquarium I spot? :D Hope it does the trick, cuz I noticed it's pretty expensive stuff. But hell, the design makes up for the extra spend buck I quess. Could you show some more details of the door, when it's openened, it's tressholds etc. Nice colour btw, it shines all over :) keep it up

Ro wrote:

That Auralex stuff looks like little fishes on the wall, is that an aquarium I spot?

It does look nice but in the corners (which you really can't see well in these pictures, I could have cut the foam to make a little better fit in the corners but it was so expensive, I didn't want to take a chance making it worse. The kit is basically 4 different shaped pieces that you can put together in lots of different ways to get the visual effect you want. The do have some corner pieces but again, you have to buy a big kit of them and I only needed a few for this room. There is another issue anyone should consider before using this stuff in a commercial studio: after I got it on the walls, I started thinking about what someone would do in that room while waiting between takes. I'm sure a lot of people will start picking at the foam or try and "help" me by trying to take off some of the extra glue (which will remove more foam than glue). If it's your home studio, it wouldn't be a problem but I'm afraid that after a few months, this foam is going to look like Swiss cheese.

Ro wrote:

Could you show some more details of the door,...

I'm not sure what other details I could provide (other than the thresholds). I haven't bought the threshholds or the closers yet so I don't have any pictures. I'm going to use the Pemco drop deal threshholds where I can (my main room door is 40" wide and Pemco only has 36" kits). I will probably end up only using one drop threshhold on the vocal booth double doors because the isolation is already good when both doors are closed. The other doors (control room and drum room) are Knightfly sandwiches with a hollow core middle and a sheet of 3/4" MDF on either side. The inside layer is stepped in on three sides like a bank vault but I think if I was going to do it again, I'd have made it the same size inside and out and done my seals differently. I've got a few other pictures of how we did the seals and the door jams although a lot of them are blurry. When I get the threshholds installed, I'll see if I can take some better pictures of the entire door "system." len

There is another issue anyone should consider before using this stuff in a commercial studio: after I got it on the walls, I started thinking about what someone would do in that room while waiting between takes. I'm sure a lot of people will start picking at the foam or try and "help" me by trying to take off some of the extra glue (which will remove more foam than glue). If it's your home studio, it wouldn't be a problem but I'm afraid that after a few months, this foam is going to look like Swiss cheese.

Hey don't forget about those of us with children or even some pets, who have to look, touch and try to play with everything, especially new things. BTW, nice job I like the fishy's. AND what type of fabric did you use on the desk? (I did not see you mention it anywheres) Marc

I'm not sure exactly what it called but it's a felt backed vinyl that I got in the remnants area of a fabric store. I think it was like $2.99/yard or something like that. It's a little stretchy which can be good or bad. If you're interested, you can e-mail off-list and I'll send you a little swatch for you to take to the fabric store. I did learn one thing though while I was trying to figure out how to get it to stay on the wooden frame: Don't use contact cement! Apparently the fumes from the contact cement disolve the glue they use to hold the vinyl to the felt backing so while the felt stuck real good, the vinyl litterally just fell off (on the sample I was trying). I also tried white glue and CHEAP Scotch spray adhesive. The glue held a little better but was a pain to spread evenly on the wood. It did have the advantage that I had more working time to get the vinyl flat across the whole surface. The spray adhesive lost it's tack pretty quickly. len

Hey, lookin' good Len! :) On that door, did you use a router on one side of it? The design in the solid material looks likes its been "routed"!!

Yes, it was routed to clear the "fat" part of the hinges. Since the door was going to end up being 3 1/4" inches thick, I needed big hinges to hold it on. At first I tried routing just the area where the hinges were but then (after I put them on), realized that I couldn't get the pins out. :-( Shades of my vocal booth foibles!! The rest of the doors, I routed all the way down on the hinge side more for appearance than anything else. len

Awesome!! 8) How thick was the door to begin with? It looks like maybe 1 3/8". I was thinking of using solid core 1 3/4" and then beefing them up with a layer of MDF with Green Glue in between. :roll: I love the router effect. I'll probably do the same thing! :D --Keith :mrgreen:

I'm not sure which door I took a picture of. Two were 1 3/8" and another was 1 3/4". The router effect does look nice and it's also neccessary to clear the hinges. len