Basement Studio Building Thread Cologne, Germany

(moved from design forum) Hi everybody, The design is pretty much done (still talking to HVAC people), but we started framing yesterday :D I have somebody come by tomorrow to move the heating pipes that are in the way, next up ist drywall for the back of the cr, since the rest of the room is a inside-out design. I'm a little behind schedule with my "real" studio work, gonna post more details when I find a minute, just wanted to share a few pictures :D Thanks again John for everything so far, it's been really great! Pic 1 shows the recessed frames in the back wall:

Live room side wall:

I also picked up the console, commissioning is gonna be another big job.. that's it for now, more to come!

Sorry for the delay, for some reason my camera stopped working and I had to borrow one from a friend.. We finished the back wall of the control room and put the side walls up. (we still need to build the soffit for the heating pipes)

here's a shot looking out of the control room into the (soon to be) front live room:

Side walls... (we won't be able to use sliding doors, the staircase is to small :( so we decided to use a glass door + a window on the left wall)

I also started to put the drywall up for one of the live rooms. 2 layers of 20mm - those sheets are heavy!!

That's it for now. Next up is the front wall for the control room & drywall. Then the next layer of walls, AC & audio lines, more drywall... cheers Erik

20mm sheets? darn, thaz 3/4 sheets. good luck with those :) keep them pix coming! ps. is that PUR foam I see underneath and above your frames?!?!

Yup, pu-foam, but the kind that stays flexible & is more like rubber. We used it everywhere to hold the walls in place. I'm thinking about using 15mm drywall for the outside walls, that other stuff was just too heavy..we have to carry everything into the offices upstairs first, and then down a narrow staircase. Right now it looks like we need another 200 sheets :shock: I still don't know what doors to get. I will get 5 acoustical doors for the main entrances, but I want glass for the controll room, and John's sliding door design is not possible :( Will balcony-style glass doors (the kind that seal all the way round) do for soundproofing? Aren't they basically the same as the sliding ones?! cheers Erik

Just a little update - 1st layer of drywall is up for the most of the control room. We have to wait for some more pipes to be moved and the first AC lines until we can finish the drywall and start with the 2nd layer of walls for the life rooms.

Inside the control room

Looking into control room from live room

Live room & emergency exit

Everything ran pretty smooth so far, the HVAC situation is still bugging me though. It's really hard to find a company that has any experience with HVAC for studios, and the ones I talked to wouldn't come up with estimates. IS THIS POSSIBLE WITHIN A 6000,- EURO BUDGET??? As far as the layout goes John suggested to run the main fresh air/exaust ducts between the radio studio and the front live room:

I just hope I find a company that installs such a system with no crosstalk/fan noise without me spending more money on HVAC than on the rest of the studio build :roll: cheers Erik

just a couple of photos to show the progress. sorry for the poor quality, my good camera is still broken.. The rest of the drywall is coming up this week, doors&windows are ordered. One question: is it ok to use Rockwool for the slot walls? I can get the Isover stuff that's more like 703, but it's really expensive. Is Rockwool just as good? cheers Erik

hi eric looks really nice, even if your good cam is broken... keep going the good work! what are you going to do with the ceiling(s)? cheerz roman

Thanks! The ceilings are going to be resilient channel & 2 layers of 15mm drywall.

angled ceilings? would be nice to see some sketches of the construction... greez roman

das scheint ja ne feine sache zu werden. bin mal gespannt wies fertig aussehen wird. Wo befindet sich dennn die Räumlichkeiten? schaut ein wenig nach Keller aus, was eine geringe Deckenhöhe bedueten würde. Hm ich hätte gerne so viel Platz wie du für mien Studio, soll scheinbar was comerzielles werden? naja viel erfolg für die zukunft peace mika :D

flat ceilings, but there will be angled clouds hanging from them. i will post some sketchup shots tomorrow. @mika: yes, it's in a basement, but ceiling height is 2,8m, not too bad... I will work there for the clients I already have plus some new ones hopefully :D we're also planning on doing workshops there. cheers Erik

Ain't that a tripple leaf in the last picture?? :roll: (as in, gypsum on the INSIDE of a double wall) :shock:

The control room is inside out, so that the wall cavities can be used as slot resonator walls. no drywall on the inside, only 2 leafs. here's a picture of the ceiling clouds (thanks again John :D!!!)

Just a quick update: we finished most of the drywall & framed all the beams & heating pipes. 1st fix electrics are in (i will have 1 big control panel for all lights & hvac in the control room) My plan is to star ground all outlets to the console frame (electrician said this might be a good idea) and have one big ground run from the frame to the main ground. Any comments on that? I also ran the low voltage lines between the rooms, all done with Sommer Mistral 16 Channel.