Pete's new studio

Hi, I would like to start finishing off my bonus room above my garage to use to record myself and other musicians. I would like to do some isolation but I can't float floors as I am above me garage. I have one neighbor about 100 feet from me. Other than that the rear of my house is wetlands, the front and other side of my house has neighbors about 300 feet from mine. The entrance to this room connects to the house and as of right now that construction is 1/2 sheetrock on 2" by 6", insulation, plywood, then the bonus room starts with 2 by 4 studs and that's it. I'm familiar with the MAM, so I'll need to do something on this side to keep my wife happy. The three outer walls of the room are contructed of vynil siding, 1/2 plywood and 2 by 6 studs as of now. All rafter joists are 2 by 12"'s. The room is not a normal one as you will see from the pics. Lots and lots of angles. I'm thinking about leaving it as one big room for tracking and mixing, except I might add a small bathroom. This won't be for commercial purposes, at least not now. I also want to leave the collar ties exposed and finish the walls up to the ridge of the roof. It might look weird having those exposed but I think the room will sound better with that additional 4 to 5 feet of ceiling. Is there anyway to achieve a better stc in this room with all the gables and such? I also have other questions in relation to how the room will sound? Such as will I be able to mix in this room and what sort of treatment and such I'll need but I figured that the Construction forum would be a good place to start. Much appreciated

Anybody? Do I need to provide more info?

Patience............ 8)

Beautiful house, really. 8) Welcome to the forum, peteys. Try to be patient because most of the "real" experts here are very pressed for time and sometimes can't make it to the forum for a few days. You've probably already seen the "Before You Post" announcement and the very important "Reference Area" announcement. If not, definitely go there. If so, definitely go there again. It's impossible to read those threads and the linked threads from within them too many times! :lol: Then, you'll want to review robn's 'Bonus Room' studio, feasible?" thread as there are some similarities with your project. Many of the concerns would apply to your situation, so rather than regurgitate all of them here, it would be good to study that thread with an eye towards your own to see what concerns may also apply in your case. Unfortunately that thread has gone dormant for the time being. I think you've got more headroom and more square footage in general than robn does, so the ceiling height issue may not be as big of a concern to you -- but it is something you'll need to keep in mind, as there is almost surely a minimum you'll have to stay above (probably 7' 6"). I, like you I think, thought I had researched "soundproofing" before arriving here, and thus I used to believe STC was the "be all, end all" for measuring isolation. However, when it comes to studios, nothing could be further from the truth. Learn why STC is crap in a studio context. As far as your "I can't float floors" comment goes, that's probably true -- but unless you're a structural engineer, you don't know that for sure. In fact, you don't even know yet whether or not you can add any decent amount of mass to bring your isolation up to a level that you'll be able to get this thing airborne at all yet. You need a structural engineer to tell you what you can and can't do safely in terms of weight loads to avoid a catastrophic collapse. See cyeazel's "potential studio photos.. updated description and more pics" thread for an example of the adventure down Structural Engineer Lane. In any event, you'll almost surely need a building permit to convert this currently uninhabitable space into habitable space. You probably (hopefully?) already reviewed my (in?)famous "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread, but it bears repeating, especially if others in the future come along this thread and relate to your project scope and goals at all. By all means, buy Rod's book! :!: He's a regular here and is likely to pitch in his advice on your project now and then. That's all I have for now... The homework I have assigned should keep you busy for a while. ;-) But, by all means, if you have further questions, keep 'em coming. Again, welcome. You'll find lots of support here. --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks Keith for all the links. I have read most of them and will be ordering Rod's book. Hopefully there will be some helpful tips in there. I spoke to the building dept and they said they wouldn't have a problem with me finishing it. I have the application and will be submitting it to them when I get a better idea of how I want to finish the room. I'm still not sure what to do with the ceiling. Any ideas on whether I should leave the joists exposed or sheetrock it at 8'? Do you know which way would sound better? I would thing that for tracking it would sound better, but for mixing? I'm not sure. Maybe some people will chime in. I don't think I'll be needing that much isolation as my neighbors are kind of far away, but I would like to do some. Is it an all or nothing thing, isolation?

peteys wrote:

I don't think I'll be needing that much isolation as my neighbors are kind of far away, but I would like to do some. Is it an all or nothing thing, isolation?

Pretty much. Even the smallest opening can destroy your isolation. Rod talks about this in his book. As to your ceiling question, if it were me, I wouldn't leave it open just for astetics. If you had nice old timber beams there, it might be different. What you might consider doing (pending structural engineer approval) is to first beef up the underside of your roof with a couple of layers of drywall and calk it well. That will give you a nice tight top shell to keep the sound in. Don't discount your neighbor's annoyance too quickly because they might move and you'll get new (less tolerant) ones. Remember that isolation (i.e., the annoyance factor to those that don't share your passion for music), is inversely proportional to both the types of music you play and they like, and the hour of the day (or night) - Morgan's First Law of Acoustics. :-) After you beef up the inside of the roof, you could put bass hangers in the space above the cross beams, 4" inches of mineral wool between them (horizontal), and then cover the whole ceiling with [flame retardant] cloth to make it look pretty. This would probably end up with a pretty tame (dead?) space which is better than one with a lot of reverb since you can always add reverb after the fact. It's next to impossible to remove it once you've recorded it. len

Beefing up the walls with extra sheetrock sounds like a good idea. Would that be alot of extra weight on the ceiling. I could call my architech and he could advise. The structure was overdesigned as it is with lvl's and such, but that's what architechs do. I'd have to disagree with you about the ceiling, though. I do think the room will sound better left open, at least for tracking purposes; not sure about mixing though. As far as asthetics are concerned, you could be right. Although I could always stain them or paint them to match the room.

peteys wrote:

I'd have to disagree with you about the ceiling, though. I do think the room will sound better left open, at least for tracking purposes; not sure about mixing though.

Well, great minds CAN disagree and still be friends. :-) You kind of hit the nail on the head though with the "... not sure about mixing though..." That was exactly my point. IF you want a comfortable place to play music that sounds great while you are playing, by all means, keep the open ceiling. The natural reverb and reflections that the high ceiling create will make a good performance environment. The problem is when you go to mix what you've recorded. What you are hearing from your monitors will ALSO be "treated" by the acoustics of the room and what you end up with might sound great IN THE ROOM, when you go listen to it in the car or on a boom box, it's not going to sound anywhere close to what you mixed because you "left the room behind." Since you only want a single multifunction room, you might be able to comrimise and make 2' wide by 4' or 6' long absorbtion boxes (just a simple frame with mineral wool or OC703 and covered with cloth that you mount BETWEEN the ceiling joists but hinge on one side on the top of the joist. That way, you could raise or lower them to "reveal" more or less of the upper ceiling area depending on the sound you wanted or what you were doing (i.e., tracking or mixing) at the time. Just my 2 cents worth. Remember, it's much easier for me to suggest treatments like this when I'm spending your money and not mine. :-) len

"it's much easier for me to suggest treatments like this when I'm spending your money and not mine" That's funny. I don't know. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I should just close off the ceiling at 8 feet. It seems that most people are getting good results around here with a flat 8 foot ceiling with treatment. I've recorded some really nice stuff in my bedroom with just an 8 foot ceiling. I just thought that now that I have the option, ( I never did before), that I should take advantage of the extra ceiling area. The few replies that I've received on this site have been kind of negative on this, though. The other option would be to use the area for tracking and mix where I do now, in my bedroom. I played my amps and brought my monitors in there the other day, and boy is that room gonna need some treatment. It's very live. On the other hand, I've recorded drums a few months ago and the drummer loved the room. And a very experienced engineer friend of mine said that I definitely should leave it open.

I think you made my point. My guess would be that the drummer wasn't wearing headphones and that he was sitting under the peak of the roof. Is that close? The other "problem" that I hadn't mentioned yet is that a peaked roof like you have acts the same as a satelite TV receiver dish and concentrates the sound as it bounces around up there. As a final point, I go back to one of my first ones. The deader the room is when you are tracking, the less you will have to remove later. You can ALWAYS add "liveliness" to a dry recording. You can't so easily take it out once it's recorded. If you really like the sound of the room, you could always get an SIR plug-in and record the impulse response of your room before you start to do anything and then use this to process anything you track later. Just a thought... len

I think you're right about all of what you said. I think I'm just going to finish it with 8 foot ceilings. I actually thing that my basement would be a better place to mix. It would be easier to isolate, I have concrete walls and floors, the room dimensions are rectagular and I think I could have 9 foot ceilings down there. What are your thoughts? I've attached an mp3 of that drummer in that room. Only mics used were on snare, kik and one mono room mic( not that far from kit). No processing.

I guess they don't allow mp3's on this site. that's a shame, seeing that the site is dedicated to sound.

There is a limit to file size on this site, not sure about file type BUT you could upload to another site to host the MP3 and then put a link to it here in your thread. Marc

I believe there is a limit to file type.

peteys wrote:

I actually thing that my basement would be a better place to mix. It would be easier to isolate, ...

It seems (to me) you might be confusing your requirements. Generally speaking: Isolation is important when you tracking so that you only record the instruments/voices you want (and not the traffic on the street outside) and to keep from annoying neighbors and family. The acoustics of the room you mix in are more important when it comes time to mix. Isolation is less of a problem at this stage because you already have the sound recorded so external noise isn't going to get into the finished product. Also, it is recomended that mixing be done at 85 dB (which "dB" are we talking about here, btw? dBa? dBm? dBspl?) because that is where the human ear's response is the flatest. Isolation isn't as important because you don't have as much signal to isolate in the first place. As a final point, if a big truck happens to drive by while you're mixing, you always have the option of stopping, rewinding, and trying again. When you're tracking a brilliant guitar solo, you don't have that option. len

Pete- Have you done any more design work or construction on this? There is a group of us out there with rooms above the garage looking for solutions. Can you give us an update? Thanks! http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8426 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9178 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... ght=#60097