leecow's basement studio

Hi folks, I know it's been said many times before - what a great site and great bunch of people!! The amount of information available here is staggering. Having a respectable home project studio has been a dream for some time. It’s been great reading the information presented here learning that something of quality is possible and darn near practical! I’ve been chewing on a ton o’ information from this site and a number of books (primarily Rod’s, Mitch Gallagher’s “Acoustic Design for the Home Studio” and Everest’s “Sound Studio Construction on a Budget”) and a vague idea of what’s what is beginning to form in my head. Project Overview/Goals - My space is the partially above ground end of a daylight basement. Rough dimensions are 22 x 12 x 7.5 feet (attached skp has fairly accurate measurements). The final multi-use, single room to be used for: • Personal ‘cave’ • Tracking • Mixing • Personal and small group rehearsal Remodel status – Overall project just crossed the halfway point. Money and calendar almost line up ;-) Plumbing is done. Radiant heating crew is at bat. Electrical and low voltage on deck. How loud? - The hand waving guesstimates would be 95db without upsetting neighbors or anyone in the house during daylight hours and be able to play or mix at 80db after everyone is in bed. Some details - The ‘core’ house is about 60 years old but the remodel includes replacement of all plumbing and electrical. As mentioned above, the studio space will be in the mostly above ground portion of a daylight basement. Below grade walls are cement. 3 walls are exterior and 1 is along the stairs. Rooms above are the kitchen and dining rooms. The ceiling is where I anticipate the most trouble. The heavily used rooms above, precious little headroom and in-floor radiant heating preventing direct application of sheetrock to the deck make this an assembly where ideas and advice will be greatly appreciated. Ceiling joists are the original 16” oc 2x10s running the width of the room. Additionally, plumbing is running through one of the channels chewing up all but the bottom 4”. Couple o’ questions: 1)Ceiling system – Given the restrictions (radiant heating pipes attached directly to deck) and weaknesses (plumbing run that cannot be moved), what are the best isolation options? Answer: Ceiling system covered at http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7423 . No magic bullets :wink: 2)Electrical – It’s a fair distance from the basement to the garage panel and the electrician has suggested running a subpanel for the studio. Are there any special considerations for such a configuration if star grounding is to be employed? Budget – Whatever it takes to do it right as economically as possible. Thanks for looking!! Lee

Here are a few pictures of the space and 2 spots that have me worried; the plumbing run mentioned in the first post and the stair connections. A little more detail on what will occupy the ceiling real estate (working on a drawing but no time this morning). The busiest ceiling section will be stacked up something like: Joist is 9 3/4" Upstairs floor deck Radiant head in the first 2" - Radiant heat plumbing - Radiant heat reflector Some electrical will sneak through here A little gap then plumbing uses the next 3 3/4" Leaving 4" clear space Definitely fishing for recommendations for this space. This ceiling did not employ any cross bridging in the original assembly and I'm waiting to hear back from the architect regarding loads. I'm going to talk with the heating sub to see we could use OC 703 1" faced boards for the radiant heat reflector. The studio ceiling plan will be in the vein of what Rod has on page 77. If cross bridging does not need to be added then the independent joists will be 2x6s run parallel to the existing structure terminating at the inner wall framing. 2 sheets of drywall will hang from this assembly. (again, drawings to come). Other isolation recommendations for the ceiling? Update: Ceiling detail and ideas discussed here. Stair/Wall connection The stairs are currently connected to the wall with a standard ledger and to the joists at the header. Is there something that could/should be inserted at either of these connections? Answer: Steve's answer to the stair/wall question is here . This scenario is also covered in detail in The Book of Rod, Chapter 10; esp figure 10.14. Better get to work now so I can pay for this thing :shock: Thanks much, Lee[/url]

We're getting close to framing and I'm thinking about symmetry on the "control room" end. Please see the picture below. Sketchup file attached in the first post if you feel led to fiddle with the drawing :wink: The primary concern is the closet to the left. Would it make the most sense to frame in a solid core 30" door rather than bifold doors? Bifold doors would certainly offer better access to the closet space but I don't think they would provide as much mass. Also, given the short distance of the angled partition, is there a formula for determining optimum angle? Any comments gladly accepted!

Hey Lee, Nice job on the photos! Did you run into any trouble with your city regarding your plans to cover up all the basement windows? It looks like you only have a single point of egress, which seems to be an issue for many with basement studio aspirations... :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

Sorry about the deceptive photos. Everything is boarded up right now for sheathing/shear nailing the exterior. The hideously expensive window package should arrive in the next week or so. When all is said and done, there will be two windows (see where the paper is taped up in "Room_NW.JPG"). WA and local code requires that one of them be an egress window. I wrestled with whether or not to clamp the holes down as far as code would allow but decided that the multi-function nature of the room would be better served by a bit more natural light.

Excellent. :-) Sometimes pictures don't tell the entire story. Don't be shy -- share the details. Don't be afraid of boring us. ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

Not to worry! As you've seen (and contributed) in a few other threads, I'm airing the laundry as it gets dirtied. I'll keep the photographic documentation running and cry for help often. :lol: BTW, any comments on the angled wall question or are you leaving that for someone else :wink:

Sorry about that... I would think that if isolation is a top concern that you would be wise to do a single solid core door with extreme effort and care on the seals. --Keith :mrgreen:

My thoughts as well. Thanks for the confirmation. Any comments on the angle? It's well beyond the 1" per 10' recommendation I've seen and I'd hate to do something untoward to the mix position.

Lee - here's your front geometry - it angles back to past your sweetspot. cheers john

Thanks so much John! I've tweaked the idea just a little bit - please let me know if I've broken something. 1) Added door to closet 2) The back wall of the assembly is now the room wall rather than a seperate member.

That door's fine - nice vox booth :) cheers john

I wish. That space will be needed for storage and machine room.

Weren't you going to put a machine room under the stairs??

I think I see a problem with the design from an isolation perspective, assuming isolation is a priority. (I'm assuming it is, since you're doing double framing.) So, your closet door is part of the inner leaf. Got that. But is the entire closet surface, including the part under the stairs, part of your outer leaf? If yes, then you don't want your inner leaf framing extending into the closet. There's no purpose for it and it will only be in your way, chewing up square footage. If no, then you'll need to complete your outer leaf, and that means another door that would have to open into the closet. Another option would be to make the closet a part of the outer leaf, but not the part under the stairs. You could then make an access door for the area under the stairs that would keep up with the rest of the outer leaf. I started to quickly sketch this up in Paint, but I'm really short on time and can't afford to play around with it too much... Sorry. You'll also probably need to do something for ventilation or cooling in that closet if it's going to be a machine room. Overheating your gear would not be good. :( --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks Keith, I'll put the various 'leaf' cautions in the machine and think it through. The thought is that isolation will be provided the perimeter wall systems. The closet wall housing the door will not serve as an isolation assembly. Wanting to utilize the real estate under the stairs makes this an interesting puzzle. Ventilation for gear and carbon based lifeforms is already in planning. Thanks for calling it out! I'm booked at a music conference all weekend and too many things going on at church Sunday so hopefully I'll be able to work out the closet and under the stair development early next week.

Here's the idea for equipment isolation and continuing the isolation assemblies under the stairs and hooking up with the inner leaf in the back of the closet. This picture has the stairs and cement wall hidden. The box will be suspended with RISC clips/channel. Looking at the picture I see that I have it attached to the outer leaf on one side and inner leaf on the other. That can be fixed. Other comments on the idea?

Here's a thought: would it make more sense to have the inner leaf run through the closet door wall rather than around the outside wall of the closet? Keith may have mentioned this ... will have to look.

John Sayers wrote:

Weren't you going to put a machine room under the stairs??

That's correct. However, the rest of the closet is needed for storage.