My Garage Live Room Build.

Basics: I'm working on the live room for my studio. The total goal isn't to have complete sound isolation as building a room within a room is out of question for now and would eliminate valuable space. It's more to take noise down to a reasonable level at the street and from my neighbors acrossed the road. It will be used as a general purpose practice room, as well as for recording music. Mostly for multitracking, having as good of a sounding drum room with this is what I'm concerned with. Distances: Facing what I'd consider the rear of the room. On the far side you'd have about 100 feet before any house. To the right over 250 feet to the nearest house. Behind me (to the road) you have approximately 30 feet to the street, the road, then another 30 feet to the neighbors house. To my left is the dining room. Dimensions: The room I'm working with, with the new wall being put over the garage door (unattached and permanently fixed to the house) will be 22 foot long, 13.5 feet wide, and 8 foot high (minus flooring). The heigh of the roof above the ceiling is 4 foot at peak. The Plan: Electricity is all run as far as the wiring. The room has 3 20 Amp Circuits. Two are dedicated between the electrical outlets, split one long wall and one short wall each. The third is strictly dedicated to the lighting. The boxes are to be surface mounted so that will be done after the rock is up. Holes will be made to pop the wiring through and then caulked up. This consists of 9 metal double outlet boxes. The walls are going to have 16" wide R-13 Mineral Wool. The ceiling is going to have the same. The roof /\ above the ceiling will have 24" wide R-19 mineral wool. as well as the walls of the roof connecting to the house and the outside... Then the walls will have one layer of 5/8" gypsum board, spaced with an 1/8" gap that will be filled with acoustic caulk. These boards will be installed horizontally. Then over this there will be a layer of 1/2" gypsum board, spaced with an 1/8" gap that will also be caulked up and smoothed out with a wet putty knife. These will be installed vertically as to eliminate much of the seam overlapping. This will then be painted. Hardwood installed on the flooring over a little padding and vapor barrier (over concrete). Then I will install acoustic treatments that I'm making. About 60% coverage of broadband absorption traps on the walls which I'll make, fabric wrapped. Made from 2" rigid mineral wool. These will be mounted with a two inch air gap behind them to increase their effectiveness. Each of the corners will have an 8 foot tall bass trap made from 4" rigid mineral wool. They'll be two foot wide and straddle the corners. Then the ceiling will have 3 clouds that will be roughly 4' x 4'6". These clouds will have frames which each have 9 can lights. and two runs of 2' x 4' 2" rigid fiberglass. The frame will have 3 cans on any of the outside edges, and then one in the center frame piece. The ceiling will have a hole for access to the attic, for maintaining any cables run from inside the house (where the control room is located) and anything else needed to be done up there. The hole with have an ad-hock cover comprised of thin plywood and rigid fiberglass bound by fabric (like a little absorption panel.) that will rest over the hole. Questions: 1. I need to work on a system for delivering air in and out. Preferably heating and A/C. The room itself is only around 300 square feet, which accordingly to different sites I've looked at wouldn't require any more than a "1 Ton" unit. I am pretty clueless as far as to what I'm going to use for this. As I posted in another thread, I'd like to have this wall mounted above the ceiling, in the wall near the roof itself. I can easily make the kind of diffusor boxes to slow air down to have it not be a loud problem and can develop a sort of ISO box for the unit, even decoupling it from everything to keep vibrations down. I need advice on picking a unit. Preferably in the 500-600 USD price range for the unit. 2. Do you have any other ideas for the room as far as absorption? Should there be some diffusion? What sort? Details please. 3. Anything else you can think of would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for the lack of a sketch. My computer is being extra screwy today. The room is a fairly simple rectangle with a ceiling, and then roof over it. Hopefully I have described every well enough. Any questions, please ask.

orksnork wrote:

I need to work on a system for delivering air in and out. Preferably heating and A/C. The room itself is only around 300 square feet, which accordingly to different sites I've looked at wouldn't require any more than a "1 Ton" unit.

1st - it sounds like you're really talking about a through the wall unit - or do you mean a split system......... 600 USD for a split is pretty thin...... 2nd - a ton is going to be ok if you keep your total gear down around 1150 watts - as you push abouve that you won't be able to keep up with the load........ ROd

It seems like you have a lot of absorption in the room if you want a live room...? Just a thought. For a live room you may want to consider building slot resonators rather than broadband absorbers.

rod gervais wrote:

orksnork wrote:

I need to work on a system for delivering air in and out. Preferably heating and A/C. The room itself is only around 300 square feet, which accordingly to different sites I've looked at wouldn't require any more than a "1 Ton" unit.

1st - it sounds like you're really talking about a through the wall unit - or do you mean a split system......... 600 USD for a split is pretty thin...... 2nd - a ton is going to be ok if you keep your total gear down around 1150 watts - as you push abouve that you won't be able to keep up with the load........ ROd

well, im really not sure what i should do... i could do something outside.... i really need ideas/advice on this whole thing...

jwl wrote:

It seems like you have a lot of absorption in the room if you want a live room...? Just a thought. For a live room you may want to consider building slot resonators rather than broadband absorbers.

maybe i should lessen it to about 40% coverage, take the two shorter walls and make them slot resonator walls with no coverage and then make some moveable baffles with the remainder of the material to do on the spot tweaking... your thoughts?

or how about, for the smaller walls, turning them into diffuser walls... maybe something along the lines of the attached image... should help kill parallel wall issues without necessarily absorbing all the drum love... i can use 3-4 different size pieces of wood that i chop up to make it to give it some variance...

updated the electric description a bit...trying to have everything as mashed out as i can for you...

hmm....finished up some electrical today...went to home depot to get some lighting for the clouds, they didnt have shit close to what i wanted...going to have to go to a few electrical supply places (unless anyone knows anyone good online electrical supply depots??? ?? ) gonna start doing some caulking up of holes and what not in the morning....take the weekend off and get cracking again on monday.. hope to hear back from you gents..

well...found a decent electrical supply...went in with my plans for the clouds and talked to the guy... to keep money down we decided to make the clouds slightly bigger to accept bigger cans, use a bit brighter bulbs and cut back on the amount of them...should be sweet looking anyway... then i headed over to home depot and picked up the MDF for it. From my new plans, I managed to cut all of the pieces from 3 sheets of 8x4 1/2 MDF to make a 5x5 cloud, including 2- 2x4 pieces of insulation, and the lighting... on the back(top) of the clouds, i'm going to mount to 2x4s across the length of them for extra support, and to put the eyehooks to hold it up.... well i was walking around with the old timer, i was telling him about my back (we got my MRI back yesterday, 5 slipped discs and some other underlying problems) and he graciously made all of the cuts for me at no charge... basically now i just have to trace out the holes for the cans, screw it all together, wire them and up wait for the insulation/gypsum board delivery... so things are getting quite fun now.

I can still really use some help on the original questions....

focus on absorption instead of diffusion/reflection. should be cheaper too, I think.

hmm anyone else?

hmph Having problems with my drill batteries, dying and not charging right, might have to return them. Because of that, I haven't finished cutting out the holes with the holesaw for the recessed lighting. Tonight hopefully. Was supposed to cut a hole in the side of the wall for the door tomorrow, but we've got a noreaster coming in...so we'll probably be pushed back....again.... then neuro surgeon on tuesday to discuss what we're doing about my 5 slipped discs and 1 slipped vertebrae... Is there any reason this thread isn't getting any comments?? I know I don't have a drawing, but I explained it as well as anyone could. You could certainly build the room.

well it's coming along...now with the help of some friends and my fiance's dad, as i had spine surgery on tuesday and can't really do shit... the last wall is framed out, ceiling is done, door is in, clouds are built, we ate several small children, bad mouthed a few of you, had some beers, and ordered the rest of the building materials... hopefully we should be finished in the next 2-3 weeks (dependant on delivery times for supplies) i found a super cheap supplier for mineral wool and rigid fiberglass on long island...

I'll bite just so you don't curse us anymore :) HVAC - you will spend more eventually so just go get a mini split heat pump and call it a day. A grand$ is a good start. Diffusion/Absorption - sounds like you are doing fine. I like your last plan about cutting the overall amount back a bit, adding some slats and definitely making some quality gobos with the rest. I would make double sided gobos with slats on one side and dead, fabric coverd rockwool on the other. Big and heavy ones, you will use them. MDF is your friend just don't breath in the dust when cuttin'..... -ashley :twisted:

yayay a reply... MDF is a little wonky for me...especially at 1/2 inch... luckily, they messed up my order for insulation and what not, and it's actually going to cost a 1/4 of what i thought (phew!) so there's a ton of cash laying around now for additional treatments, gobos, etc...

well...ive got a couple of goons out in the garage, right now, finishing up the ceiling, as far as getting it sanded and primed for paint... insulation and rock have been ordered for delivery next week, hardwood is all sitting in the shed ready to go, all the electric is still run...pretty close here saturday we'll drop in the snake and speaker cables, and if the ceiling is finished being painted, we'll hang the clouds (sans wrapped insulation) the following weekend we should be able to insulate everything, and do both layers of wall board and get it ready for paint... then that week we paint, build bass traps and absorption panels and go for gold :D the room is going to be painted Behr Aurora Orange and the treatments will be a darker orangey red...lovely and vibrant.

doublepost

well we changed the order of things.... First we start with a dirty old nasty garage. We remove the track for the sliding door, affix it to the house, and frame out the new wall. next, we take our lovely rock wool and we fill up dem derrr walls! when building a room for recording purposes, it's essential to treat it to have acoustically accurate and pleasing sound. for this, we buy rigid fiberglass...by the palate... more updates throughout the day, and through the end of the process... layer 1, 5/8" gypsum almost complete....pictures then.... then the second layer of 1/2"

First Layer of rock up Starting second layer...Wave hi to Malcolm (soon to be father in law...he makes sure we don't hack up the whole job! we'll finish this up soon enough....then we use some acoustic caulk, a bit of spackle....then we're ready to prime and paint!!! then we can finally hang the clouds (already have been hung and adjusted for height and whatnot, moved em so they don't get banged up) and then! the hardwood! and then! make the acoustic treatments and huzzah! actual room size is 22 x 12

unfortunately, we didn't finish the second layer of sheetrock.... 12 hours straight working and we were pretty beat and it was time to call it quits

ideas to consider.... 1. Painting naked girls on the walls so you guys actually seem to care. err actually....im still kind of wonky on what exactly i'm going to be doing as far as treating... ideally, i'd like to get some hot drum sounds (as hot as i can out of this size room)... i've got a good deal of 703 to work with for absorption, and can do what i have to as far as diffusion and what not... all i'm really set on right now is 4" bass traps straddling two foot wide in the corners, from ceiling to floor.... that leaves tons (as you can see, i've got a pallet full)... i'm going to make some movable baffles so i can tame things as i please (e.g. vocals, etc)... What I'm thinking is for the long walls (22ish x 8.25 ft) going with 7 2'x4' 2" broadband absorbers, hung an inch of the wall. they'll be hung like O O O O O O O up down up down....then on the other wall, they'll be hung opposite... photoshop is messing up on this computer, ill draw up what i mean tomorrow on the other one...still not sure about diffusers...or what i'm gonna do on the short walls...

what i attempted didn't come out right those are supposed to be offset....so one is up high, then a foot space, one down low, a foot space, one up high...etc

Hi there For a live room, I'd probably approach it like this: 1. Put superchunks in the corners. This will help even out your low end. 2. Hang a cloud over where you envision the main recording area to be, esp if there is a drum riser or something. 3. Build John's angled slot resonators throughout much of the room to break up reflections. If your walls are angled you can build straight slot resonators, these will help balance out the room sound nicely.

i've already mentioned that there's going to be 3 clouds, 5x5 which have 4x4 2" 703 in them, hung from the ceiling to break the parallel of floor to ceiling. also, there's going to be the big bass traps in the corners... i'm looking for a more definitive... "my suggestion is doing EXACTLY this and why. you'll absorb so and so, break up reflections here and there" ya know?