1 Car Garage -to- Rehearsal Room Build Up Thread

Hello all, first time poster here. I've read all the stickies and warnings, so i'll try my best to provide enough info to get some help. I just bought my first house, and with it came a detached garage that stands around 10'Wx17'Lx8'H (the height measurement is where the walls end, not including highest point of cathedral ceiling). I'll attach pictures at the end of this post. I'm not going for an all-out studio, no recording has to be done in there. I just need a jam room for very loud projects. There are neighbors on one side of me, and across the street. So i'm basically looking to reduce sound transmission as much as possible, but only for the sake of not having the neighbors planning to burn the place down heh. It's down to just the wood framing now, no drywall or anything is up. I'm thinking i should redo the electric in there and throw it all on it's own subpanel, while the walls are stripped to the wood. But since i just need a jam room and most the posts and writeups are for studio setups, i'm not sure how important and what the cost-effectiveness will be for certain techniques like floating floors and whatnot. The garage door presents a problem, i'm assuming i'll be building a wall in front of it and keep that door sealed shut, or should i have the whole thing taken out altogether? Also, should i keep the cathedral ceiling for more area for the sound to travel within the room, or create a flat ceiling? I've read through endless posts of great info, but now i'm unsure on what techniques i actually need to use for my situation. Thanks for any and all help, here's the pics of what i'm dealing with. I'll keep this updated with info and photos. *EDIT - fixed broken pic link

you might want to review some of the projects in the construction forum where folks have been beefing up rooms to achieve better isolation. also Rod Gervais has an excellent book on home studio construction which deals significantly with cost effective isolation techniques. besides Rod's book, the other important bit is to get yourself a sound level meter and determine what level of isolation you need by getting your drummer and bassist to kick it and do some sound level checks inside and out. since its a stripped out garage, you have plenty of options to build up the outer walls, roof, and wall off the existing garage door as a good start. you will also need to consider ventilation and cooling/heating as part of the design...

Thanks for the reply gullfo. I'm on page 29 of http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2921&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 as we speak, so i'm holding off on asking more questions until then. I highly suggest that thread to anyone else who wants to get started too, but doesn't have a clue where to start (like me) heh.

finally finished Keith's excellent thread, as well as Dan's little gem http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... sc&start=0 which was alot closer to what i'm dealing with as far as the garage door situation and whatnot. so before anything else, thank you guys for keep such greatly documented work for the rest of us to use to our advantage! I've decided to surface mount all electral entities in the jam room, so i can worry about that part later. There are a few things i still don't understand though. If i were to create a flat ceiling for my outer leaf, then frame the inner walls with it's own ceiling also... wouldn't the space above the outer leaf create an undesired 3rd leaf? In the empty cavity from the cathedral ceiling? This pic best shows what space i'm talking about. Another thing i don't fully understand yet... for the inner leaf, large sections of drywall can be put up instead of filling in the stud gaps. Why can't this be done for the outer leaf also? I originally thought i could screw the drywall onto the front surface of the studs, in the same fashion that the inner walls would be done... but then again, i also thought i could throw a pillow over the window and a mattress over the door before i came to this killer site :shock: :lol: :( :lol: :shock: . would those 2" gaps create like 50 additional leafs? heh, i guess i just need someone to correct my logic or possibly lack thereof 8) My attack plan is to start with the beef-up process of the outer leaf. Studs > 1/2" OSB > 5/8" Drywall > 5/8" Drywall. Oh yea, the framing of the outer walls don't actually touch the foundation itself, it's on cinderblocks all the way around. Is there anything i should do concerning this before throwing the weight of the new walls on them? Should i fill the gaps with sand? Something else? Here's a pic of what we're looking at More questions/concerns to come, thanks for any and all help in this thread. I will be keeping it updated with pics of everything i do along the way :!: 8) :!:

i'd make sure the walls are properly bolted into something substantial and not just resting on blocks... assuming the structure is sound enough (contact a structural engineer to review) then you could potentially add 5/8 drywall between the rafters to beef the exterior up top as well as the walls. then adding a new interior ceiling (you could use the overhead space for AC and air exchange equipment) should give you decent isolation. if you skip the in-between drywall and just add 5/8 over the rafters, then you potentially have a third leaf but it may be your only option and you may have to live with it... if you can remove the garage door and frame it with a single door that would be best. otherwise just build an isolating wall inside it and leave it in place - with the amount of air gaps and lower mass its not likely to contribute too much to third leaf but you would want to add insulation to dampen any resonances...

thanks gulfo, all walls appear to be bolted down into the blocks. do you think i should fill in those block gaps with something? or will it not matter, since it'll be in the air gap space between outer and inner walls?

Also, could someone please take a stab at explaining this to me?

victimeiced wrote:

...Another thing i don't fully understand yet... for the inner leaf, large sections of drywall can be put up instead of filling in the stud gaps. Why can't this be done for the outer leaf also? I originally thought i could screw the drywall onto the front surface of the studs, in the same fashion that the inner walls would be done... but then again, i also thought i could throw a pillow over the window and a mattress over the door before i came to this killer site :shock: :lol: :( :lol: :shock: . would those 2" gaps create like 50 additional leafs? heh, i guess i just need someone to correct my logic or possibly lack thereof 8)

hey man, I just responded to your PM. If the guys here hesitate to answer or give advice, it's probably because the information is already here somewhere on this site and can be found with a little more research. Keep looking!

thanks studio_drums, got the pm. i'll do some more searching and post what i come up with, incase anyone else is reading this for some reason and wondering too heh

victimeiced wrote:

thanks gulfo, all walls appear to be bolted down into the blocks. do you think i should fill in those block gaps with something? or will it not matter, since it'll be in the air gap space between outer and inner walls?

if you're building an inner wall then you can probably leave the blocks the way they are since they're not contributing to isolation or support for the inner walls. as far as isolation - if building an inner room, don't add a layer of drywall to the outside studs as you'll end up with a third leaf - you could put drywall between the studs to beef up the wall but not an air gap there.