Vertustudio

could always throw in a whole house humidifier into the HVAC system while you have it open...that would eliminate static problems... Now that we all have it designed for ya, just send us a note when our studio is ready to use..:)

Above control room door. Control room ceiling. New ductboard in iso. New plenum; inside lined with insulation. I noticed straightaway that the whole furnace/ductwork system is quite a bit quieter than it was before. This was a very pleasant surprise as I wasn’t really expecting it. I thought that all this work would just result in having the ducts routed out of the way of the walls, and upgraded from the shabby old stuff that was there. Thanks for all your tips on heating the iso room! I think I’ll be going for two 3’ baseboard heaters in there, just because that’s the cheapest solution. I’ve always wanted heated floors though. If I ever decide to put a heated floor in it’ll be easy because all I’ll need to do is pop the Bruce floor apart and put the mats in. Today the wiring is going in – 12 gauge romex (upgraded from 14). The rooms will be on separate circuits, but both will be connected to one 20 amp breaker and have the same path to ground. I’m looking into having some sort of noise filter installed at the breaker box. I’m also looking into having balanced AC in both rooms, but the electrician is unclear as to what that entails. He’s familiar with the concept of having good quiet power because he did electrical systems for radar in the Navy. Now I get all the benefits of the military industrial complex that I can afford! I’ll write a patriotic song in appreciation. I have this buddy who doesn’t post here but he’s following my progress closely, and right now he’s all about balanced AC to power his big ol’ Trident mixer. I’ll be having a lightpipe studio for now and I figure that my electrical noise floor isn’t as critical as his. Ha, I’d trade out my lightpipe for the Trident anytime, noise or no noise. He’s into Equi=Tech and Furman stuff. I wonder just how worthwhile it would be for me to have one of Furman balanced AC rack units. I think they run about $1,700, which is about $1,200 more than I feel like spending for something like that. Mo' later,

you're HVAC guy does nice clean work

Yes, the HVAC guy has done recording studios before. He did a massive rehearsal studio space in Madison that has a 625 cubic foot plenum. That’s not to say that he did anything all too special here, but at least he knows what I’m going for. All the (12 gauge) wire has been laid in. Here you can see the dividing wall between iso and control (shot from control). I have some nice sconces on order from Lowe’s that will go on either side of the window on both sides of the wall. The switches for these will be on an electrical box screwed to a stud in the laundry room (not in the wall) with two switches, so I can switch on the lights for either or both rooms as I walk into the control room. No track lighting because my wife is fairly seriously prejudiced against track lighting. No rheostats either. Just some groovy sconces and then whatever other kinds of lamps we choose to put in there. I like it dark, with little pools of light shining on only the stuff I need to see. Maybe I got that way from looking at this ugly basement for a dozen years, trying to make music with a roaring furnace and water heater as a buzzkill. Anyway… View of soffit frame from entrance to control room. Because of the way the ductwork turned out, we were forced to extend the soffit toward the partition wall by about 14 inches. This made me a bit more uncomfortable with the thought of having the soffit bear down at a 90 degree angle. I decided to build in a slant, which is why you see that rail there on the west side of the soffit frame. I figure maybe sound will deflect a bit better of the slant, but that’s probably moot because I’ll be having a ceiling cloud over my head and so most of that space will be fill in. Detail of soffit frame. Note that the ductwork does not make contact with the braces. The soffit cavity will get blown full of cellulose insulation and then get covered with a single layer of drywall. The rest of the ceiling will be covered by (1) cellulose between the joists (2) regular drywall on the joists (3) rc channel (4) regular drywall over the rc channel. I originally wanted to have QuietRock 525 over the soffit, but I opted out at the last minute because of the expense. I’m already having 525 put in all along the south wall (the critical noise wall) and also on both sides of the partition wall, so I guess I ran out of budget for 525. The concrete wall used to be covered with shelf stanchions that I screwed in. We plugged all the holes with hydraulic cement. That hydraulic cement is some crazy stuff! Hope yr having some fun today...

I just still in shock because I have never seen your basement look so clean... Paul

This will be a no cigarette smoking environment. Not sure how I'm going to handle that yet.

big sign saying no smoking along with quotes from your state regulations explaining that people must smoke 25' away from exterior doors etc... :wink: or create a smoking booth in the lounge with air exchange to the outside and/or a smoke "eater" device (ionization).

xj32 wrote:

I just still in shock because I have never seen your basement look so clean... Paul

:) I've never seen it so well lit before...

Of all the musicians I've worked with over the last several years, none of them, NONE of them, were hooked on cigs. I'm only one cig away from my next smoke. So it's me I need to worry about. There's something about having a fag lit while you practice guitar. Or sequence. Or mix. Or write lyrics. Or anything. The soffit ceiling is going to be low, so low that I'm putting in only one layer of drywall instead of two. Standing under the soffit, it feels almost like being in a loft, probably because of how wide it is and also because it's flat out all the way to the east wall. It feels cozy without feeling cramped. I actually think it's cool. I'll need to take care lest I ram a guitar headstock into it. I'm a bit concerned about how sound is going to behave when it hits the (drywall faced) angle dropping down to the soffit ceiling. That slanted plane will start its drop about one foot behind the engineer's head. I was toying with the idea of making the triangular prism hollow, facing it with fabric, and stuffing it full of 703. I'm sure that this could do no harm, and it would look great too. If I don't do this (and I probably won't) I hope that I won't need to apply any treatments to that plane; I suspect that it would be pretty ugly (having to stick foam or something on that face) no matter what the material happened to be. I'm also a little bit (but not too) concerned about what it's going to sound like under the soffit if I put a sofa on the east wall behind the console. I'll probably never have a set of studio monitors that are designed to focus that far back anyway...

would it be an option to simply extend the HVAC soffit all the way to the partition wall?

Sure, but then that room would be absolutely claustrophobic. Control room could make for a killer master bedroom, with the iso room as a spa - gypcrete floor, hot tub, etc. - great water sports facility - you could jump from bed to hot tub and then head right out to a snowbank. :twisted:

Insulation day! In order to lay the insulation, we only had to put up a little bit of drywall: on the laundry room side of the south wall, and on the iso room side of the partition wall. These were the only places that required the drywall to provide a solid backing for the insulation. First we sealed off wires, pipes, and ducts with foam. Then the big insulation truck backed its ass up my house. The skilled workers suited up and got ready! Then they started blowing that lovely, sound absorbing insulation all into this cheesecloth-like material stretched over joists and studs. Fabulous. My wife said that as the insulation was blowing in, the sound coming up from down there got fainter and fainter. Gotta love that! Control room shot from northwest wall. Iso shot from northwest wall. While the insulation boys were around, we had them blow some additional insulation into our attic. Now, every square inch of every exposed surface in the house has a fine layer of dust on it. This is unavoidable, really. It comes up through cracks in the floor, it spins in the air, etc. But cellulose absorbs sound sooooo much better than standard fiberglass insulation, it’s worth the trouble. The difference between this stuff and fiberglass is just jaw dropping. Mo’ Later,

Updates..pics ???

Now that the studs and insulation are all in, time to load in the drywall. Love all this machinery. Careful with that 525, bud! The first layer of drywall goes up on the iso room ceiling. The yellow wall behind the drywall installer is the west iso room wall. The door leads to the backyard. It’s currently comprised of one layer of regular drywall over fiberglass insulation. When you hit it, it resonates like a drum head. I was originally going to install one layer of regular drywall over RC-1 here. I changed my plan because I was so impressed with this cellulose insulation – fist-pounding drywall over the cellulose yields only the dullest of thuds with almost no ring at all. So I decided to pull off the drywall on this wall, give it the cellulose treatment, and then cover it back up with one layer of QuietRock 525. No RC channel. This morning I had a teleconference with my drywall subcontractor, his QuietRock seller, and a rep from QuietRock. The QuietRock rep is adamantly opposed to installing QuietRock 525 over anything other than studs. Two reasons for this (1) it’s not worth it given 525’s already allegedly awesome capabilities, and (2) craftsmanship issues resulting from less-than-optimal attention paid to details when securing the drywall to the channel, the idea being that it could do more harm than good – “short-circuiting” the effectiveness of the 525, according to the QuietRock rep. That said, and turning our attention to the south wall (the furnace and water heater are right behind it), I was advised by the QuietRock rep to just put one layer of 525 over this wall, which spans the full length of the studio (both rooms). I was prepared to face this wall with RC then apply both QuietRock and regular drywall (the other side of the wall has one layer of regular drywall). Well, he talked me out of the RC, but I’m still going to have one layer of 525 and one layer of regular drywall, with a case of Green Glue between the sheets in the area right in front of the furnace. I’m doing this because I already have the materials – might as well just use ‘em since they’re already sitting there. In addition, the electrician positioned the boxes on this wall to accommodate two layers of drywall, and these boxes are already sitting in a heavy nest of cellulose insulation. Taking them out of there and repositioning them would be a mess and it would displace the cellulose that’s already there, compressed into those important spaces where having good insulation is really important. Incidentally, holes in the electrical boxes will be plugged with this putty stuff after all the wires are secured. This material is actually designed to cover the ENTIRE *outer* surfaces of all the boxes, encasing every box in a solid wall of putty. But again, we put the cart before the horse and installed the insulation before doing the boxes. I don’t really care. I can stuff as much of this stuff as I want to right in the front of the boxes. Same difference to me. Learning what little I have about building a studio before actually getting into it for real, I’ve been condition by Gervais to worship mass. The QuietRock guy telling me to forget about having two layers of drywall wherever I can have it, and especially over the noisiest area in the studio goes against my intuition, whatever it’s worth. Then there’s the matter of my case of Green Glue – which you can only use by doing double layers. Add to all this, the sound-absorbing quality of the cellulose insulation. I’m convinced that this insulation is the #1 best sound absorber in my plan. It’s so good that I feel like I don’t even need to fret over any of this other stuff. I could actually start recording in there right now if that stuff wasn’t dripping all over the place and making a mess. So whatever I do will be cool. Maybe a bit of unnecessary spending, but happy endings. If I had more area to cover I’d be way, way more concerned about budget and these kinds of decisions regarding channel, drywall types, Green Glue, all that. My studio is small so the there’s a definite ceiling (no pun) on how much money I can waste. Control room wall frame. Two doors will be installed, first pull then push to get in. Look how thick this wall is, and there’s still two more sheets of 5/8” to go! This staggered stud double wall holds one heck of a lot of cellulose insulation inside. At this stage, it’s really exciting to see these walls thicken up like this. It’s like a normal house till ya get down there, and suddenly it sounds and feels like yr not quite in Kansas anymore. Very cool. It’s actually kind of too bad that I have to cover this insulation, only to have to then start over with treatments. I was messing with the idea of simply installing fabric over the angle leading down to the soffit ceiling. This would be like having a great, kind of ‘automatic’ room treatment, but it would open the control room to a lot of leakage in both directions, so can’t do that! I hope everyone had a very satisfying Holiday! I’ll be back before the 1st with more pix. Mo’Later,

The first layer of drywall is now installed pretty much throughout the space. On the ceiling you can see some little holes that the drywallers needed to make in order to skirt around some jutting ductwork. These holes will all get filled in before laying the hat channel, over which another layer of drywall will be applied. This should be really easy considering that the holes won’t need to be smoothed out or otherwise finished. I like the angled soffit slope much better than if it were a 90 degree angle - way less abrupt. I’m also really glad that the irritating insulation is now finally covered. Cellulose insulation is not something you want to leave uncovered for too long. It gets all over the place. Now the taper will come in and get this first layer caulked and taped before the next layer goes up. Mo’ Later,

nice drywall work...yeah..usually it's all mechanicals and electrical before insulation...:) dude that place is probably so quiet now.....the only thing you'll hear is the sliders on the console!....congrats!... Johnny loved sliders...ehhhhh heh heh cough..cough..hehhhh ehh h

When I decided to have the insulation guys come back and do the west wall (iso, exposed basement wall), I lost about a week because of scheduling problems and such, but I’m glad I did what I did. This wall was 1/2” drywall over fiberglass; the weakest link in the studio after everything else was done. I was originally going to install RC over the ½” and then type X over that. Here you can see what that looked like. The green bar along the bottom is cinder block. New cellulose insulation replaces the fiberglass. One layer of type X. Note that this layer doesn’t cover the cinder blocks. A layer of 525 over the type X, and now the guys are caught up with this revision and can get back to installing the rest of the drywall. Here, they’re putting up type X over hat channel over type X screwed directly to the studs. All done drywalling the iso room! Control room is done! Note that some of the corner rails are up too. Iso wall thickness. Composition is 525, type X, cellulose, type X, 525. South wall thickness. This is the wall right in front of the furnace / water heater / washer / dryer; the noisiest area. It’s composition, from the inside out is: QuietRock 525, Green Glue, type X, massive cellulose, type X. This should do the trick! Mo’ Later,

Marching on... Finishing the outer layer of drywall. It's nice to finally get a perception of the endgame available area. I feel kind of like John Malkovich, or a J.G. Ballard character in 'Manhole 69'. Embalm me with Green Glue and bury me in a coffin of overpriced custom drywall - double layered with airspaces. :wink: Coating over cinder blocks on east control room wall. This will eventually be covered almost entirely by room treatments. Spraying on the sand coat primer. Next, we will be sealing any cracks along the floors with caulk, doing some other minor spackling and whatnot, and then painting out both rooms. Then, on to the flooring. Hope you're having a good one,

Progress! We sprayed some foam in where the drywall hits the floor. Not too much was needed because the drywall was pretty snug at all the junctures. Be reminded though, that a 10’ expanse of crack is equivalent to a 7” hole in the wall. Or something like that. :!: My wife and I painted out the rooms. Man, what a lot of paint we used! I think we used at least 8 gallons. The fresh sandcoat over drywall just drinks that stuff right up. This picture doesn’t really do justice to how nice it turned out. The green is totally pleasing and relaxing to be around, not too dark, not too light...can't wait to see how it reflects the light when everything's done. BTW, none of my ceilings are slanted – it’s lens distortion. Mo’ Later,

Fast progress now! Leveling the floors. The floor sloped down northward about 5/8” inch. This stuff works, but man, it reeks when it’s wet. The area where this stuff is poured had to be sanded and primed first. This type of pad is supposed to have some kind of acoustical properties. It’s just run-of-the-mill stuff, but this is the thickest of three models. It’s not very thick. The blue plastic foam-like stuff is backed with a clear plastic moisture-block sheet. The seams were taped and we used bricks to hold the stuff down while we were taping it. This Bruce flooring is very easy to install. Almost done in just a few hours! Nice. It’s real oak veneer. I can’t figure out how they slice wood that thin. I feel like I got a pretty good deal at Lowe’s end-of the year blowout sale. Here’s one last look at the party wall door jamb. Entrance to control room from laundry room. We’re using very heavy solid core doors that we will stain to match the trim. Notice the nice seals. I’ll provide more detailed pictures of the door assemblies later. Same doors viewed from control room. Party wall door installed. Mo'Later,

Looks great :D I really like your choice of color... pistacio? nice! I'm currently having off-white walls but I'm considering some color...this looks nice, do you have a colorcode for that? a :arrow:

Hi, Yup, it's Pittsburgh Paints Ultra Interior Latex eggshell finish, D6-3 Primitive Hedges. Later on I'm going to put the camera on a tripod and take some no-flash pics. You'll get a better idea of what it really looks like. Mo' Later,

More info on this color, from my wife: We used Pittsburgh Ultra Interior Latex Eggshell finish starting with mid-tone tint base to match a Dutchboy paintchip D6-3 Primitive Hedges. DB00D63

Man you know your paint :D thanks! a :arrow:

I love Stockholm! Been there a bunch of times. I have a buddy there who runs PowerFX.com. Maybe you know him...