Bill's Guitar Lounge Basement Studio Construction

Well, I have started construction! My design thread is here if you're curious: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9635 My space went through several incarnations during my education here and with help from members, especially "Gulfo" (Glenn). After realizing I couldn't really afford soundproofing, I opted for a decent space to mix in with a tracking room for drums and a small "iso" booth to use for vox and as a guitar "closet" when recording. This first images are my final shetchup renderings: The slot (Helmholz) resonators will probably be broadband. The one to the left will be hinged to provide better access to the boiler (green box next to chimney). I have a 1:1.51:2.51 room ratio, 1756 cubic feet (19'5"x11'8"x7'9") so I am hoping I am pretty good in the control room. Anticipating a 150, 300 peak from working with ModeCalc, the Harmon calculator, roomtune, and the awesome Eric Desart calculator (I must admit I am in over my head here)! The ceiling will be r-30 stuffed into the joists covered with either ceiling tiles (where I need to cover pipes or get access) or drywall. I had to face the bitter fact that flanking sound would be such an issue throughout the rest of the areas that it would serve no purpose to try and beef-up, seal and drywall the ceiling (anywhere except in the vox booth, anyway). Rockwool will be stuffed into the cracks, etc., and around the outside perimiter. Wood laminate floor in mixing room. Concrete in tracking room. Carpet in vox booth, rear of control room, "front" of tracking room. Bass traps will be hung on the walls as needed and a ceiling cloud above console. Walls are either drywall with r-13 behind (to stop the walls from resonating), "inside-out walls" with OC703 and Guilford of Maine fabric, or rockwool behind "pegboard" on either side of the stairway (to try and get a little seperation between the two main rooms). I'm getting a dedicated UPS installed for the control room. Picked out flooring, got my rockwool and r-30 in, paid the contractor, :shock: and started... (and look what I've gotten my contractor reading!) We started by having a sub-contractor install a sub-panel (I thought that was funny :) ), then we re-routing the kitchen drain around the outside of the room and moved some copper pipe for the radiators out of the way. Well, actually the contarctor did it. I just sat around and worried about making mistakes! Old pipe position: moved over one joist space: New kitchen drain routed around outside of basement: Then we caulked the small voids and stuffed the places where the joists met the outside wall: This knife worked really good for cutting the insulation: We just laid it on the particle board you see on the floor in front of the bench and sliced it. Next step was stuffing the joists with r-30. When it was possible we put the kraft paper facing up. In other areas it wasn't working so the kraft side is down. Either way, you have to work really fast 'cause once it was opened up it actually "expands" a lot so it should be in contact with both the floor above and the drywall ceiling or drop ceiling below. I hope this isn't a huge mistake! Opinions anyone? In the part of the tracking room where the drums are, instead of ceiling tiles we will be using a simple 24" x 24" frames (like an artist's canvas) with Guilford cloth streatched over it to create a completely absorptive area. To make the ceiling acoustically "dissappear" (I hope) to fight any comb filtering from the drum OH mics. In those areas the kraft paper is facing up, so I hope I'm okay here. more stuffed joists: I was quoted a 100 cfm "bathroom" style fan with 4" duct, but turns out it was like 3.5 sones and would have to be right overhead! I opted to spend an extra hundred bucks and get a Broan L100L, 106 cfm @ .7 sones through 6" duct. I can mount it completely outside the room, weave the (insulated) duct a few times on it's way to the outside world and (hopefully) not hear it at all! That's where I am now. Working again tomorrow and around the holidays. Full speed ahead! I have been waiting for ages to get a proper place for my music. I finally have a supportive wife and family, a good group of musicians and the resources (you all included) to do this. I had an accident last February, ended up with radial nerve damage and thought for a while I would loose the use of my arm, :cry: but in September it started to come back and I realized that music was too important to loose. So "ta da!" I (we) am building a music room! Just had to say that so you'd know where I was coming from! :wink: ~ Bill

Dyamite! Meticulous detail! 8) This is going to be great ... keep posting and let us follow your progress! :)

Thanks Platinum. A question for anyone with HVAC sense: The basement has a boiler and it gets quite hot down there. Even in the winter, we have a basement window, open otherwise it gets so hot you can't stand down there to do laundry! The contractor has suggested that I install two additional (smaller) fans to suck heat out of the basement (outside my room) and direct it through a couple existing passive floor vents to force the heat into the rest of the house. He's gonna put them on a thermostat (with a kill switch) so they will activate when the temp outside my room goes up. He says since the basement will effectively be a lot smaller with my room built, the problem will get worse. It should also save me a bunch on my heating bills and make everything better by not letting it get so hot in the basement (and not having to open a window in the winter). The boiler will have to run less, so it won't be so hot in the basement to begin with, etc. Sounded like a good idea to me. Another $200 to install both fans with thermostat. Does this sound like a fair price and a good idea? Any opinion on my r-30's kraft paper backing facing up AND down in the joists? That has me nervous. I had a hard time deciphering which direction would be the best solution anyway... vapor barrier to the warm side (which side will that be?), hi-freq. reflective propeties of the paper vs. the insulation side (but it will have drywall or ceiling tiles over it), will it form another "leaf"? (even if it is up against another surface either way and I don't have any substantial sound isolation with all the flanking anyway)... Aaaaaargh, my heads gonna explode! :? I quess I'm at least half-right either way! ~ Bill

Any opinion on my r-30's kraft paper backing facing up AND down in the joists? That has me nervous. I had a hard time deciphering which direction would be the best solution anyway... vapor barrier to the warm side (which side will that be?), hi-freq. reflective propeties of the paper vs. the insulation side (but it will have drywall or ceiling tiles over it), will it form another "leaf"? (even if it is up against another surface either way and I don't have any substantial sound isolation with all the flanking anyway)...

Hi CidyZoo, What you need to understand here is that the dreaded so called "third leaf effect " will only occur if your paper backing is located in between an air space appart form the two outer leaves.The paper backing must be placed against one or the other outer leaves (touching) to avoid the third leaf Fx. Now as for the vapour barrier fuction of that paper backing i'd say to place it against your inner leaf. Vapour barrier are used to protect the building structure from moisture. Placing it on the inner leaf will keep moisture from building up between your outter leaf (floor above) and inner leave (studio ceiling). Hope this is clear enough. You may ask Rod about that, he's the man of the situation for that kind of question.

Thanks Orangenumerick! I think I am okay then. Another room mode question. I am trying to set my back wall depth and I am puzzled. My room has a huge bass trapping area behind the front two sides (see my sketchup). I am not sure what room width to use! The hard walls are going to be 12'8" width on the back section of the control room. Then I'll have 4' of helmholz angling in at 8 degrees. the remainder of the two side walls are bass traps (fabric covered OC 703) that dump out into the rooms on either side of my CR. On one side I have about 14' to the nearest wall, on the other about 5' to the nearest wall. How the heck to I figure that out? Just compute using the square dimension of 12'8"... or use an "average" (I come up with something like 11'7"), but that seems like it will be way off because I am "averaging" to a wall that isn't actually there (if I just extend the fabric and measure it as if there was a wall behind it)! Do I try to figure out the "average" of a partial 12'8" ~ 26'8" (on one side) and 16'8" on the other? That math is way beyond me. I just want to get a nice room ratio determined. The contractor will be back on Wednesday to start framing and needs to know where I want my back wall. I figure it can be any depth between 19'4" ~ 20'2". Not too close to the support pole for the main beam inside the CR and not too close to the washer and dryer (which for some unknown reason are sitting on a 6" tall concrete slab) and I can still fit it sucessfully in my basement. "Help Cecil, HELP!", as Beenie would say!... Mathmatically challeged... ~ Bill On another note, the HVAC guy says now I need to have an intake duct to feed combustible air to my boiler. He can't believe I didn't have one already... add another $200. Aparently it needs to be 6" insulated ducting with a "flapper" thang on one end that just dumps out the other end next to my boiler. AND since I am venting out 100cfm from my CR AND forcing hot air upstairs, I'll need yet ANOTHER 6" duct split to feed plain old fresh air into the rooms. He's adding the cost of that up for me over the holidays. Good thing I bought my Chistmas gifts already! Oh yeah, just got a call that my OC703 is in... Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas after all! ~ B.

I've been thinking about this all day and I've gotta believe that the best approach for me to take with this room configuration is to ignore the section of wall that has in effect a "very deep" bass trap behind it (the two front 1/3'ds of my side walls) and base my measurements on the "rigid" wall portions of each side. My original measurent was : 19'5"x11'8"x7'9" giving me a room ratio of 1:1.5:2.5 - a ratio originally recommended by Volkman in 1942 of 2:3:5, right? (see I have been studying). But I see also that it is not in Sepmeyer or Loudens lists. Okay, if that's how I re-approach this then: More accurate measurements for estimating, (if I use ONLY the rigid portion of the side walls) is: (?)x12'8"x7'9" a) height is fixed at 7'9" b) the maximum width I have available is 12'8" and I want as big a room as possible and the location of the side walls are somewhat limited by their position along the length of a joist and the existing stairs. c) If those two dimensions are fixed, I can only "adjust" the third. d) Axial (maybe not so with others?) modes generated by the width of the room should be weakned by the very deep bass trapping available in the front of the side halfs of the room (the very thing that makes this so confusing for me :shock: ). e) Axial Modes generated by the height and length will be strong as those surfaces are constant. f) So the tangential width modes/height modes and width modes/length modes should be weaker than the tengential length modes/height modes. f) I will attatch a greater weight to length mode and height mode coincidences. :? I ran asorted dimensions into Eric Desart's Room Mode Calculator (as well as some others). I really don't have enough knowledge to understand this completely but I think 19' 4-1/2" is the optimum depth for my circumstance. It gives me a 1:1.63:2.5 ration. Very close to these examples: "19) Origin unknown: equals ± 1:1.6:2.56 - 0.625:1:1.6" differing by .03 in width and .06 in depth (close) "22) Origin unknown: normal - often used ratio - 1:1.6:2.5" differing by .03 in width only (very close) from this reference: http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?p=5570#5570 And very close to Volkmans 1:1.5:2.5, differing only in the (I hope "weaker" room modes) width ratio by .13 (also kinda close) It is just outside the Bolt area (bad). Within the EBU R22-1998 recommendations (good). About .56 standard deviation from ideal Louden ratio as per the beautiful Eric Desart graph (not great, but far from worst). The Schroeder frequency is 147.7 Hz so from there up I should be okay, The first issues seems to be around 145Hz. If need be I should think I could tune my Helmholz to that. Regardless, I have a lot of broad band bass trapping either built in or planned for the wall suface. Well, I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you guys who know what you are talking about. But, it's my best guess :wink: So unless I have some sort of epiphiny, looks like 19' 4-1/2" it is. ~ Bill

"Help Cecil, HELP!", as Beenie would say!...

Good God, I haven't thought of those two in years. You sparked some neurons I forgot I had :D

Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent... Bob Golds calculator has me look pretty good except around 53-58z, 73-78Hz, 98-113Hz I guess it doesn't calculate beyond 205.8Hz? Not too bad on the modes per 1/3 octave Bonello graph except for that spike @ 150Hz. Passing on R. Walker BBC 1996. Schroeder Fq @ 116Hz (Hmmm... that's different) I've just got too much time to kill waiting for walls to begin appearing! ~ Bill

Bill, Is that an oil/gas burner near the washer and dryer? I'm not sure where you are located, but you may want to doublecheck on codes for these utilities - They require an air source of certain cubic feet in the basement and/or a pipe intake has to be run to grab air from outside. Just a thought of detail.

Hi Cram, Does that sound like what the HVAC guy was talking about here?:

CidyZoo wrote:

On another note, the HVAC guy says now I need to have an intake duct to feed combustible air to my boiler. He can't believe I didn't have one already... add another $200. Aparently it needs to be 6" insulated ducting with a "flapper" thang on one end that just dumps out the other end next to my boiler. AND since I am venting out 100cfm from my CR AND forcing hot air upstairs, I'll need yet ANOTHER 6" duct split to feed plain old fresh air into the rooms. He's adding the cost of that up for me over the holidays.

It isn't by the washer (that's a utility sink in my drawing), but rather next to the chimney. Thanks for the look and the comment though. I hope folks are watching me to make sure I don't screw up. ~ Bill

CidyZoo wrote:

Hi Cram, Does that sound like what the HVAC guy was talking about here?:

CidyZoo wrote:

On another note, the HVAC guy says now I need to have an intake duct to feed combustible air to my boiler. He can't believe I didn't have one already... add another $200. Aparently it needs to be 6" insulated ducting with a "flapper" thang on one end that just dumps out the other end next to my boiler. AND since I am venting out 100cfm from my CR AND forcing hot air upstairs, I'll need yet ANOTHER 6" duct split to feed plain old fresh air into the rooms. He's adding the cost of that up for me over the holidays.

It isn't by the washer (that's a utility sink in my drawing), but rather next to the chimney. Thanks for the look and the comment though. I hope folks are watching me to make sure I don't screw up. ~ Bill

That is exactly what I was mentioning this for. It's one of the primary concerns for basement work in our town's inspection guidelines. I am continuing on with regular construction in finishing our other basement areas - washer/dryer/utility room, a rec room for kids... I am going to run an intake for air with our boiler and was actually planning it out last week - it was fresh in my mind when I saw that photo.

So my contractor drops off the OC703 in my garage, I didn't know this stuff came in 4' x 8' sheets! They're huge. That should make it easier to stand up in the walls and Helmholz I guess. He says it was a little cheaper that way. I had to lay the floor in a square, to make the bank (my wife) happy. In case we sell the house, we can replace the fabric walls with drywall and have a square room. Contractor says he'll cover it with canvas and plywood to proect it till we're done then just cut the canvas away. Just be a couple holes from anchoring the base of the wall. I hope to never put it to the test! Anyway, he finished up the floor. It looks cool. It's just a laminate, but hey, it beats concrete and he got it for me at Sam's Club for only $1.30/sq. ft. with the backer material attached. The existing concrete floor was pretty smooth, but one corner has a gentle slope towards the drain so he glued that portion and we put my old heavy bag on there to hold it down. At least it's finally getting some use! Left a small gap around the edge to allow for expansion. I am obliged to to the destruction and some of the work, so I rolled my sleeves and pulled the pegboard and put rockwool in most of wall but realized... I have to move this outlet... That's for tomorrow!

Getting a little more work done, framing should all be done tomorrow: Plan for the front wall: Got the Roxul in and moved the plug: Need suggestions on vox booth below: Angled wall and everything except the farthest wall is gonna be 2 layers of 1/2" drywall filled with Roxul. The drywall will extend up into the joist cavities and all the "cracks" will be caulked. The farthest wall will be fabric over 703 with three layers of 1/2" (on the outside). I have a solid core exterior door with a threshold. Big question is the ceiling. I already have R-30 inbetween the joists. Option A) drywall, but I am concerned with the low ceiling height that the hard surface might be a reflective (comb filtering) problem. Option B) drop ceiling grid with fabric only ceiling "tiles" (like an artists canvas) and roxul or 703 above it. Good absorption but not so much isolation. Option C) drywall with RC-1, but that seems excessive considering the relatively poor isolation I will have with the simple door, no double walls and it will need to have some penetrations through the walls for ventilation. Anyone care to vote on that one? I am thinking (B) myself.

CidyZoo wrote:

vapor barrier to the warm side (which side will that be?),

Bill, both sides are warm sides - and (as is typical) inside the house you won't have problems with condensation - so don't put vapor barrier on the ceiling - only on walls where you will have issues with condensation on cold concrete, etc. You want the vapor to migrate upwards and out of the house......... Rod

Looking great, and you are making excellent progress.

Thank you Mr. Gervais and doublehelix. I appreciate you paying notice to my humble project! It ain't much, but it's miles ahead of what I had. I am still curious about treating the ceiling in the vox booth. Unless someone pipes in with another opinion, I'll be using option "B". Unless I am missing something I figure that given my budget and space restrictions, that will give me the best result. One detail that I haven't dealt with yet is how to best seal the tops of my walls that are perpendicular to the joists. The walls that run "along" a joist are just caulked and nailed to the joist. The angled walls and the perpendicuar ones present another problem.

Well, still thinking about the celing in the booth and that brings up a theoretical question. Would my M-A-M ceiling be more effective with wall treatment (A) or (B)? I think if I seal the ends (B), sound couldn't enter through the space between joists (into my air cavity). However if the end is sealed, is the energy of the sound directed more strongly upwards and downwards (which I don't want)? Conversely, if the space between joists were left "open" (A) would more sound escape (and be trapped) in the larger open area outside the booth and therefore not forced so directly up (or down)? Brought in a laser to mark the drop ceiling height and I am hating all the ceiling height I am loosing when I use a drop ceiling. Now I am thinking that I should just drywall the ceiling in the vox booth and tracking room instead and use "clouds " in there if there is a problem with reflections off the ceilings. That way at least part of the room gets up to 7'. Hmmmm... so many happy decisions! Got this done today: ~ Bill

Front R. picture. Why is there an electrical outlet in between these two walls? And are you doing anything to these boxes to reduce leakage? Fire retardant putty, blocking, something?

It was an existing outlet in the wall that I moved. It has putty pack behind as will all the boxes, just like this little fella here! The area where you see that outlet will actually be inside my bass trap area. It will be behind the fabric covered walls, but I have access to the space from the other side. It will be doubling as a storage area also (it is under the stairs that lead down into the basement). There is a "pass-through" behind the stairs that currently connects to the tracking room on the other side of the steps. We will be filling the wall on the other side of the stairs with roxul and building a heavy door/plug to seal the opening on that side. It's not a perfect solution, but it should give me enough separation between the CR and the tracking room for what I do. It's all I have the budget for regardless! :shock: If the bleed through is still too loud, after construction is done, my next step is a matching heavy door/plug for the near side as well. Of course that one I'll have to fabricate myself :shock: My UPS unit will probably sit in there also. Got more done today: Waiting on the window. I think we should have done that before the front wall, but... oh, well! The fans and duct work will start going in on Monday, drywall begins on Wednesday if everything stays on schedule. I have to putty pack the rest of the boxes, rip out the wall face on the other side of the stairs and fill it with roxul, make a decision on lighting fixtures for the tracking room ceiling and vox booth wall/ceiling joint (my earlier question), and measure and order fabric tomorrow! yikes! I was going to put a fancy metal plate with an assortment of connectors into the wall on the right, but I think now a snake will be an easier, cheaper solution, and interupt the wall less. Does anybody have a good solution for a strain relief when using a snake like this through the walls? I know I've seen it somewhere on this board, but I can't seem to find it. :? This is the booth below. I almost forgot to provide an access panel for mics/guitar cable, headphones! I would have had an airtight room with no way to get a signal out. Duh! We'll box in the panel area, pack the box with putty and surround it with roxul. The mate will be on the CR wall just to the right of the electrical outlet... Hold on, elec. outlet? oh, crap. They are probably too close together. Hmmm... could use a different wall in the booth... move the outlet (not enough wire pulled to move it very far). Have to think on that for a while. On another equally puzzling note, I am still trying to figure out the best way to ventilate the booth. I've been combing through threads looking... any suggestions that worked well for you guys? I willl have a pretty good exhaust fan (broan L100L) I can tap into. Maybe combine that with adding a baffle on a passive "intake" into the booth. I'd need to make a baffle for the exhaust to pass through also. Again with the Hmmmmm.... Anyone have an opinion on my ceiling/wall question? Booth vent question? Snake through wall strain relief question? ~ Bill

Okay, no direct answers to my questions so I will carry on! :D Got the rest of the roxul in the walls and the drywall hung over the past four days. Control room looking into vocal booth: Left side of CR. Hole where moveable helmhoz will be: Drywall, acoustic caulking, mud, tape, sand, repeat, repeat, paint with primer (inside iso booth). Ceiling detail in iso booth: Right side of CR looking toward tracking room and bath (space for helmholz on left side of pic): Primed walls, looking into vox booth: Hooked up the electrical outlets, lights, wall plugs, etc. Removed pegboard and put roxul into wall between tracking room and control room: Looking toward tracking room: Elec on concrete walls run in conduit then down the wall: My SUPER quiet fan. I didn't even know it was on! 6" flex insulated duct connects to intake at rear of CR and exhausts to outside: Cable pass through into vox booth (studs only): Cable pass through in vox booth (sealed in): After I wire these, the boxes will be filled with Metacaulk (putty pack) and sealed with acoustic caulk. That's about it for now. More wiring to do, but not much to see. Will be trimming doors down to scale into space better. I'll try and take some pics of that installation. Next will be the drop ceiling over all the plumbing, etc., building helmholz and treatments, more flooring, paint... aaaaarrrgh! Just chuggin' along. ~ Bill

Wow Bill! Great progress! Much faster than I could ever hope to do! Keep it up, you will be done before I am!

I wish I could take credit for all the work! I still can't really do any substantial work with my left arm, so I am more a supervisor... The contractor I have is doing a great job. His son is a touring musician, so he was familiar (vicariously anyway) with a lot of the terminology I was using and the concepts of sound absorption, reflection, diffusion, isolation, etc. I think he is excited to do something different than standard house construction and then he gets bragging rights about "doing a studio". I have been very careful to always make sure he understands what I am doing, as well as explaining the things that I am making compromises on and "why". So he realizes that I'm not doing it as "right" as I could be. We started by discussed beefing up layers on the ceiling, but joist loading, ceiling height, and expense were going to be an issue. So given that limitation (the weakness in the isolation potential of the ceiling), most sound "proofing" options were off the table, (except in putting together the iso booth). We focused mainly on acoustical treatments for recording and mixing in the rooms. He has made some great construction suggestions that I wouldn't have seen since he has building trades experience. I just got another shipment of putty packs and acoustical sealant today, so I can do some work too (no heavy lifting)! :wink: ~ Bill

Busy, busy... Right side Helmholz set into wall: Left side Helmholz, note small caster under left bottom and long "piano" hinges on right side: Detail of construction (right side): Hinge on side of moveable Helmholz: Simple frame for Bass trap in tracking room. I am just going to set one layer of 2" 703 into the frame and cover it with Guilford of Maine fabric: Detail of frame fastned to wall: Helmholz (partly) opened: Helmholz closed: Back side of Helmholz facing boiler. I had to let this Helmholz become a "door" to give working space around the boiler. It satisfies the "minimum space required for operation", (actually exceeds it by about 18") but if we ever need to work on it, it would have been way to cramped: Simple cupboard style latch: Opened: Acoustic caulked interior of Helmholz. I cauked it like it was gonna be a lifeboat! More caulking:

I thought I'd stop back in and share what I (we) accomplished! ..and my wife wonders why I am always in the basement. Remember, I am the guy who completely lost the use of my left hand for almost a year, when it finally looked like the nerve damage would repair, I decided life was too short not to spend it as a musician. Thanks for all your help. ~ Bill

very nice Bill. :)