Turning a shed into a recording studio

[omen]

Hi Everyone!
This is my first post, so i hope i've done everything correctly.

I'm a carpenter and audio engineer and i'm planning to build a small recording studio in the shed of my parents farm at Seal Rocks on the mid north coast of N.S.W.

I've worked in a "real" studio (Velvet Sound, Sydney) as a assistant engineer for 3 years and then went on to build a small control room in a rehearsal studio in Brookvale, Sydney (Scene Around Sound). The control room at SAS was made from what ever building materials i could get my hands on from job sites, so it was a bit crude to say the least. So i've had a bit of experience. This studio i want to get right.

The music i'll be recording will be rock/punk/metal. So i'm thinking of building a control room, drum room and a isolation booth to record vox and guitars.

Being on a farm, isolation from neighbours is not really a problem. But it is a tin shed, so, rain, falling sticks, snakes and wildlife, etc could be a problem.

Ive posted some pictures of the shed. The post in the middle of the shed will come out. i'll just double up the rafter too take the load of the roof. So i didn't put it in the SketchUp drawing. There is also a self contain flat out the back of the shed that has a kitchen and a loo and the storage of my folks stuff. So i'm thinking of putting a door from the isolation booth to the flat.

The floor is dirt at the moment. I'm thinking of laying a chipboard floor, floating on 20mm neoprene which i have a lot of. Any suggestions would be great!

I guess i'll clad the walls and ceiling with 16mm FireCheck Gyprock, with rockwool behind it. Again any suggestions would be great.

Ive had a look at how to build bass traps and broadband diffusers. Pretty easy to build... But where to put them is the tricky part

Any suggestions you guys can make will be greatly appreciated!!!
Cheers
Damien

[Soundman2020]

Floating floor? Are you sure? That is way, way more complex than you probably imagine, and a bit of neoprene with chipboard on top is not the right way to it.

Read this:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=2&t=8173

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

The post in the middle of the shed will come out. i'll just double up the rafter too take the load of the roof.

Is that safe? It seems to me that you are going to need to beef up the inside of that roof and use it as your outer leaf, and that is going to require a lot of mass up there. I don't think a couple of 2x6 are going to be able to handle the load.

Ive had a look at how to build bass traps and broadband diffusers. Pretty easy to build... But where to put them is the tricky part

Bass traps are easy: They go in the corners. Lots of them (bass traps). In as many corners as possible. All twelve if you can, but at least the four main ones.

I'm not sure why you would want diffusers in your control room, since it won't be very big, so I guess you are talking about diffusers in the live rooms?


How about some dimensions at a SketchUp model?

And read this too: Click here.


- Stuart -

[xSpace]

"The floor is dirt at the moment. I'm thinking of laying a chipboard floor, floating on 20mm neoprene which i have a lot of. Any suggestions would be great!"

Spend a month reading this website, that is the best suggestion I could come up with:)

[omen]

Hi All,
Thank you very much for your input

I spoke to my old man who's a builder, and he said that it shouldn't be a problem with doubling up the ceiling joist. The span is only 3.5m. I'm also considering building a wall straight under that joist. So it shouldn't be a problem.

Also after to speaking to Dad about the floor, he informed me that its not a dirt floor. Its concrete!! I don't know why i thought it was dirt. Maybe because it was um dirty.
So that solves that problem. No floating floor.

Yeah bass traps in the corners. I should have said that. I also like the idea of removable diffusers, i've seen some ace designs floating around this site. To be able to make the drum room live or dead seems cool.

What do you guys think of the over all lay out of the studio?

Soundman2020,
I'm pretty sure all the dimension are on the ShetchUp file i posted. I downloaded it and they were all there. Please let me know if i'm doing something wrong.

Again thanks heaps!!!
Damien

[Ro]

Hai Omen and welcome.

As X suggested, read this forum. It's crammed with good info. You'll be digging treasures in no time

I wouldn't worry about acoustics (you talk about basstraps, diffusers etc) too much in the design stage. Get a good floorplan first. Get all the construction details worked out, using sketch-up for example. It's a great tool indeed!

That seems like not such a big shed to have AND a CR AND a LR AND a booth... or am I wrong?

anyway, get cracking on that design and post ye plans here. We can discuss'em untill it's a plan!

[John Sayers]

Omen - can you please post the dimensions of the shed?

Seal Rocks is a beautiful spot to build a studio