John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Dear Acoustical Masters

I’m really hoping you can help me solidify my plan, so I can move forward and build my studio.

I’m looking to build a one room home studio in my garage and play heavy rock in there
(probably going to get up to 110 db inside easy) via Marshals, DW drums, 1000 watt bass rig, monitors, young kids etc…….

I already got all the recording equipment and other gear we need (for now) I just got to build the studio!

Of course I got a super low budget to build all of this

Budget has been raised to around 7k (not enough I know)

Currently the garage is built with standard construction and is finished.
The construction consists of ½ finish wood on the outside, insulation sort of installed in the walls (not sure what kind or size),
5/8 drywall, studs 16” on center. The bummer is that there are some areas of the walls that don’t have insulation
It was not built with soundproofing in mind at all, so it was not sealed in anyway Though I did take out the garage door, frame it
in completely and insulate it. There is no vaulted ceiling; it has an access hole to the attic that I plan I covering up after we run the
new electrical outlets. I’m hoping I don’t need a floating floor as the garage is on its own cement slab but is possibly sort or connected
with possible flanking paths (that I could cut if need be) to the main house through a side walk and it also does connect to main street
through the drive way. I will post pictures of possible flanking paths.

The current inside dimensions are L x 19.4 W x 17.4 H x 9’

I plan on making a floating drum riser just like this Auralex one for the drums and I’m going to put the bass and guitar amps on Gramma pads
to decouple them from the floor, hoping this helps a little to dissipate the bass energy, every little bit helps right???

Maybe jumping too far forward but as far as ventilation goes I wanted a MR.slim mini split AC but they turned out to be $4000
installed (which is ridiculous) and way over my budget, so with some DIY research I found a cheaper (possibly better) solution.
I can tape a couple trash bags to the front of a 15000 BTU window AC (set it on the ground outside of the studio) and connect ducting
to supply and return to the garage. I tested this DIY theory out and it works great and is pretty quiet. I bet with plenums with a S curve I
could further isolate music noise from escaping out of the studio to the neighbors and get the AC dead quiet as well best part
is I can do this whole project for under $1000 (or a bit cheaper if I didn’t want a 26 seer AC).
I will post a pic for reference.


http://cosmoairconditionerinverter.blog ... erter.html
I actually like this idea better than a mini split, cause these AC’s allow fresh air into the mix, so I don’t have to open the door all the time.

To give you guys a better overall picture I will post a couple budgets, one based on the cheapest way just adding another layer of drywall
(with Butyl to dampen the drywall) and another budget going all out room within a room.

I have also included some pictures of the garage for reference and a drawing of the studio layout I got in mind.

I’ll get into other things later (such as room treatment) for now these are the issues I need to sort out before I can move forward.

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!

ps I read FAQ and tried my best but if I posted something wrong please let me know so I can fix it asap thanks!

canceled cheaper approach

Room within a Room

2x4’s x 60 (framing) $200
Genie Clips (for ceiling) $200
Hat Channel $120
Electrical work (help from a friend) $400
Drywall (40 x 4x12 sheets 2 layers) $740
AC 15,000 BTU window unit 24 seer! $650
AC lung room (very small room and all needed duct work) $800
Plenum x 2 or silencers $300
Doors solid core x 2 (seals & threshold + beef up add layer of drywall & mdf) $500
Laminate Floor $400
Green Glue x 42 tubes $750
Acoustic Caulk (seal all seams) $200
Lighting (incandescent track lights) $200
Glass x 2 3’x2’ laminated ¼” and 1/2“ $400
Rockwool (insulation inside walls) $1000
Bass traps x 30 (2” thick 703) 5 boxes $600
Fabric $150
Iso Booth ventilation box (www.dawbox.com) $150
Paint $60
Diffusion wall (Quadratic Residue Diffuser) start with 6 of them $600
Desk DIY (for console) $300
Drop ceiling (got most of acoustic tiles already + rest Diy $400
Misc $500



Total $9,620

pics

"Plywood for floor 5/8” 9 sheets 4x8 $250
Plywood for floor 2nd layer ½” 9 sheets 4x8 $200"

If you have a concrete floor, and you (in your words) hope you do not have to have a floating floor, what in the world are you buying material like plywood (several layers by the way) for the floor which are not helping but only add to the basic budget that you DID not mention

Please do not build this thing based on your incomplete understanding of what it is you are doing...we will stop looking:)

ahh budget I knew I forgot something thanks

budget is roughly $7000 but I can scrounge up a bit more if I have to just trying to keep it around 7k for initial build and save up more $ later to finish

ok so I can eliminate 1 of the 2 layers of wood for the floor, still need one layer to nail some nice oak hardwood flooring to (I might possibly score).
probably best to change it to tongue and groove as well instead of rigging it. I'm pretty sure I need one layer of wood to nail floor to
got to look into never done it before.

as far as "Please do not build this thing based on your incomplete understanding of what it is you are doing...we will stop looking:)"

care to dig in a little deeper?

I'll do room within a room if I have to but like I said I got decent results with that vocal booth already.

again any feedback or advise would be much appreciated

I'm not set in stone which path I'm going to take, that's why I'm here asking for advise and gave some background info

so Xspace what do you suggest I do?

So let me guess rip off drywall leave insulation exposed as to not create the 3rd leaf effect.
Build room within a room, green glue only way to go.

I thought I laid out a decent case on why I didn't need to go crazy with room withing a room considering my previous results

just trying to save money,

Room within a room is cool with me if everyone is totally opposed to my cheap idea
and thinks my freak results were a one time luck thing and not relevant to what I'm trying to do.

Love 528 wrote:So let me guess rip off drywall leave insulation exposed as to not create the 3rd leaf effect.
Build room within a room, green glue only way to go.

I thought I laid out a decent case on why I didn't need to go crazy with room withing a room considering my previous results

just trying to save money, that's why I brought up my vocal booth results

Room within a room is cool with me if everyone is totally opposed to my cheap idea
and thinks my freak results were a one time luck thing and not relevant to what I'm trying to do.

Read, read, read. This site as well as Rod Gervais and F. Alton Everest.

If you're on a $6000 budget you'd be more apt to add another layer of drywall to your design vs. the green glue you mentioned in your correct guess (tearing off the drywall). I noticed in your "room in a room" budget that you didn't have anything listed for 2x__ ceiling joists, just 2x4 wall framing. Keep in mind, that's not building a true room in a room. You need to at least use resilient channel (or isolation clips and hat channel) on the existing ceiling framing if you're not going to build an independent ceiling structure. The acoustic tile dropped ceiling will provide very little isolation.

I'd save the money on the plywood for the floor and walls, dropped ceiling and the butyl, and put it into the ceiling joists and more drywall. Acoustic caulk. Spend a little more on doors. The mass of the concrete floor is already so great that laying down a few layers of plywood isn't really going to improve the situation that much, whereas decoupling the new ceiling and walls from the existing building structure will give you much better overall results. Nails in the hardwood floor are like little conductors of sound. Maybe not an extreme amount in this case, but they definitely hurt more than they help. I'd stick with laminate.

As far as your MDF vocal booth's isolation, vocals are one thing. Kick drums and bass guitar amps produce large waves that would go right through the MDF if you tried a method like that in your studio. I could see a situation where you may have some success isolating vocals with a single leaf system. The frequencies and amplitudes of the sound waves your voice created don't compare to the loud low frequencies you'll be creating with the band. MDF vs. 2 leaf MSM walls is comparing apples to oranges.

If you want to isolate a rock band, use the Mass Spring Mass double leaf method. Use as much mass and as much spring/air gap as you can afford to do (physically and financially). Also seal everything like you want to do, with extra attention underneath the wall framing (like 3 beads 3/8" thick). Doors are like an open wound to your wall if they aren't built and sealed properly.

Everyone who answers your questions wants to help you, but you've got to trust them and realize that doing it yourself (construction) is only going to be as high quality as the time you put in to doing it yourself (design/learning). Believe me, I've been in your shoes.

cool man thanks for reply

my bad I forgot about the genie clips for the roof and I am aware of that aspect as well as better ways.
In my case I think I'm going to have to use genie clips cause I don't want to put up truss beams as they would eat up too much of my ceiling height.

I'm very aware a drop ceiling does nothing for isolation and it pretty much strictly for treatment.

I have seen several studio built and been apart of building several of them, so I do know a little about the various techniques and how much it cost to do everything right.

I was curious so I went over to a friends house that I sold the booth to and had him kick the kick drum in it. It was coming out like
i thought it would but it wasn't horrible, I could pretty much live with the bleed I was hearing and so could my neighbors except late at night.
Like I said good enough is fine with me and across the street you could barely hear the low end bump.

with that said I still have decided to build the room within a room and not leave anything to chance as I'm sure with bass guitar it would of been worse and
it could get annoying if they heard the low level bass all the time not to mention jamming late night can be really cool at times.

I'm sure I'll have some few questions some things along the way.

Anyone know if buytl is a decent substitute for green glue?
a few of the studios my friends have built used butyl and it seemed to work great and was much cheaper than GG

also anyone every try the AC method I wrote about, I'm pretty surprised how well its working with a 8000 BTU unit, I hope it works out
with the plenums.

thanks again the feedback is appreciated

Hi Love528, and welcome!

Some quick answers, pretty much repeating what others already said in some places:

Based on your original post:
1. It looks like you have a reasonable basic existing structure. Should be usable, with modifications, but not the way you are planning right now!

2. Your budget is definitely on the low side (but I think you already know that!). Any chance you can increase it? Double would be about right, as a starting point...

3. "has an access hole to the attic that I plan I covering up". Might not be a good idea to cover that up, unless there is an alternative access somewhere outside the room. There's a reason for those access holes: many reasons why you might need to get into the roof space at some point down the road. Can you put a new access hatch in somewhere else? It would be sad to spend all that money on building your studio, then have to tear a hole in the ceiling when you have a leak up there, or wiring issue, or whatever...

4. "I’m hoping I don’t need a floating floor as the garage is on its own cement slab". I doubt that you will need to float the floor, but you cannot do it even if you want to! You do not have the budget! Floating a floor properly costs big money. 6K would maybe cover the cost of the concrete, without considering anything else at all (demolition, earth moving, springs, structural calculations, permits, etc.). So forget that idea, and in all honesty, you most likely do not need to do it anyway.

5. "with possible flanking paths (that I could cut if need be) to the main house through a side walk". That sounds like it should be easy to cut. Probably not necessary, but if you can make a cut across the sidewalk and fill the gap with flexible sealant, that might help a little.

6. "and it also does connect to main street through the drive way". Also probably not necessary, but once again it should be easy to cut and seal. A straight cut across the end of the driveway, where it joins the slab, and seal the gap. But DO CHECK WITH AN ENGINEER FIRST! There might be structural issues involved in doing that. However, both of these cuts are probably not necessary. And since you could do them at any time, even after the studio is complete, then maybe it would be best to wait until the end, to see if you need more isolation or not. Not necessary to do this up front.

7. "I’m battling myself about going all out and building a room
within a room." If you are expecting levels of 110 dB in the room (And that's a really LOW estimate! they will most likely be more like 115-120, from what you say), and you need to get that down to a "not bothering the neighbors and family" point, or at least to the "no cops knocking on the door" point, then you really don't have much choice: full two-leaf decoupled, isolated, MSM room-in-a-room is the only way to go, really.

8. "I could go in there and death metal yell very loud and barely hear anything inside the garage and nothing at all outside". There is a huge, major, big-time difference between a "very loud death metal yell" and a full-on rock band beating their brains out! The band produces roughly 1,000 times more acoustic energy... So you need roughly 1,000 times better isolation...

9. "2 tubes butyl per sheet (instead of green glue)". There is no substitute for GG. If you go that route, you are on your own with how it might work out. No published research, no idea at all if it would help or harm. Butyl products are nowhere near the same as GG, and will definitely NOT have the same effect. GG is not glue (despite the name) and never dries. It is specifically designed to do constrained layer damping in sheetrock or wood walls. Butyl compounds are not. If you can't afford GG then DO NOT try to substitute something else! Just go without it completely, and add an extra layer of 5/8" drywall instead. You will get roughly the same effect from the extra layer of drywall. Of course, it will use up extra space, add extra weight, etc. but the effect is almost the same as a layer of GG.

10. "and I may get me similar results to what I got with the MDF vocal booth". Yep! Exactly! You most likely will get something similar to what you had with the MDF booth... which will be about 1,000 times too flimsy for what you actually need for an entire rock band. To understand the difference: Yes, you may well be able to scream at 100 db (maybe even 120!), but your voice only covers a small fraction of the spectrum that a rock band covers. For example, the human voice puts out practically no energy at all below about 150 Hz, but that's were the rock band puts out a huge amount of energy: Kick, toms, bass, keyboards, even electric guitars put out a lot of energy down in that region. On the other end: Your voice doesn't put out much energy at all above about 4kHz either, but the rock band sure does: crash, ride, hat, snare, guitars, keyboards all pour out rivers of energy up there. Next, your voice is a single point source, acting out of a space of a couple of square inches (your mouth, wide open). The band is MANY sources: point, linear and even planar (to a certain extent), acting over many square feet of area (compare the size of your mouth to the size of the heads on the kick drum, or the area of the speaker in the bass cab!)... It simply is not comparable. Your band will be putting out roughly 1000 times more energy than your loudest scream, and will do it across the entire spectrum, including the parts that your voice does not even touch, which just happen to be the parts that are most difficult to isolate anyway: the low frequencies, below about 150 Hz. You cannot compare a scream to a rock band, even if they both happen to clock 120 dB. No comparison. Think of this: In a big rock concert, the sound level might be 120 dB: The loudest scream ever recorded is something like 125 dB. Do you honestly think that the guy that managed the loudest-ever scream could stand next to the speaker stack at a Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd concert, and drown out the entire concert with his scream? Uhhh... nope! Do you think he would even be HEARD more than a few feet away? Ummm.... nope! Even though he appears to be 5 dB LOUDER, there simply is no way that he can compete, simply because of the total amount of acoustic ENERGY going out. It's not just about relative sound levels: it is about spectrum, and it it about total surface area, and total acoustic energy output. That's just a long-winded way of saying that your "death metal scream" is not a valid measure. Final thought experiment: Do you think that you could pack the entire speaker stack from Pink Floyd into your booth (or as much as will fit!), play "The Wall" at 120 dB (or whatever the level of your scream was) and expect to hear nothing at all outside? Case closed....

11. "one possible factor that helped the isolation with the vocal booth is that the garage has carpet (the booth was sitting on) with a rubber pad under the carpet and I think the booth was kind of floating due to this" Not really "floating" in the technical sense, but probably fairly well decoupled... for voice frequencies. However, once again that was a VOCAL booth, not an entire rock band. Orders of magnitude difference in levels. In any event, the carpet will have to go when you build the room: Pretty lousy, acoustically. Lose it, and just leave the bare concrete (or laminate floor).

12. "what makes this project hard is my families bedroom is 10 feet from the garage and I know kick drum and bass guitar are going to be the problem if they are trying to sleep." Yup! You just defined the issue perfectly. Your voice puts out no energy at all in the region where the kick and bass are sizzling. Your booth won't even touch those low frequencies, even if it did a fantastic job of isolating your death metal scream. Its a case of comparing apples vs. oranges. Or maybe "grapes vs. watermelons" would be more accurate!

13. "I plan on making a floating drum riser just like this Auralex one for the drums and I’m going to put the bass and guitar amps on Gramma pads to decouple them from the floor, hoping this helps a little to dissipate the bass energy, every little bit helps right???" Yup! Now THAT is a good thing, and will work. A drum riser and cab pads will certainly help to keep the bad stuff out of the floor slab, and you will need those ANYWAY, even if you to a "room-in-a-room". But don't bother buying commercial ones: You can't afford them on your budget, and you can make similar things yourself, easily and much cheaper.

14. HVAC: You MIGHT be able to use the cheap window unit, but NOT with the trash-bag idea: Use the exchange chamber idea instead (see Rod's book). Do it right and it will work. But forget the trash bags!

15. "I actually like this idea better than a mini split, cause these AC’s allow fresh air into the mix,". Yes, but you still need an additional duct to exhaust stale air. That can just be a simple fan and duct system, though.

16. "Plywood for floor 5/8” 9 sheets 4x8 $250
Plywood for floor 2nd layer ½” 9 sheets 4x8 $200"
Forget that. You don't need any floor. The concrete slab is fine, nad is already there, so it will cost you ZERO to do the floor!

17. "2 sheets of Laminated glass 3x2’ $200" Way low! The kind of glass you need is going to be WAY more than that (unless you are talking about postage-stamp sized windows! Maybe that should read 2" x 3", instead of 2' x 3' ??? ) 200 bucks will NOT buy you 12 square feet of 1/2" or 3/4" laminate glass! Not even close.

18. Room layout: Looking at your first diagram, I would flip it completely around, 180°. Have the console facing the wall at the top of the diagram, and the couch under the windows. MUCH better, for many reasons.

19. "still need one layer to nail some nice oak hardwood flooring to (I might possibly score)." Nope! Just lay ordinary laminate flooring. You do NOT need to nail it to anything! It just sits on top of the existing concrete slab (with an underlay, of course!) but is NOT attached in any way. The plywood flooring will not do anything for you at all: no acoustic benefit (probably make things worse, actually), no aesthetic benefit, and no structural benefit.

20. Doors and windows: You need to pay a lot more attention to those! Your diagram shows 2 doors and 2 windows; each will need to be doubled up. Each will become a back-to-back pair with an air gap between.

21. "my bad I forgot about the genie clips for the roof and I am aware of that aspect as well as better ways." Not just the clips! You need to add hat channel too. And forget the drop ceiling: no useful benefit.

22. "In my case I think I'm going to have to use genie clips cause I don't want to put up truss beams as they would eat up too much of my ceiling height." Not necessarily! You STILL need the air gap between outer leaf and inner leaf, regardless of how you support the new inner ceiling. You still need at least 4" of air gap, and preferably more. You will lose that height regardless. There are methods you can use to gain back that height, but it involves some extra work on your part: demo the existing ceiling, and put new drywall on TOP of the existing joists, instead of underneath, then interleave your new joists between the existing ones....

23. Mineral wool / fiberglass: You do not have any at all in your budget! For proper "room-in-a-room" construction with proper two-leaf MSM walls and ceiling, you MUST install mineral wool or fiberglass insulation in the air gap. You need at least 2 inches in the gap, all the way around the entire room, on all five sides. 4 inches would be better if you hope to achieve the kind of isolation you are talking about. If you leave out the insulation, then you leave out the isolation too: forgetting to put wool in the wall will cost you around 10 dB of isolation, and maybe as much as 16 dB. That's a biggie!

24. "Anyone know if buytl is a decent substitute for green glue?". Answer: No it is not.

25. "a few of the studios my friends have built used butyl and it seemed to work great and was much cheaper than GG"Well, I know of people who put egg-crates on the wall and glued carpet to the ceiling too, and thought it worked great! Until they took it down and treated the room properly, then realized what dunces they had been before.... Not to insult your friends, but the butyl was a total waste of money at best. It may well have damaged the acoustics in ways that nobody will ever know. Unless you can find some published studies by reputable acoustic researches or independent labs, detailing exactly what butyl does and showing the graphs and equations that define its behavior, then forget it. You have absolutely no idea what it is doing.

Summary: You probably can achieve what you want, but you will need to go full decoupled MSM, room-in-a-room to get the kind of isolation you need. But your budget is definitely on the low side, not realistic in very important thins (glass and HVAC, for example) and you are not including some very important materials (rock wool / fiberglass, for example). You also have not yet considered what to do about the laundry/bathroom, and you don't show where the laundry door is. Could be major issues. You also have not said much about the roof: another potential major issue.

I'd suggest that you revise your budget, and do a full and accurate design in SketchUp of what you have right now, with all major structural parts in place, so we can figure out the best way to isolate it to the level you need, and at the lowest possible cost.


- Stuart -

Stuart my man!

that was the most helpful well thought post and I'm very very grateful for the time you took to do it.

thanks bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

others that contributed feedback I appreciate that too thanks for steering me in the right direction!

Well there is just no getting around it, I can't do this thing half ass if I want real results.

I'm up for the challenge!

I have tried to learn sketch up before but had a hard time, though now that I got a real project
I think I will have the inspiration to really learn it.

yep forgot rockwool though was hoping just thick insulation would cut it but guessing it wont to your guys standards.

updates on everything coming soon

ps I got rods book awhile back and I love it!

here comes the updates

here is link to download of sketchup.skb project file

rar file

http://www.mediafire.com/file/oj6jq58i4 ... arage7.rar

or uncompressed

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cw749hv23 ... arage7.skb

let me know if there is any problems downloading files or if you guys know of a better free service?

not bad for learning sketch-up in a all day marathon.
I tried as hard as I could to do everything perfectly to scale, based
on what I already have, though I forgot 2x4s are not exactly 2x4
this might be a little off but not bad.

let me know if any adjustments are needed for better reference.

more updates

Good news my buddy is selling me 2 cases of green glue for half off

I updated the budget above (scroll up).

somethings are not exact prices still working that out.

This should be closer to a real budget, that leaves me broke but jamming at 2am

I bought 2 sheets of laminated glass for last studio for $800 that were 4x8 (they were 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch)
so I figure it should be half that price or less since its smaller than half.

Problem is I didn't want to spend over 7k, so hoping I can skim it down a bit more still + get your guys help to refine the budget.
I may have to hold off on a few things and build this studio over next 6 months but want to make sure the plan is solid so I know
what I'm working towards.

Hoping I can buy some drywall 2nd hand and maybe 2nd hand green glue and bring budget down a bit right away as well as
cancel diffusers for now etc.......