Dog + Bear Studio build
Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 9:03 pm
Hi all,
I think it's time to weigh in with my project and see if I can get some discussion going. I've been looking through the site for quite a while and have based a few construction decisions on advice given here, although most of the external shell build is pretty much set in stone anyway. At the moment it's just the external shell (details below) but i'll be moving on to the 'room within a room' in the next few months. Hopefully there's enough info here but let me know if you need anything else.
Location: Australia, Victoria, Trentham (75mins NW of Melbourne)
Me: been a guitarist/singer/songwriter for many years. Got into sound over the past 8 years. Have done a hell of a lot of ‘normal’ building in my life with my step-father and in my own business. I own Rod’s book (and others) which now has many dog-eared pages and I’ve been trawling this site for about 18 months.
Studio Overview: We mainly work in the folk/jazz/acoustic genre’s and have been recording out of various rental properties for the past six or so years. Word of warning: never rent a house to me as there will be 'discrete' holes drilled in the walls to run cable. (all patched up before moving on though )However, now that we’ve bought our own place it’s time to set up a dedicated studio.
It’s quiet up here during the day (averaging around 40db, measured ‘A’ weighting/slow) and quieter at night. So as you can guess it’s not isolation from the outside world that I need, but the other way round. Once the studio is operational I’ll be opening the doors to anyone who wants recording time, so that may take me out of the relatively ‘quiet’ recordings we’ve been doing and into the louder genre’s as well.
I won’t be hunting down work with loud bands, but if they find me I don’t want to have to knock them back as the bank still owns the house!
Our closest neighbor is around 20-25m (65-80ft) from the studio, and that’s the back of their house which is kitchen and laundry, not bedrooms. My neighbours aren’t too picky but I’d rather over isolate and avoid any future problems if they one day decide to sell their house.
How loud are we? As I said it’s mostly acoustic bands that we record and even if they have a full kit the drummer isn’t really pounding it so they’re probably around the 90db range ( that’s a guess as I haven’t actually measured a live kit). But as I say, if I get a pumping band in with a heavy hitter and amplified bass I’m guessing we get into the 100-110db range!
So maybe I’m paranoid about the isolation factor, but I’d rather build it right first time and spend the $’s rather than getting problems with the neighbours down the line.
Building stage: It's a free-standing construction and at the moment I’ve got the slab ( external dimension 9.3m x 6.4m/30.5ftx21.1ft). External walls are brick 110mm (4.3inches) wide with piers so it’s self supporting. Wall height is 2.7m (8.8ft) with a cathedral ceiling height around 3.3 m (10.8ft).
Roof is zincalume (sheet metal) as it’s the only real option for me construction wise.
Budget: I’m lucky in two respects, one-my wife is a professional musician so she’s happy to spend as much coin as we need to be operational. (even before painting the inside of the house do you believe!) and two-I’ve got the skills and tools to construct everything myself except elec, and I’ve got some buddies in the game that can help me there. I’m hoping I can get it constructed for $20-$25K (not inc gear) but I won’t set that as a hard limit as I’d rather have a better sounding room than a cheap one.
My main concern at the moment is about the roof in terms of isolation. I’ve been reading through as many posts about the subject as I can find, but I still feel like I could use some pointing in the right direction.
The finished product will be a fully decoupled 'room within a room' construction which i'll be asking questions about down the line, but for now my question is this:
In a free-standing construction like this, do I need to achieve as much isolation with the external roof as I do with the external walls? Ie: do I need to effectively have as much mass on the exterior roof as I do with the exterior walls? I'm pretty sure I can't achieve that without doing a vaulted brick roof, which ain't gonna' happen, but i'm interested in some more experienced opinions.
Any ideas/comment/criticism welcomed, and thanks to everyone who puts their 2cents-worth into this amazing resource.
steve
I think it's time to weigh in with my project and see if I can get some discussion going. I've been looking through the site for quite a while and have based a few construction decisions on advice given here, although most of the external shell build is pretty much set in stone anyway. At the moment it's just the external shell (details below) but i'll be moving on to the 'room within a room' in the next few months. Hopefully there's enough info here but let me know if you need anything else.
Location: Australia, Victoria, Trentham (75mins NW of Melbourne)
Me: been a guitarist/singer/songwriter for many years. Got into sound over the past 8 years. Have done a hell of a lot of ‘normal’ building in my life with my step-father and in my own business. I own Rod’s book (and others) which now has many dog-eared pages and I’ve been trawling this site for about 18 months.
Studio Overview: We mainly work in the folk/jazz/acoustic genre’s and have been recording out of various rental properties for the past six or so years. Word of warning: never rent a house to me as there will be 'discrete' holes drilled in the walls to run cable. (all patched up before moving on though )However, now that we’ve bought our own place it’s time to set up a dedicated studio.
It’s quiet up here during the day (averaging around 40db, measured ‘A’ weighting/slow) and quieter at night. So as you can guess it’s not isolation from the outside world that I need, but the other way round. Once the studio is operational I’ll be opening the doors to anyone who wants recording time, so that may take me out of the relatively ‘quiet’ recordings we’ve been doing and into the louder genre’s as well.
I won’t be hunting down work with loud bands, but if they find me I don’t want to have to knock them back as the bank still owns the house!
Our closest neighbor is around 20-25m (65-80ft) from the studio, and that’s the back of their house which is kitchen and laundry, not bedrooms. My neighbours aren’t too picky but I’d rather over isolate and avoid any future problems if they one day decide to sell their house.
How loud are we? As I said it’s mostly acoustic bands that we record and even if they have a full kit the drummer isn’t really pounding it so they’re probably around the 90db range ( that’s a guess as I haven’t actually measured a live kit). But as I say, if I get a pumping band in with a heavy hitter and amplified bass I’m guessing we get into the 100-110db range!
So maybe I’m paranoid about the isolation factor, but I’d rather build it right first time and spend the $’s rather than getting problems with the neighbours down the line.
Building stage: It's a free-standing construction and at the moment I’ve got the slab ( external dimension 9.3m x 6.4m/30.5ftx21.1ft). External walls are brick 110mm (4.3inches) wide with piers so it’s self supporting. Wall height is 2.7m (8.8ft) with a cathedral ceiling height around 3.3 m (10.8ft).
Roof is zincalume (sheet metal) as it’s the only real option for me construction wise.
Budget: I’m lucky in two respects, one-my wife is a professional musician so she’s happy to spend as much coin as we need to be operational. (even before painting the inside of the house do you believe!) and two-I’ve got the skills and tools to construct everything myself except elec, and I’ve got some buddies in the game that can help me there. I’m hoping I can get it constructed for $20-$25K (not inc gear) but I won’t set that as a hard limit as I’d rather have a better sounding room than a cheap one.
My main concern at the moment is about the roof in terms of isolation. I’ve been reading through as many posts about the subject as I can find, but I still feel like I could use some pointing in the right direction.
The finished product will be a fully decoupled 'room within a room' construction which i'll be asking questions about down the line, but for now my question is this:
In a free-standing construction like this, do I need to achieve as much isolation with the external roof as I do with the external walls? Ie: do I need to effectively have as much mass on the exterior roof as I do with the exterior walls? I'm pretty sure I can't achieve that without doing a vaulted brick roof, which ain't gonna' happen, but i'm interested in some more experienced opinions.
Any ideas/comment/criticism welcomed, and thanks to everyone who puts their 2cents-worth into this amazing resource.
steve