Small Drum Practice Room

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Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

This morning Darren and I built his inner leaf door frame (he is going to see if his current outer leaf door can be modified to work as it is solid core).

He got 2x6 Douglas Fir that of course wasn't nice and straight. So, we ran it all through the jointer and planer a bunch and ripped it down to 1 1/4" thick and nice and straight! I'm curious how cutting the bottom of the door of is going to go, but it's going to happen! Here are the door frame pics:
image1.jpeg
image2.jpeg
image3.jpeg
Greg
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Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Darren built some of his ceiling modules:
Darren 2ft x 4ft ceiling modules.jpeg
Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

A few nights ago Darren and I got the majority of his door built.

First, we cut the bottom off the door:
Bottom Cut Off Door.jpeg
Then we cut up 3/4" MDF for the beef up. The 4731 seals were dry fit so we left 7/8" for each seal (they are 3/4"). It was faster and more accurate to use a make shift fence out of some 1" MDF and rip the wood using a circular saw. My old circular saw is screwed so I got to try out my new Dewalt SWE575SB on this project. It's a treat to use compared to my old one!
Darren 97 Inch Rip.jpeg
After that, we dry fit everything:
Dry Fit.jpeg
Dry Fit Overview 1.jpeg
Dry Fit Overview 2.jpeg
The first layer of MDF is shorter on the bottom to accommodate an automatic door bottom seal.
Then I clamped a sacrificial piece of wood to the face of the door that the circular blade would potentially rip out and instead of chiseling for each hinge, we just used the circular saw to remove the wood by making a bunch of passes with it. Then a quick clean up with the chisel and we were off to the races!
Chisel Hinge Finish With Sacrificial Wood.jpeg
Hinge Fit With Sacrificial Wood.jpeg
Hinges Cut.jpeg
Hinges Fit.jpeg
I don't have any pictures of it, but we started removing the wood for the hinges on the door frame with the circular saw as well. But of course, we couldn't rip right across the frame with the saw so we just chewed out as much as we could with the saw and then Darren took the frame home to chisel out the rest by hand (as it was about 3am by that point).

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

We dry fit the door. As strong as the Douglas Fir frame is, it still clearly needs to be reinforced with the rest of the wall frame to stand nice and straight! If I pull on the door frame and hold it tight, the door squares up perfectly in the frame and swings open and closed very smoothly. The hinges are beasts so I'm assuming it won't be much different once the slab has the extra MDF weight added to it.
Test Fit.jpeg
To add the 3/4" MDF to the slab, we dry fit the MDF and fought with it to get it exactly in the right position. We clamped it then traced the slab with a pencil and predrilled 6 holes. After countersinking the holes, we installed the screws then removed everything for gluing. Using a cheap small paint roller, we applied an even coat of glue on each piece of material. Lining up the slab in the perfect place was easy after the prep. We did this with both sheets of MDF and with screws and clamps, it will be awesome.

You can see we used lots of clamps and a set of my home made cauls that I made out of scrap lumber. The cauls have a 1/32" taken off the bottom straight side at the ends (done on the jointer) in order to apply a bunch of pressure to the middle of the MDF. This makes the caul kind of a slight U shape. If you look closely at this first clamping picture, you can see the 1/32" little gaps that close up at the ends where the clamps are. This shows how the lumber is flexing, providing pressure at the middle and at the ends.
Clamped Close Up.jpeg
Clamped Overview.jpeg
Greg
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Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

After many hours of work yesterday evening, Darren and I cut all of his silencer box MDF.

We measured all the pieces in SketchUp and entered the data into workshop-buddy.com to help figure out how to best utilize the sheets. Unfortunately it didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped. It was good enough but it missed a few opportunities and for no reason ended up wasting an extra sheet. I recommend using it but check for yourself to see if you can fit some smaller pieces on to left over chunks.

We got very fast and efficient at using my ghetto MDF straight edge with clamps and a circular saw to rip the sheets.
Cutting.jpeg
In the end, we cut 81 pieces. It took until 3:30am and I hurt and feel like butt today. Worth it!
81 Pieces Cut.jpeg
Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Stadank0
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Stadank0 »

Looks good man! That's about 2 1/2 years ago for me now....I used 2 layers 3/4 OSB though. It took me about 8 hours to build each box once I had the pieces ready....
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Here are some pics of assembling the silencer boxes.

To adhere the OC QuietR Rotary Duct Liner, we used Magna Tack
Magna Tack.jpeg
Applying Adhesive To Small Box.jpeg
Duct Liner.jpeg
To somewhat seal corners/ends of insulation, we used Seal Tack. We also used it to cover up the flange on the duct fitting after brad nailing it to the box.
Duct Trace and Brad Nailer.jpeg
Seal-Tack.jpeg
Small Silencer Done.jpeg
Big Silencer Done.jpeg
All 6 Silencer Boxes Done.jpeg
Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Last night Darren and I took all of his silencer boxes and his door to his place. We hung his door but didn't make fine adjustments to the hinges yet as we need to take the door out to install the automatic door bottom when it comes in. Since the door is in the corner on an uneven slab, we had to be very careful to get everything square and level... and strong. The door swings beautifully. It's crazy to think how heavy it is and it just swings like it weighs nothing.
Door Hung Not Adjusted.jpeg
I cut up some rimboard and touched up caulking while I was there. Darren picked up all the duct work he should need too.

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Stadank0
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Stadank0 »

You call that a box????

Now that's a box!!!!
20160328_141126.jpg
20160404_215232.jpg
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Those are beasts for sure! The tiny one Darren is spraying is one of 3 that make up his inner leaf return silencers. His room is tiny so it made sense to fit these into the joist spaces above. The other three measure 53 1/2" x 26". Also not massive, but his room is small and with the ductless mini split, these are purely cycling fresh and stale air in and out of the room. I see why yours took 8 hours a box to build even after you had materials cut!

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Stadank0
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Stadank0 »

Just funnen with ya!

Its all work alrighty! The hours do go by......
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Darren has made some great progress. I have only seen it in more detail via FaceTime, but it appears that he is addressing any issues I point out to him (caulking, caulking and more caulking)! What really made me happy was hearing him say that finally it all makes perfect sense to him now. Initially he just put his faith in me and even though he dug through the SketchUp file for hours and hours and I verbally explained things to him, until he had to box in and seal everything for himself, I suppose it was hard for him to connect the dots. I really enjoy talking to him about the lengths he is going in order to have a great little practice room. It's cost a lot of money for supplies but he seems happy and willing to go the extra mile. So, enough rambling. Here are the latest pictures he has sent me.

Looking from his storage room through the wall that will hold his three large silencer boxes:
Inner Leaf Ceiling Almost Done.jpeg
You can see his inside out ceiling there. I designed it with a symmetrical look but the second module he installed ended up being a pre-fabricated 4' module. He couldn't simply slide it over because he had to cut the hole for one of his small silencer box sleeves to penetrate. He ended up just going with that until the very last row I guess. It doesn't matter acoustically and if he ends up covering it all with fabric, it won't matter in the end anyway!
Behind the ladder you can see the 3 sleeves sticking out of the ceiling.

Next is a picture looking into the storage room. Here he is missing a bunch of caulk and one main ceiling joist that at the step down that will be needed to anchor the 1" MDF to in order to box in that main beam. You can also see that I designed the inside out ceiling modules so that generic sized modules can be slide up on top of each side wall and then a custom sized module can be slid up in the middle of them. In order for Darren to get any of his drywall down to his basement by himself, he ended up cutting the 4x8 sheets into 4x4 sheets so everything in his place is built using 4' dimensions.
Some Progress.jpeg
Lastly, he built one big silencer box stand so far and he has moved the 3 big ones into the wall cavity. He will build two more stands for the other two. Before he stuffs this cavity with insulation and puts on the final outer leaf sheathing, he has to run some conduit for audio/data lines and also run all of the stuff for his mini split head.
Final Wall.jpeg
So that he can move his kit in and start practicing for his album release, he is going to fill the ceiling with 703. (***Notice the red tube of unopened crappy Green Glue Sealant at the bottom right hand side of the picture below)
Darrens 3 Bags Of 2" 703.jpeg
Thankfully, he is the type of guy who doesn't like to leave things unfinished, so I'm sure as soon as he has more supplies and time, he'll wrap up phase one of the drum practice room build! After that, he will run electrical and then treatment/cosmetics! Here is a virtual high five to Darren :-D Good work dude!

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Sorry about not updating this thread. I have been swamped and just haven't made the time for it.

Darren kind of just went for it and he would send me pictures of things completed. I got him to switch some things along the way but for the most part, he wasn't screwing too much stuff up and I know he understands the theory enough that he was making the best of it. I would have done a lot of things differently but in the end, his room looks gorgeous and it sounds wonderful. I'm actually going to be renting his room to track some drums soon. It really does sound great so far but after this tracking session I'll have a better idea of what we should concentrate on for adding any slats or things like that. We will also take some REW measurements when I get time.

The silencer boxes work so good. He decided to save money for the time being to just push and pull air from a few different areas of his basement using an inline duct fan. For the little chunks of time he uses the room it should work. Once he gets people in there jamming with him, he might conclude that he needs to expedite getting a mini split unit in there.

We have to address his outer leaf door still but the results thus far are really really great! Here's some pictures he sent me or I took. He has more I will try to get from him.

Inner to outer leaf silencer box flex duct:
HVAC Duct Work.jpg
Central vacuum pipe to run cabling through the sheathing, stuff with insulation then caulk to death:
Cabling Holes.JPG
Storage room sheathing up with silencer box sleeves penetrating (see bottom left and upper right). The upper right is where he is sucking in "fresh" air for now:
Storage Room Sheathing.JPG
Inline fan pulling stale air out of drum room and blowing it out of a return air cover into his hallway:
Inline Fan.JPG
703 starting to be stuffed in the walls:
Starting Treatment.JPG
Quick SketchUp picture to show Darren how to install some polys in his ceiling to keep life in the room:
SketchUp Poly.jpg
Some ceiling treatment:
Ceiling Treatment.JPG
Safe'n'sound superchunks:
Floor To Ceiling Bass Trap.JPG
Scrap insulation making a suedo-superchunk:
Scrap Bass Trap.JPG
Nook ceiling with supply air sleeve sticking through and bass traps installed. Below the sleeve is where a mini split condenser would live:
Nook Ceiling.JPG
Bass traps all made:
Bass Traps.JPG
Fabric stapled on a bass trap:
Fabric On Bass Trap.JPG
I don't fully understand why he added slats to the ceiling to staple fabric too, but I'm sure he had his reasons:
Ceiling Grid.JPG
One wall with fabric on it:
One Wall Fabric.JPG
The nook as it sits now:
Current Nook.jpg
Looking into drum room door as it sits now:
Current Overview.jpg
I actually really like his color scheme. The black ceiling makes the room feel tall and his lighting options are amazing. On the ceiling he has a cork board thing that clicks up onto the ceiling during jam sessions. It can be entirely removed for recording. And of course it can come down to hold Darren's music charts during practicing. I think he has four 1080p cameras mounted around the room for doing drum play through videos. He will screen share between his Apple computers so that he can control his DAW that is in his other room. The room mics he has higher up in the nook capture a killer overall kit sound that sounds very natural and balanced. These are perfect for driving into a reverb plugin to emulate a way bigger room that can then be squashed with a compressor for that huge drum sound. Of course the overheads (which as us mixing engineers know is so damned important to get right) sound so good. No weird flutter echo, no shrill crap, no boomy crap. Just awesome. It's sad say say that this little drum practice room is the best drum room I've walked into in our city. Until my personal studio is up and running, I think it's safe to say that I'll be tracking drums at Darren's place! Of course I'll update this thread with any changes he decides to make in the future. Darren is very happy with the results and he should be proud of all of the hard work he did with very little help from anyone else. I'm happy to have been able to help him with the design and now he will be able to play at any hour without worrying about neighbors complaining!

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Mastiff
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Mastiff »

Looks great. Can you explain the HVAC scheme in a little more detail? I see six boxes were made. How does the air flow through the system, and how is routing done with respect to the inner and outer room walls? Thanks.
Gregwor
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Re: Small Drum Practice Room

Post by Gregwor »

Can you explain the HVAC scheme in a little more detail? I see six boxes were made. How does the air flow through the system, and how is routing done with respect to the inner and outer room walls?
Sure! The reason there are 6 boxes instead of 4 is because we were limited for space. We needed the air to flow across the entire room and the supply is coming from the middle large box. That meant that the return had to be on/near the opposite side of the room.

Instead of putting a huge box inside the room, I decided to try and fit silencers up in the existing joists. In order to have enough cross sectional area and get the air velocity low enough, I needed 3 boxes. After seeing/testing them in real life I realized that making those little ones slightly longer (maybe a 4th or even 5th baffle in them) would have helped some.

There is one fan on the return side of the system (in his storage room) that pulls air through the entire room/system. On the first page of the thread you can see the system. Here's a link to the picture I'm referring to:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/downl ... &mode=view

The reason I put the supply sleeve where I did was so that it would supply fresh air right above where Darren might put his mini split head. That would allow the head to throw nice fresh air around the room then have the 3 little return boxes suck up the stale air from above where Darren sits at his drums. Does that make sense?

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
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