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