John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello everyone!

So I just put in an offer today for a house and am tying to sort out the budget for the home studio so my wife can know what to expect. We had a standing agreement that since she moved me away from the city I loved, I got a home studio!

Unfortunately, the major drawback is the house we fell in love with here had no basement, so the only option (unless the offer falls through) is to build the studio in the attic.

First thing first:

-Usage:

I am a DJ first, and a producer second. Main usage is going to be listening to tracks, making edits, performing and recording mixes (all direct in, no mics), and then for the production it will mostly all be Ableton. I do have some external synths and drum machines I'd like to use as well, but again all direct in.

So really, making just a mixing/mastering room. HOWEVER

I also want to be able to do some live recording of vocals or single instruments (guitars, bass, some orchestral instruments, etc). So for that I'm thinking a small isolation booth.

-Requirements:

Since this will be in our home, my wife has requested I get it as quiet as possible. She understands that it won't be silent, but I'm looking at wanting as much sound absorption as possible so the downstairs doesn't have to hear me.

Information about the space:

HVAC: NONE
Roof Material: Metal
Weight joists can support: Unknown

Current Dimensions:
Main Room
Left and right wall: 188inches
Front wall: 142 inches
Rear wall: 77 inches
Rear open space: 65 inches

Wall height before slant: 45 inches
Ceiling width slanted: 72 inches
Ceiling width flat: 34 inches
ceiling height (floor to flat): 89 inches

Height from floor to window: 20 inches
Window frame height: 53 inches
Window frame length: 68 inches

Upstairs Closet (Potential vocal booth?) dimensions
left and right wall: 67 inches
Front/rear wall: 36 inches

rear wall height before slant: 45 inches
Ceiling length slanted: 72 inches
ceiling length flat: 19 inches
ceiling height (floor to flat): 89 inches

Budget
My wife and I have discussed 10,000 USD at current, though I may be able to get some more.

Questions
-To do a proper room within a room, I will basically need to tear out the existing walls, correct? I wasn't sure if I would be able to save them or not since if you look at the pictures, there is a crawlspace behind each of them with a lot of room. The way the previous person did the construction is hang up some studs and put drywall, and that's it.

-Another wall question. So going from the roof in, the roof and blown in insulation count at 1 leaf? Then an air gap that should be filled with rockwool. Then the second leaf is 2 sheets drywall with green glue in between, around 4 inches of air filled with rockwool, and then some sort of finish (Im probably going to do a cloth wrap)? is that the proper 2 leaf setup here? If that is, then theoretically I can keep the existing drywall that's already up?

-For the flooring, I know I need to get rid of the carpet. Once I tear that up, it looks to be hardwood running all the way across. Should I tear up the hardwood too and start from scratch, or could I keep the existing floor? Remember my main goal here is isolation from the rest of the house. I've been reading a bit and flooring is incredibly confusing. Floating a floor seems like the recommended means for upper level rooms, but I've heard a lot of folks say that they weigh too much? Really any tips and ideas here for how to do the floor would be appreciated.

-Ceiling I am guessing I need to rip it completely out and start from scratch with the ceiling. How would I attach the angled ceilings to the top flat ceiling and walls? From looking at different plans, it seems to again be the same construction as a wall (insulation, drywall later, insulation, cloth), is that correct?

-HVAC is a huge concern and something I have never messed with. The house doesn't have any air conditioning at all, and heating is electric baseboards (which will be removed). What can I do here? I truly have no idea. I have been looking around a lot and some folks mentioned a mini-split? With all the insulation will I even need a heater anymore?

-Electrical I have absolutely zero knowledge in doing electrical work (and I'm not sure if NY allows people to do their own?). Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do for that?

-I will basically have to tear out the existing closet completely and make a vocal booth from scratch I am guessing? At any rate, I want to have a window in the booth. Also instead of just running a snake (way too many inputs) I'd like to create a wall system where the artist can just plug in headphones, a talkback mic, and their instrument. I never see the booth having more than one artist in it ever.

-I'd like to keep the window in the main room, but I know the current window doesn't work. Any recommendations for a studio grade windows I could put in both the room and the vocal booth?

-I'm very concerned about height, as this space is going to have very low ceilings after I do all the required work. Any tips here?

-My current monitors are JBL 308p's and no subwoofer. I have some monitor stands, but since I am already building the room, should I build a monitor enclosure? Also, anyone have suggestions for how far away the monitors should be from the walls?

-Room shape, should I make the front wall be a 3 wall with a 5 degree angle or just make it straight?

-Door to room and door to booth, any suggestions here? I'd probably need a sealed solid core door for the vocal booth and the entrance into the studio itself. Or would it be better to do a double door entrance to the studio?

-Instead of trying to doo all this on my own, any recommendations for a designer who I could hire to do all of the planning? Anyone in or around Albany NY interested in a new project?

-Last, with having cloth over all the walls, so I need to buy additional absorption panels? What about bass traps or diffusers?

EDIT: How would you suggest getting internet cat5 cabling up to the studio as well?

Images attached!

Thank you for taking the time to read all this and help me out, you are all invaluable!

If your attic floor joists can actually handle the weight of a room in a room construction (I bet it cannot as is though), I'd say $10,000 is not enough. HVAC alone would eat up probably half of that. Insulation and drywall alone would probably eat up the other half. That doesn't include permits, electrical, engineered joists for your ceiling, windows, doors, flooring, acoustic treatment and misc like tools, trim, screws, etc. That's assuming you're doing all of the work yourself. If you want a designer, add more on top of that.

By the way, since you just asked for a designer, you will probably get a bunch of messages from random people claiming they can help you but won't. If you want actual help, reach out to John Sayers directly. If he can't help you, HE will recommend designers.

I think once your deal goes through, you need to identify the most important things you need (like HVAC, a good sounding room, isolation, etc). Then address each one in order of importance. Isolation will be one thing you may not be able to achieve well with your budget though.

Greg

Greg,

Thanks for the heads up.

Personally, my number one concern is isolation, as I am constantly cold so having a hot room doesn't bother me. Plus, getting the isolation down first and then having the wife up to do some of her vocal recordings and seeing how warm it gets would be the best way to secure more funding to do the HVAC A good sounding room is a close second, but until then I can work with bad rooms. Heck, I've been DJing and running my own PA at raves and underground DIY spaces for long enough that I can do some pretty fun things with crap rooms.

The offer was accepted today, so now its just the waiting game for inspections and attorneys and such.

I'll shoot John a message as well, I just figured he would be much busier with commercial ventures.

Small update.

Inspection on the house passed, so now just waiting for the legal process to finish. Should be getting into the space in about 30 days.

Chatted with John through email. He didn't think the joists could handle a room within a room (I will have an engineer come out one of these days to get a real weight estimate) so for now he thinks I should just add another 16mm of drywall sealed with glue and then put in a sheet floor with rubber underneath. Hanging acoustic panels and such (Going to work with GIK Acoustic for those)

Hanging acoustic panels and such (Going to work with GIK Acoustic for those)

Glenn Kuras makes great products, but if you are handy enough to build your studio space shell, you are probably handy enough to make custom built treatment devices. I would highly recommend you build your own.

A client of mine A/B tested his $300 bass traps against his home made $30 ones and REW mdat files clearly show that his home made ones performed better for his situation. After seeing those results, my client has been on a treatment device building rampage as he's filled with enthusiasm!

Greg

I wouldn’t be opposed to building my own, but I have no idea where to start wit that. I would at least need some plans to go off of.

When we had the home inspection it was a rainy day. I got to be thee so I messed around in the future studio space just to see what things sounded like. No pitter patter of rain on the metal roof, which was a concern so that is nice. However, the room is pretty loud.

Just using my IPhone (all my equipment is still in a shipping container on its way here) the room red around 40db with peaks up to 60. Mostly highway noise around rush hour and on a wet road, so I think most days the room itself is going to be around 40 before any sort of isolation or treatment.

The closer I moved to the window, the louder the readings, so i definitely need to replace that window ASAP.

I need to get into the floor to see what it looks like. It’s THICK. Eyeball estimation of over a foot and a half between bottom of first floor ceiling and top of attic floor.

Super chunks and broadband absorbers are very easy and basic to build. These will drastically improve your acoustics. However, I'd recommend checking the forum and reading some control room tuning threads to see how important things like REW measurements are in tuning the room and deciding what devices to build/install next!

Greg

What do you all think about filling the space between the roof and the drywall for the room with rockwool? It's a pretty big space (something like 3 or 4ft at the widest) and it's just empty other than the spray in insulation on the ceiling...

Insulation in cavities helps a lot. Are you saying they've spray foamed right onto the top side of the ceiling drywall though?

Greg

From what I can tell, it goes: Metal Roof->plywood->Roof joists, spray foam into joists. Foam is at least a foot thick.

See first posts pictures for what inside the walls look like.

Your attic area sounds like the design needs air to flow through it so you shouldn't fill it completely with insulation. Are you saying there is no insulation sitting on top of your ceiling drywall though!?

Greg

I'll need to get into the floor to double check. from the brief glance I saw during the inspection, I think it goes:

1st floor ceiling (drywall?)->4inches open space->more drywall.>fiberglass insulation->attic floorboards (2x4s)->carpet

Sorry, I'm referring to your attic space that you initially asked about.

Greg

Oh, the finished space inside the attic? That's all filled with the spray foam insulation. If you look at the photos, the drywall painted blue is attached directly to the roof joists, so it goes Metal roof->Plywood on top of joists->Spray insulation->Ceiling drywall on bottom of joists.

Oh, the finished space inside the attic? That's all filled with the spray foam insulation. If you look at the photos, the drywall painted blue is attached directly to the roof joists, so it goes Metal roof->Plywood on top of joists->Spray insulation->Ceiling drywall on bottom of joists.

Dang, that sucks. Spray foam is closed cell and does NOTHING acoustically speaking

Greg