Small studio build in Tallinn, Estonia

[strictlydubs]

Greetings each and every one!

First of all, thank you to John and administration for keeping this forum alive and sharing the knowledge with people around the world. And also, people/users who posted and still posting their studio builds processes - this forum is special!

And of course, the second:

We would like to build a small recording/ rehearsaling studio space for our own use. Main purpose: to rehearsal with our band, record and mix our music. The place as I feel could fit us four-five playing instruments and recording vocals. But! Yeah, we have a really limited space. If you ask why we should build here, instead of looking for another space? (Cause of course in such small city like Tallinn, you still could find larger spaces for rent)

Well, really easy to answer:

- we are already here for three years
- haven't got any troubles with neighbours as we are located in the area of building were no offices located
- haven't got any problems with the landlord
- we are on the first floor
- we have confirmed, that we can do any kind of recostructions at this place
- and of course monthly fee is really affordable for us
- we can play and do studio here and that's whitout any problem

Limitations:

- there is a halfway, where workers of cafe (cause it is located nearby our room) deliver products at the daytime and they running with forklift through the halfway to the backyard - that's the loudest sound coming from outside of our space. From 7am to 5pm usually on the working-days.

- there is a door which is totally sealed and we can't open it. This door leads to another room where somebody using it for a storage. We can't remove it or build a solid brick wall instead of it (that's only one restriction, that we have for now). It is located on the front wall, behind the soffits (which you will see on the sketch up file or on the .pdf plan)

- space

Room size/ Structure of the room:

- total size is 27,4 m2
- there are two separate small rooms; wc 3,52 m2 and shower 3,18 m2
- the actual "living space" or studio space is 20,7 m2, not to mention future vocal booth

This is old soviet, shoe-fabric building and with brick walls and concrete ceiling.

4.9 m height
5,8 m long
3,6 m width

What we would like to do for studio:

- we would like to devide this 20,7 for two rooms; mixing and recording/ rehearsaling room
- we would like to turn shower to vocal booth
- WC will stay, cause we still want to use it

Budget:

- to keep construction around 2500.- ~ 3000.- euro


First thoughts: to install 50mm insulation and double layer of plaster board to the wall where the "locked" door is located, as we still can hear something through that door. Same way to use this option for the wall which devide halfway and our room (before the main frame). To use double doors on the entrance. And mainly use the wooden frame of 10cm thick with 100mm insulation inside. To close our ceiling with osb-sheets (I still need to check which thikness we can use, cause I afraid of the weight of our future ceiling, thought that plasterboard could be really heavy for our future ceiling). As the default ceiling still really high and it might be hard to fix studio ceiling on the height of 2,5 m (I think this is more or less best height for studio ceiling or I could be wrong..?) The deviding wall between mix and rec rooms has a double layer of plasterboard between frames and the same 10cm wooden frame.

Ventilation system:

We are still looking for the best method and price of it...



Sketch Up file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0n7o8qyql7uf ... o.skp?dl=0

Plan .pdf
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wiiham6gv4z4v ... 8.pdf?dl=0

Forgive me please If with some topics I'm not so clear, cause English is not my mother tongue and studio building is something new for me and all of us, but we are really looking forward to the process. Thank you in advance, if you could guide us somewhere to finalize our plan.


Kindly
Saimon

[DanDan]

Hi Saimon. Some quick thoughts to get the ball rolling. Plse join in y'all this seems to be the only serious forum left with any traffic, cherish it!

Acoustically I love suspended ceilings using totally absorbent tiles. Locally available materials and install skills. I say totally absorbent because many ceiling tiles are hard or include a blocking layer for open office privacy. Tiles have a NRC (absorbing) figure, and a CAC (blocking) figure. Go for the highest NRC and lowest CAC. I would include a layer or two of light attic insulation above the tiles. Best Cloud ever.
I would consider a single room. It would be very difficult to get enough isolation to use both rooms simultaneously. Let's call it impossible.
A larger room will be easier to treat and will sound better.

[strictlydubs]

Hi Saimon. Some quick thoughts to get the ball rolling. Plse join in y'all this seems to be the only serious forum left with any traffic, cherish it!

Acoustically I love suspended ceilings using totally absorbent tiles. Locally available materials and install skills. I say totally absorbent because many ceiling tiles are hard or include a blocking layer for open office privacy. Tiles have a NRC (absorbing) figure, and a CAC (blocking) figure. Go for the highest NRC and lowest CAC. I would include a layer or two of light attic insulation above the tiles. Best Cloud ever.
I would consider a single room. It would be very difficult to get enough isolation to use both rooms simultaneously. Let's call it impossible.
A larger room will be easier to treat and will sound better.

Big thank you! That's helpful!
I should consider about to go for one room only...

[anodivirta]

I've been planning my first build and I'm struggling on similiar(small) space..and I think I'm ending up with only one room.

Your control room seems to be really small, but maybe some of the experts here can explain is it possible to get "good sounding" control room at that size?

[DanDan]

Dunno about 'expert' but many rooms here are smaller than than, and many are treated to sound good. With enough money and effort almost anything is possible.
e.g. Modex Plates are superb LF absorbers and occupy only 100mm depth.

[strictlydubs]

I've been planning my first build and I'm struggling on similiar(small) space..and I think I'm ending up with only one room.

Your control room seems to be really small, but maybe some of the experts here can explain is it possible to get "good sounding" control room at that size?

I ended up building two separate rooms. Maybe it is not good, but it is better then nothing. I will share some photos very soon. At the moment busy with construction.

Thank you!

[anodivirta]

I've been planning my first build and I'm struggling on similiar(small) space..and I think I'm ending up with only one room.

Your control room seems to be really small, but maybe some of the experts here can explain is it possible to get "good sounding" control room at that size?

I ended up building two separate rooms. Maybe it is not good, but it is better then nothing. I will share some photos very soon. At the moment busy with construction.

Thank you!

Very interested seeing the outcome! please do post photos.
for usability aspect imo. two rooms is absolutely better and I might copy some of your design:)

[strictlydubs]

I've been planning my first build and I'm struggling on similiar(small) space..and I think I'm ending up with only one room.

Your control room seems to be really small, but maybe some of the experts here can explain is it possible to get "good sounding" control room at that size?

I ended up building two separate rooms. Maybe it is not good, but it is better then nothing. I will share some photos very soon. At the moment busy with construction.

Thank you!

Very interested seeing the outcome! please do post photos.
for usability aspect imo. two rooms is absolutely better and I might copy some of your design:)

Well, I think, better go to Jonh's website and check out his "Recording Manual" section, there you will find some proper advices of how to start and from where you could take studio design inspiration for your own. Anyway, you could copy ours, cause we were inspired by John's and many studio lovers from this lovely and helpful forum. Good luck with your constructions! Make a topic later, post your photos too. Mine coming very soon

[strictlydubs]

Finally, here comes the first bunch of photos from our studio construction!



The very first bearing logs has been installed.





Installing the ceiling logs, like we are building a wooden house.
As you see, there are two doors; left is a WC and on the right - the problematic door, which couldn't be removed by the request of owner.
The right door and the wall will be covered with 50mm insulation and double layer of plasterboard at first.
Later we will install another second wooden frame with another 50mm insulation and connect this part of the wall with soffits.



Processing with the whole and wall frame of future studio.



Mostly framing...
Here comes the wall between console and live rooms. Also, we will include the window (1000x600) on left side of the interroom wall.
As you see, there's another door on the left - this is the shower, will be used as vocal booth in future.

[strictlydubs]

Here you can see how we are covering the problematic door wall.
Insulation...





Plaster board up!



First layer of plaster board for interroom wall.



View from console room.



This is entrance to studio and the right wall with door to vocal booth.
The right wall is also weak, there was a door back in the days, and it has been removed and covered with pieace of plywood.
We are going to make the same construction for this wall as for that problematic door in console room.
Wooden frame > 50mm insulation > double layer of plasterboard > wooden frame > 50mm insulation.



Wall behind entrance to studio.



Ceiling works are going forward...







Covering the weak wall with peace of plywood.
Now it's covered with first 50mm insulation and double layer of plaster board.



The window, without live room framing, only two layers of plasterboard..

My appologies, if photos are in different size.
Can't fix that...

[anodivirta]

thanks for the pictures and nice to see progress!
stupid question, but wouldnt it be better if the frame wouldnt have rigid connection to existing walls?
(ie.so it would be touching only floor/or floated everywhere etc?)

[strictlydubs]

thanks for the pictures and nice to see progress!
stupid question, but wouldnt it be better if the frame wouldnt have rigid connection to existing walls?
(ie.so it would be touching only floor/or floated everywhere etc?)

Hi,

Not a stupid question at all... The answer is: actually frames are not connected rigidly with the walls, and there are polyurethane foam between timber and existing walls. Mostly frame rigidly connected with floor and ceiling, exactly like you wrote. Not floating unfortunately... I wanted to make an air gap between existing wall, but we made it only in problematic areas to save more space.

More photos coming soon....

[strictlydubs]

Like I was writing before, the old shower is going to turn to our future vocal booth.
Installing the timber frame now, the process is going step by step..











More or less, we are nearly finish the frame in living room and console room.

To be continued..

[strictlydubs]

[anodivirta]

thanks for the pictures and nice to see progress!
stupid question, but wouldnt it be better if the frame wouldnt have rigid connection to existing walls?
(ie.so it would be touching only floor/or floated everywhere etc?)

Hi,

Not a stupid question at all... The answer is: actually frames are not connected rigidly with the walls, and there are polyurethane foam between timber and existing walls. Mostly frame rigidly connected with floor and ceiling, exactly like you wrote. Not floating unfortunately... I wanted to make an air gap between existing wall, but we made it only in problematic areas to save more space.

More photos coming soon....

ok, so it just looked that way in the pictures
carry on and keep more photos coming!