Is $10,000 enough?! Please help me!

thelivingexample · Post by **thelivingexample** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 4:11 pm

I wrote this on another board tonight. These boards are awesome, I can't believe I just found them.

Halo..

I am very new here and only saw about three messages to know that I will probably find answers to my 4 year old questions here. First let me thank in advance anyone that can help me out.

I have amassed a crazy amount of gear to accomodate an entire band and record it as well over the past 6 years from a huge mixer to a layla, to bass gear, to guitar gear, I already had drums, so basically a bands worth and a way to record it. I have been trying to find the most cost effective way to build a 1.most importantly Soundproof practice/recording room and 2. a nice sounding recording room after the soundproofing has been taken care of.
I got a book by Jeff Cooper off ebay on building a recording studio, and that all makes sense with what materials have what ratings and such, but I don't know if what I want to spend can get me what I am looking for.

I am planning on taking a second mortgage and use up to $10,000 on getting either a room built in my garage, orif it is all the same price wise, build an addition the size of the studio onto my house. I have a father in law and I guess uncle in law that can build the room if given the materials, so I was thinking that most fo the money would be going into the structure itself, some type of soundproofign material, and an additional central AC unit just for that room, and maybe even professional sound engineering or plans from I don't know where.
Am I crazy in thinking that I can do this for this amount of money or does anyone here think it is possible.
My Main concern is wanting to be able to play my drums and sing/scream from 12am-6am without getting the cops called on me or waking my son. If after that I can record well, that would be a huge bonus.
I was also thinking about the instrument section and then a control room, like a 20' x 10 x room total for both sections.

Thanks again in advance and I hope someone there can help me, or even direct me to blueprints or plans or I don't even know, but the interest rates are low enough for me to do this now and it's either now or never!

Thanks for any help, insight, and personal experience anyone can give.

Jim

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 4:42 pm

what dollars are we talking here

if AUD, you'll need a lot of skill and a lot of DIY work to pull it off...but I guess you have a great father inlaw who'll do it all for free, so you might be lucky...

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 8:53 pm

If you do most of it yourself and are wise in item purchase,

$10,00 is enough. I have built 4 of these things and am building my last TEMOrary spot, the control is costing me about $1500.00 (it's small, a large would be about $2500.00 Using the same material most of us can get our hands on and the live room I have estimnated at $1500.00 as well. ˜ot as much detail as the CR so $10000.00 for a set of rooms done right is enough (Here in Michigan) of course.

Bryan

That incules running snakes, etc.... (for me) Not Gear!!!

Oh Yeah, My space is 25 x 11 roughly

See yah

thelivingexample · Post by **thelivingexample** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:39 am

Thanks for the replies! Does anyone know of any sites with plans/blueprints for laying this stuff out. Or maybe a directory of consultants/engineers I can check out to maybe have them make them up. I live in Toms River, NJ.

The rooms that you are making, are they pretty soundproof? Do you get crap from your neighbors at night?

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 6:53 am

Maybe this is vain, but I am more interested in not hearing the neighbors than their complaints

John has excellent information all over this site that details everything. I am sure someone will point you to the SAE site

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Ok, I did. Click construction and you see graphics. Visit johns home page and see the studios under construction for guidance as well.

Hey,.... I've been to toms river (back in 2000)

Yes these rooms are fairly sound proofed as I can tell so far. When I am completely done I will provide statud reports and neighbor elimination annoyance reports.

Bryan Giles

Post by **John Sayers** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:32 am

Jim - to give you an idea of what you can build for $10,000 consider this.
Materials work out at around 25% of your cost - the other 75% being labour costs. If, as you say you have relatives who can provide the labour you can look at a $40,000 construction. Dependent on the type of materials used you are looking at around $50 per square foot so you could reasonably look at building around 800sqft. Now that's a fair sized home studio. Blue Bear Recording (as seen on the construction site) was built (by a constractor) for around CAN $61,000 which is approx US$45,000.

hope this helps

cheers
john

Charles Dayton · Post by **Charles Dayton** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:46 am

Here is my two cents. I just converted my garage into a postproduction studio/ music recording studio. I added an additional 11' onto the end of the existing 20'x20' structure. It's all room within a room, on floating floors, and staggered studs.
[/quote]"Maybe this is vain, but I am more interested in not hearing the neighbors than their complaints "
If you do it right, they don't hear you, you don't hear them. The Slab for the addition was about $600 in concrete. Beleve me you eant a slab and not pillars. Density=soundproofing. The structure, interior, Doors(Solid core and six of them, two for each entrance, and two for the passage from mix to record room.) exterior stucco, paint, neopreen for the floor, framing, double layers of drywall, insulation, glass for the observation window( go to a salvage yard and get a set of sliding glass doors and take off the framing, its cheeper than buying the glass), paint, acoustic treatments, wiring, labor, etc,etc,etc.... $18,000 in Los Angeles. Don't forget the $500 for building permits for the "Extra storage space" you are adding to your garage.
HVAC was $4000 installed.
This was my experience. I wish I had known about this forum before I built it. Every lesson is expensive. Best of luck!

thelivingexample · Post by **thelivingexample** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 11:19 am

Okay, this is coming a lot more into perspective with everyones experiences. I just found the material that I was looking at a long time ago that made me think that it was affordable to build this room. Has anyone heard of the ISO-Wall system. http://www.asc-soundproof.com/ I remember getting a quote from them for their material at about $3500 for a 10 x 15 room, but that was a long time ago and my memory isn't serving me very well. Does anyone think that this stuff is any good? Also, would it be more beneficial to make the whole structure out of concrete like that Sonar Studios did, because that looks bad ass and concrete isn't all that expensive.

Did you put heat in the studio or just AC?

Thanks again once more!
Jim

Charles Dayton · Post by **Charles Dayton** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 6:03 pm

The system I had put in is called a heat pump. It is both heating and AC. I think most systems that are 2 ton and above are heat pumps. Remember, do not, I repeat do not mount the out side unit on the roof! Some AC guys will tell you to do this. They don't work on studios. Mount it on its own seperated concrete foundation. Also, err on the side of a bigger unit, Ie. tonnage. A truly sound proofed studio is sort of air tight. When I close the outside doors on my place, its hard to close the inside door because of the air pressure. All that equipment heating up in a small space gets very uncomfortable very quick. And if you dodecide to do concrete, your'e building an oven. I actually considered poured concrete walls, but I'm not organized enough to plan for every thing that needs to be run into and out of the room I built before the concrete was poured. Iv'e already had to tear into the double layers of drywall once to run a few cables I forgot about.
I don't know much about the ISO Walls, I looked at their site and it didn't seem any clearer to me. Why would this be any less expensive than stager framing, and insulating it yourself(or by your contractor). You'll have to price out 2x4's in your area, as well as the insulation batting. Don't forget your floor. I didn't see mention of a floor on their site. Remember the studs are 16" on center. Do the math.
Charles