Finally building our own studio!!!

[DoubleyouD]

So we decided to take the step and built our own studio! Me and a buddy of mine have bin recording for a while and now the time seems right to built our own place. To let you know how the built is going and get advise from you people I ‘m setting up this treat.
First of all my apologies if the English isn’t correct because I’m from Holland. Secondly I will try to give you as much info on everything as possible so you know what’s up.

Ok so here we go.
We already have a location for the studio, its in a business building and we’ve got one end. Its 12 by 6.45 meters and the ceiling is 2.5 meters high. The business is owned by the parents of my buddy, so we can do what we want. Based on these measurements we’ve came up with a design shown in the pictures below. The inner wall is made out of concrete, so is the floor and the ceiling. Also the outer wall of the live room is concrete.
All the walls will be constructed using metal studs rockwool of 7,5 cm thick and 12,5mm plasterboard. The live room will be made out of 2 walls with both walls having double layers of plasterboard, Double isolation and an airspace between them. Al the other walls will be single walls with plasterboard on both side of the metal studs filled up with rockwool.
Also the live room will have a floating floor constructed as follow,
Rockwool (soft) on the floor, sound isolation on top of that sound isolation followed by a layer of underlayment (wood) than a layer plasterboard and yet another layer underlayment. Then it will be finished whit a layer of laminate. The live room will also have double massive doors. And we will construct a window ( not to big ) to see what’s going on in the live room.

All the ceilings will be rockfon suspended ceiling with isolation on top. We will provide the live room and the control room with a air-condition, both split units. Also the live room will have a airflow system built in to the suspended ceiling, with an incoming and outgoing airflow. Both will be provided with silencers and a motor to get the air flowing. We’ve also got the plan to make some diffusers in the ceiling of the live room for better acoustics in the live room.

When the built is finished we want to construct acoustic panels/bass traps as follow:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10297
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11285

The panels will be hung from the ceiling, wall and both (in an angle)
What you cant see on the drawing is the steel frame running across the room, we will make a ceiling in the control room that will slantwise, slanting starting from the steel frame ending at the wall behind the speakers. And it will be filled with rockwool.
Were on a budget of €10.000,-

All the measurements in the drawing are in meters.
It’s our intention to keep you up to date on the building process.
And we are open to any suggestions you people might have.

Greetz
WD

[Tonio Ruiz]

awesome space man, good luck with it, looks like a great project

[StayNuts]

cool to see the actual drawings with all the measurements...
miss them in some threads and these plans tells so much...
thx will follow this thread...

[DoubleyouD]

here's a little update.
we've put in the first iso on the outher wall of the studio.
the wall on the left will get the same treathment.
its 10cm thick rockwool hard pressed gluhed to the wall.

[lord_bunny]

Looks amazing. Congrats!

[spm_gl]

Looks good so far. But I don't understand your floor isolation plan. Do you have a sketch?

[Adlen]

Looks great, can't wait to see it completed!

[DoubleyouD]

So here is a litle update.
last week we went to see this guy who is an expert in building studio's to get some info on things.
So now I made some chances in the studio building plan.
First of all we desided not to make a suspending sealing as it only takes up space and money.
Secondly we will not make the intirre floor of the live room flooting but just a little piece for the drums.
We will do this by pooring concrete on some kind of rubber mat and topping it with wood for the drumsound.
We will also make an other kind of basstrap ussing some kind of DIY glass wool curtins. I will post the more info on this later.
The men also gave us tons of advise on acoustic treatment really nice.

you can see the chances for yoursef in the drawings.

WD

[spm_gl]

You'll definitely save a lot not floating the ceiling and entire floor. I've just ordered sylomer for 350€ for our mastering room. We need to float the entire floor, because it's directly over the conference room.

[DoubleyouD]

Taht's wy we decided to not float the entire floor and ceiling, we are already limited in heigths. And it would not ad anything in therms of sound isolation.

[StayNuts]

here idem dito, no floating floor in our live room too... that room is 40m2 and will save a lot of money to make it not floating... it is on the ground floor of a free standing building, so it will be not so big issue I am suppose... the room will have a grand piano inside.... the second room is 12m2 and can be used a drum booth....

an old friend of mine didn't got a floating floor too but used a simple IKEA laminate floor with a thick rubber layer for damping between the iso of the laminate and the concrete... eh got a good sound and was able to record in the night without disturbing his neighbours...

thinking to use the same way in our rooms.... or maybe put some sylomer between the rubber mat and the laminate floor...

[spm_gl]

Actually, isolating the tracking room is not because of the neighbours, but rather so you hear what you're recording only through your monitors. We don't have any close neighbours, and 36cm concrete walls, yet still needed to build a complete floating tracking room. We floated the entire room, not only the floor. A huge effort though.

[StayNuts]

Originally Posted by spm_gl

Actually, isolating the tracking room is not because of the neighbours, but rather so you hear what you're recording only through your monitors. We don't have any close neighbours, and 36cm concrete walls, yet still needed to build a complete floating tracking room. We floated the entire room, not only the floor. A huge effort though.

Think each situation asks for a different kind of approach... if you build for example a studio in a old shed of a farm, you don't need that much isolation... except when the farm is located near a busy airport or expressway, then you get of course more noise from outside... The wall between the control and track/live room need of course always good isolated... you don't want hear the drums on the background when focusing on the track of the guitar... we start in 2 months with the renovation and we keep in our plan the option to add later an floating floor...

[DoubleyouD]

So its bin a while, the hollidays and all.
But w've bin building so I've got some new pics.
Next week we will be building full time so expext more regular updates and progress soon.
We're half way constructing the frame work of the inner walls.
As you can see we decidede to use wood insted of metal stud. This because wood is less like lee to resonate.

[DoubleyouD]

As I said, this week the built is on and we,ve done a lot.
The framing of the walls is almost done. Hopfully it will be completed at the end of the week.

[Tonio Ruiz]

awesome, I dig the space, it's great

let it rock baby!!!

[DoubleyouD]

Here is another update.
A lot is bin getting done lately, but there is still a lot to do
We did some plumbing for the toilet, kitchen en airco's. It involved a lot of digging in the dirt
Also al the frame work is done including the frame work on the outer walls for the plasterboard.
And now we are busy filling the walls with heracliet ( don't know the english term ).
This involves a lot of dust en sawwing. Also most of the electric is bin taken care of.
Thats it for now but we will keep you people up to date on the built

[DoubleyouD]

I found some more pics

[DoubleyouD]

so here is another update.
a lot has bin going on. we finished the heracliet (still don't know the english therm) and we now moved on to plasterboard. things are going wel. we also started to make some silincers to go in the wall of the live room for ventilation.
here are some pics:

[DoubleyouD]

time fot a litlle update.
al the plasterboard is almost in and also the kitchen is getting shape.
we also placed one of the two silincers.

[andrebrito]

For the tracking room you would also benefit from placing diffusers on the walls

[DoubleyouD]

yes that's the plan, we will do this as soon as all the waals are done.

[Blind]

which type of rockwool did u use?

Looks like rigid boards!? OC-like?

Thanks a lot, good luck with your project!

Jonny

[rimskidog]

Groovy 'silencers'! Keep up the good work!

[DoubleyouD]

we used rockwool hard pressing 10cm thik against the outer waals of the live room. We also used rockwool 201 pressing inbetween the walls of the liveroom. And we filled he waals with heracliet I dont know the correct term in engih but its ome kind of wood fibre cement baord of 7,5 m thik.
hope this answers your question.

[DoubleyouD]

Time for another update.
The plasterboard is done and all the walls have bin treated with stucco/plaster to smooth them out.
The tiles in the kitchen are done, and the toilet is nearly done.
We also costructed a closet next to the kitchen for extra storage.
Next up are the speaker walls in the controle room and after that the wallpaper can go on the walls.
But first tings first, here are the pictures

[DoubleyouD]

As promised, the speaker walls are done.
we are currently busy with cleaning everything up zo we can move on to paint and wallpaper. The construction is done zo no more plasterboard and iso for a while! As I said we are cleaning everything up and are just done with abrading the walls zo the piant and wall paper can go on.
We've still got a lot to do but we are getting there!!!

[iwobic]

Hi DoubleyouD,

great job!

but i noticed you have built the speaker wall monts, you closed them with the plasterboard but you have passes no cable....how are you going to pass the cables into the speaker mount now?

[DoubleyouD]

we've put pipes through the walls so we can pull the wiring later.
we also contructed a shutter in the rear wall so we still have excess to the back of the speakers to conect everything.

[iwobic]

Originally Posted by DoubleyouD

we've put pipes through the walls so we can pull the wiring later.
we also contructed a shutter in the rear wall so we still have excess to the back of the speakers to conect everything.

oh ok, very good then! I hadn't seen the pipes and it looked strange to me cause in that case it would have been a major mistake, that's why i asked you....