recording studio @ a office building

[fossaree]

Hi there folks ,

This studio is about to get its construction started . This week I'm buying all construction related material , and so we're good to go !

Total area is 60m2 .

In this very first post I'm attaching pics of this place as it is currently . Some walls will have to be moved to achieve a better layout .

On next post , I'll attach a model made on "Google Sketch up" . I did it .


Difficulties :
office building , 2 floors -> mine is on 2nd floor , so no neighbors upstairs but there's one downstairs . Also there's a neighbor right next to the future control room , on the same floor .

Staff :
I've sketched the basic lines and it was further improved and properly optimized by a great studio constructor in my country . He has angled its walls and managed it to the best . He also will be responsible for its implementation . I'm not sure that my sketchup model will give you a proper understand of its angles ,but then again its my fault !


studio's goal :
-to track drums, guitars, vocal and small ensembles .
-to have a control room capable to mix and finish all tracked instruments .
Basically a "regular" studio .

[fossaree]

Here it is . A sketch model made on google sketchup !

[fossaree]

Breaking the wall !

We started today , as soon we're done breaking the walls we'll start building the new ones , made with siporex .

Later , i'll be posting more pics .

;-)

[fossaree]

here are the former walls , after lots of !!!
poor of them !

[jimmieee]

keep posting man, looking froward to its finish

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by jimmieee

keep posting man, looking froward to its finish

Hey Jimie , I appreciate your support !

Always good to get good overseas vibrations ;-)

[nicholassss]

Originally Posted by fossaree

here are the former walls , after lots of !!!
poor of them !

perfect use of

i cant wait to see the finished studio

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by nicholassss

perfect use of

i cant wait to see the finished studio

Thanks mate ;-)



Some new pics !


One of the walls gotta be redone because workers have build it up wrong ...
Tomorrow, they'll fix it .

[BeACH CRUiSER]

keep the pics coming.. love to see progress..

oh and i heard the girls in Brazil are beautiful.. i wouldn't mind pics of them either.. lol

[sound_music]

hey man congrats on the new studio!

quick question: haven't seen any evidence yet of isolation between the rooms or exterior walls in your pics? that would be fine if this is a post facility or you are doing mainly voice over work or quiet acoustic instruments--but i saw a drum set in your sketchup files! are you floating your tracking room at least? not to rain on your parade, but if you're not floating that tracking room you should anticipate some serious problems with your new neighbours! (unless of course your new neighbours are super cool and don't mind 90+ dbs of acoustic drums pounding away upstairs...)

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by BeACH CRUiSER

keep the pics coming.. love to see progress..

oh and i heard the girls in Brazil are beautiful.. i wouldn't mind pics of them either.. lol

and yet this one , Gisele Bundchen :


dfegad

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by sound_music

hey man congrats on the new studio!

Thank you dude !!!

quick question: haven't seen any evidence yet of isolation between the rooms or exterior walls in your pics? that would be fine if this is a post facility or you are doing mainly voice over work or quiet acoustic instruments--but i saw a drum set in your sketchup files!

There will be almost 20 cm of isolation materials besides the walls ;-)

are you floating your tracking room at least? not to rain on your parade, but if you're not floating that tracking room you should anticipate some serious problems with your new neighbours! (unless of course your new neighbours are super cool and don't mind 90+ dbs of acoustic drums pounding away upstairs...)

There will be rockwool sheets (50mm) ,OSB (15mm) and EVA sheet (3mm) . I was willing to put some springs , but according to the engineer , these material will cover sound transmission efficiently ...
I'm taking his word for it !

I can't really count on my neighbors though

[sound_music]

that's all great absorption material, and adding mass is always good, but in order for those materials to do their job you need an airspace between the rooms, and between the rooms and the exterior structure. in plain english this means double walls with an airspace between them. and for serious isolation you need to isolate the floor as well, and then construct the walls on that isolated surface. this is where the term "floating" rooms comes from--they don't have any contact (or at least very little) with the building's actual structure, or each other! ie: they float...

how much isolation are you aiming at, and what has your engineer promised you in terms of decibel reduction with your current design? worth investigating--my hunch (based on the pics and sketchup files) is that you're not going to get anywhere near what you'll need if you're planning to track acoustic drums and big amplifiers etc...

again, not trying to rain on your parade! but it would be a shame to invest alot of money without getting the results you need... please discuss this with the engineer before you get any further into your construction!!

fingers crossed for you bro...

ps - amazing pic of Gisele Bundchen !

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by sound_music

in plain english this means double walls with an airspace between them. and for serious isolation you need to isolate the floor as well, and then construct the walls on that isolated surface

Hmm , actually there will be an air gap (admittedly short) between siporex walls (division) and the inside walls (dry wall plus above mentioned material) .

how much isolation are you aiming at, and what has your engineer promised you in terms of decibel reduction with your current design? worth investigating--my hunch (based on the pics and sketchup files) is that you're not going to get anywhere near what you'll need if you're planning to track acoustic drums and big amplifiers etc...

He says something around 90 decibels . Doesn't it seem that the material I'm describing will handle it ? Tell me what you think because I'm worried too !

fingers crossed for you bro...

Thanks again for taking your time , means a lot ;-)

[sound_music]

here's a floor plan that illustrates the basic idea. note the space between the walls separating the rooms and the exterior structure. you don't necessarily need this much air between your rooms etc, you can get away with less--but the more the better in terms of isolation!

to your question: 90db is very good, if your engineer can achieve it without floating the rooms to some degree i'll buy him a beer!

keep us posted...

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by sound_music

keep us posted...

You've got a PM , check it out ;-) !

[sound_music]

hey man, got your pm thanks for sharing your actual floorplan. i think you're good, what is clear in the plan (that's not clear from the sketchup files and pics) is that the engineer has left a little airspace between the rooms and structure. awesome! i understand why the airspace is so small (it isn't noted anywhere but i'm guessing an average of 8-10cm?). considering you're squeezing everything into 60m2--it's a totally reasonable that the engineer would want to leave the maximum amount of usable space for the actual working parts of the studio.! i think it's a good compromise between the totalt amount of space he has to work with and the amount of isolation you need... any more air between your walls and the rooms will start getting very small....

i hope you end up with the 90db he's promising you. if all the T's are crossed and I's dotted, (by that i mean if he doesn't take shortcuts on the absorption materals and construction methods), you should be pretty close.

again, keep us posted, the studio plan looks great: wishing you many years of balls out rockin' drums and marshall amps with no neighbour problems!

ps - as to your other question: no, i'm not an acoustics or construction "expert"--just a guy that has been involved in a couple studio builds... just sharing the bit of knowledge i have with a fellow studio owner! ive witnessed quite a few studio builds that ended up not delivering the decibel reduction the owner had hoped for--it's really important for both your relations with neighbouring businesses, and for your own tracking and mixing--sound travels both ways... in AND out!

[fossaree]

More than 200 bricks , but notice they're not small !

The wall of left side of the control room , wasn't angled correctly . Today they did fix it and you may see it in one of the pics . I think tomorrow they'll finish building the walls and so drywall work starts ;-) .

[jimmieee]

Originally Posted by fossaree

and yet this one , Gisele Bundchen :


dfegad

Gr8 absorption too

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by jimmieee

Gr8 absorption too

Oh yeah !

[fossaree]

Today they made again a mistake regarding one of the walls angle . I can't believe . There's a plan , they should follow ... But after some talk , I think they got it .

I learned that when it comes to construction , the owner MUST follow step by step !

So there's no (bad) future surprises ;-)



Just as analogy , sometimes I just got the impression that they're like :
"-Oh never mind , we'll fix it in the mix !"

LOL

[sound_music]

Originally Posted by fossaree

I learned that when it comes to construction , the owner MUST follow step by step !

Just as analogy , sometimes I just got the impression that they're like :
"-Oh never mind , we'll fix it in the mix !"

LOL

lol! totally man, great analogy! glad you're making your presence felt during construction. my experience with contractors has bee pretty much the same: they often don't understand how important the details are, like the angle of your wall for example. in a case i had personally a contractor couldn't understand why they couldn't just lay the air ducts ontop of the ceiling of a floating room instead of hanging them...

the average contractor has little or no experience with acoustic design, and will often see your details as extraneous and time consuming "for no reason", and try to cut corners.

keep up the vigilant patrol bro! i feel your pain...!

[fossaree]

Now walls are correctly angled
There we go .


looking forward to start dry walls work !

[fossaree]

nothing really new , but pics in this thread are never superfluous

basically , walls are done and now you may have a proper idea about studio's space .

Corridors of studio-reception , and then control room/bathrooms .

[elginchris]

WOW great build! Thanks for inviting me to this thread!

Those brick walls are going to work out great and they look BA as well!

[keylay]

I look forward to seeing this build completed.

[fossaree]

Originally Posted by keylay

I look forward to seeing this build completed.

Cool mate ! So do I ;-)


Actually , walls and divisions are done as well as electricity parts . Dry wall boards are being placed on ceiling , for isolation purposes .

Unfortunately , I can't post pics because I'm on the road for the holidays . But as soon as I'm back (january) , I'll post some new pics ;-) .

By the way , Merry X-mas !

[fossaree]

after a couple of weeks out , i'm updating some new pics .

Drywall boards on ceiling , but I'm thinking if they didn't lower the ceiling more than
it was supposed to . I'm gonna check it tomorrow . If they did ... OMG , I don't care but they will have to redone everything .

[fossaree]

this week's work :

- getting some wood and other material to start floor
- electricity points
- installation of mini-split AC points

;-)

[fossaree]

goals of last week perfectly achieved ;-) , thanks God !

Updating w/ more pics , small improvements but definitely very important .
AC with tubulation installed , and electricity and tubes for audio cables are properly done .


This week upcoming , starts some great things as well . Floor & walls isolation .
Stay tuned for nice pics coming this week .

Bye !