Jules' studio build project

I am converting this office upstairs from my studio into a drum room & vocal booth. I have been using a tiny drum / overdub booth for 3 years and have had to book larger facilities to track in more 'style' & keep 'serious' clients. Hopefully this new space (more than 3 times the size of my existing recording area) will allow me to keep projects in house as they grow "hey we could do the album here, why not?" is my goal.

There is a separate door for each area:

Small live room / control room
Upstairs / live area / vocal booth /kitchen

This will be a pain in the ass!

I will document the build here.

The view as you walk in

The line of the banisters will form a new wall, isolating the stairs, kitchen & bathroom from the recording areas.

View acrross into main live area and glass partitioned "vocal area"

View to front across the live area

Kitchen area + WC

Better look at 'vocal booth' featuring Martin, ace studio wireing expert.

View as you leave

[imacgreg]

Hey Jules, looks pretty cool. You are gonna get some good excercise running up and down the stairs when you are tracking drums!

How does the vocal booth (with the glass wall) sound??

Good luck on the build!
Ian

[Geert van den Berg]

Yep I know everything about walking down the stairs when tracking drums, actually in my studio (also my bands practice room) it's a ladder. But still good fun.

I will have a video camera to see the action in the drum room from below. and a talkback 'speaker' and listen back mic. AsI am the primary client. I am not too fussed about rumble through between the top floor and the Control room. I installed 2nd layer ceilings to stop our noise going upstairs and that worked ok for 3 years with few complaints. I expect it to be 'not so bad' however quite short of a large expencive studios isolation...

[Jack Ruston]

Originally posted by Jules
I am not too fussed about rumble through between the top floor and the Control room. I installed 2nd layer ceilings to stop our noise going upstairs and that worked ok for 3 years with few complaints. I expect it to be 'not so bad' however quite short of a large expencive studios isolation...

Its a tough one isnt it. I recently built a room within a room in a basement room. The room above has seperate joists for the floor, but its an old house, and if you walk about in there, most of the house shakes...you can see plants vibrating etc. Many residential buildings are like this. Soundproofing with partition walls is very effective down to about 80-100hz. The low stuff still puts in an appearance, and that floor above my room can be a little problematic. Luckily most of the tracking that goes on in the control room (which is the room I am talking about) is vocals which can be filtered to a certain extent. Acoustic guitars can be a problem though. I think you're right though Jules...a bit of rumble is liveable with considering the cost involved in TOTAL isolation. In my room now, I can blast a track, and stand outside the doors...all I hear is a faint 'whum whum whum' of the really low stuff. Its powerful!

Jack

[Meriphew]

Originally posted by GvdB
Yep I know everything about walking down the stairs when tracking drums, actually in my studio (also my bands practice room) it's a ladder. But still good fun.

Actually Jules is installing an elevator as well.

[Wiggy Neve Slut]

Jules... if your studio is downstairs... i think ur gona be needing a 'gimp' on a chain to move ya mikes for u.... ooops thats what assistants are for...lol... pmsl.

(dont worry i did my penance as an assistant so i know what its all abou and i loved it!)

PEACE
Wiggy

Ha !!! I wish.. Any one else have a pain in the ass door situation at their studio? I've spent 3 years nagging bands to keep ONE door shut' now I have 2 to keep an eye on... I wonder if I can get a magnetic key fob that will open both doors? I could give one to the band to get in and out without buzzing an intercom each time or having to use keys....I could then do a serious lock up / alarm set each night.....

[joeq]

Originally posted by Meriphew
Actually Jules is installing an elevator as well.

how about a dumbwaiter? it could probably hold everything but the occasional bass amp.

[joeq]

Originally posted by Jules
Ha !!! I wish.. Any one else have a pain in the ass door situation at their studio?

I put a little yellow sign on my doors that say "please keep this door shut at all times" it works like a charm

the musicians always take the time to read the signs carefully and make keeping the doors closed as much of a priority for themselves as it is to me.

I was looking into spring or gas loaded door closers, but now with these effective little yellow signs I guess I won't need them.

[davemc]

I put a "pull" sign on one of my exit doors, still see people pushing it all the time.. Its not yellow though.

After Martin recorded cello up there it and we all (Martin & Bevy B) thought it sounded fantastic (nice long room decay) it was starting to break my heart that we were about to build a wall following the banister floor to ceiling blocking off all the stairwell... That would cut the open plan office into a closed in small box.

So I we came up with the 'canopy' idea, the next morning, I was in time to ask the builder Rob what he thought, he agreed to do it.

here are some more in progress photos..

Looking up canopy frame

Across at canopy - see the far wall on the left side? THAT'S what I didn't want to lose out on! There will be a door across where you can see the cables forming a hallway to the kitchen and a place to catch your breath after getting up the stairs with the drum kit.

Note: The side wall of canopy - is not folowing parallel with the stairs, instead it widens at the top, this is so as not to get a flutter echo from the opposite studio wall.

View across to kitchen, Cardboard boxes contain the Air Con / heating unit

Hmmm, this window will change,

It has wired security glass

Bars will get angle ground off

Window will get screwed shut for good & cleaned well

Perhaps a double layer of glass will be added.

Then frosted or "distorted view" glass bricks will fill up the window sill. Dittoe the other window. Its a dreary view out and for security reasons I dont want passers by to see anything distinguishable through the windows..

[C.Lambrechts]

hmmmm .... I was thinking of a trip to London in the summer ... visit my chum Jules but I think I'll wait 'till I see pictures of the finished version. I want to avoid being put a hammer or a paint brush in my hands while talking gear.

[BevvyB]

Nah, you're safe. His crack team of musclebound lesbians are at it day and night.

You could get people to stand in that strange 'dunce' corner you've created when they do a bad take.

Air con in da house!!!!!



(Actually that is a emoticon private joke I will share with you all. The Air con guy (an Indian) has THREE thumbs! Yep, one hand has 2, one normal one and it's little mini thum chum attached to it!)

[BevvyB]

He lost his other 5 thumbs in an air con accident

[knightfly]

So, Jules, you decided to go with the glass blocks? I'd be curious to know what the TL is, once you've got the rest of the construction done.

Looks like it'll be pretty cool -

If you need to remote your "puter" stuff, there's a couple of Cat 5 extenders that will remote the whole thing with just a cat 5 cable, so you could control from the drum room if necessary (but you probably already know that...)

Anyway, hadn't heard from you in a while, thanks for stopping by... Steve

Steve please leave details of your studio building forum on this thread for folks to see and I will make a bigger promo for it soon. (its great folks check it out)

what What we decided to do is add ONE MORE glass pane THEN put in the 42db reducing glass bricks...so that is about 4 layers of glass with various air gaps between it.

right now what I am stuck on is fresh air in-out. I can't figure out how to do it without blasting the durm kit sound out to the neighbourhood which would be a bummer.

[knightfly]

Gladly, Jules - first, here's a brief thumbnail -

John Sayers, a well-known recording engineer and studio designer/builder in Australia, has opened his own site hosted by a good friend in Oz. The site only covers design and building of studios, acoustics, and speaker design;

John was gracious enough to ask me to moderate the Construction forum, not because I'm famous (obviously) but because he liked the answers I was posting on other sites in response to people's questions. I've been making noise with both musical instruments and tools since I was five, which was around 1950 - I've been self-studying sound proofing/acoustics in spare time for the last 15 years or so, ever since building a "studio" into my barn thinking I knew what I was doing, only to find out that my wife could hear me playing piano from INSIDE the house, 100 feet away :=( - Since then, I've had better luck with results coming MUCH closer to aspirations :=)

Our speaker design forum is moderated by Thomas Barefoot, a California-based speaker designer who has been a big help to people on other forums for some time now - He has set me straight on a few points, which I always appreciate (after gritting my teeth and mentally erasing bad information)

Anyway, if anyone's still awake, here's the link to John's site - please feel free to drop in and say hi, ask questions, post useful information, etc -

http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Jules, come on over and pop your questions on air handling - between John and I, I think we can help you sort it out...

The stairwell half covered