small two story studio build (Germany)

[zijon]

I've been a silent reader in this forum for ages and have learned quite a lot along the way. Now I think it is time for me to step in and actually say a word or two about my project.

Complete construction of a small (~65m², 700 sq ft) two story Studio in southern Germany.
I'm converting an old woodshop so I spent the first 3 days or so cleaning up, removing the foot high layer of sawdust, vacuuming the walls removing the old tools and machines etc. No need to document.

[zijon]

for some reason my 2 posts with the long text and pictures is not coming online...mods:any idea why not?

[zijon]

alright after my posts didn't go online i'll try again

in short i am constructing a two story studio in southern Germany.
The last two weeks were spent on cleaning up the place (3 full days !!!) measuring the dimensions correcty, putting up the first layer and a half of glass wool, putting in the beams for the gallery and so on and so forth.

Let's let the Pictures speak.

One last thing: I have found no information whatsoever on a studio with a gallery so if any of you have experience on this matter shoot away. Also any other recommandation is more than appreciated.

[Colonel Blues]

Sure it's gonna be a nice place ! Go on !

[microwave]

That looks promising, looking forward to see how you get on!

[culteousness1]

nice place you got down there!
looking forward for new photos and details.

greets from cologne!

[Unique]

Zijon do not take me wrong:

1) Main floor with 2 iso booths and day light windows is OK
2) Upper floor with 4x3m control room with balcony on high slope roof is just not going to work ... it is too small!

One can barely move in a 4x3m with the smallest workstation and some outboard racks (without even mentioning carrying equipment up and down on steep stairs which almost preclude analog console or tape machine).

First and foremost build double flux air ventilation (with heat exchanger) with very low speed fans and silencers (inlets/outlets) to be able to change the entire air 2.5 to 5 times entire volume per hour (installed for example at the very top of ceiling with access to change air filter every 6 months). 2 to 6kW of audio equipment from which 50% is heat would be unbearable in such small (upper) space.

For the upper space consider possibly 1 complete closed floor (no more loggia) and reserve 6.0m wide by 4.3m deep for the control room with roof daylight (spaced doubled heavy 10mm glass to not hear rain) centered with below room windows. The stairs control room would have access on 1 side and 1 small machine room on the other side. Use affordable network cameras and video monitors to establish visual communication (some glass inside upper floor if you need to be fancy).

There are many "blind" control rooms in the UK with simple video monitor to have sufficient control room space for a console, recorder, racks, monitors and proper acoustics.

6x4m is a bare minimum for a control room (wider than deep) to receive equipment, a mixing engineers and few more humans and to be large enough to have proper monitor sound (without "boxy" bass and excessively too early reflections aka bedroom syndroms). Use ceilign heigh and slopes to your advantage for maximum volume and angled (non parallel walls).



Your studio sound will be judged by your control room sound which depends on 1) proper room size and acoustics and 2) monitoring system.

There is no signal processing to remove a too small/too bad sounding mixing room!

There is no better advertisement than good sound (size+acoustics+monitoring) from a mixing room!

Even if your budget is limited to entry level console/equipment : turn the potential space you have in your favor. Do not put yourself inside an audio jail.

Day light, air ventilation (fresh air and equipment remove heat) together with sufficient studio spaces are key assets.

Think about it again!



I did not yet mention acoustic isolation (low noise), electrical distribution, lighting ...

[zijon]

Hey everyone. Thanks a lot for your interest. More updates later today!

Unique thanks a million for your remarks. I greatly share your concern about the size of the control room. The literature I have been reading states a minimum of 10m² for a decent control room. I am somewhere at 10.4m². obviously the slanted walls take a good chunk out of the total air volume in the place but I'll have to live with this for now. I really really can't take more size away from the live room.
Besides, I am planning to use a digital console, very little outboard equipment and no midfield monitors (too bad). As soon as I can afford the changes, I can afford a bigger control room as well.

The ventilation problem is a problem i will adress next summer (no cash right now). I am spacing out the top sufficiently for sound insulated ventilation.

Does anyone know about a green-glue or similar vendor in Germany?

Once again, updates later today!
Regards

[zijon]

today the last of the glass wool is finally in place in the roof. that stuff utterly sucks. itches, makes you caugh, stings in the eyes etc. Most of you probably know what i'm talking about. Luckily i didn't use the yellow stuff but chose a more eco friendly unculoured version.
The roof has two layers of wool. a 120mm layer between the roofing and then another 50mm on top. After that I installed the airtight plastic seal. Tomorrow and tuesday finally the wood studs for the drywall come in place.i hope transmission values will be alright. i am planning to use 2 layers of special acoustic drywall (not quietrock) so i think i should be fine.

1: Carpenter preparing the crossbeams
2:crossbeams in place
3: "
4:This really cool old macine to cut straw. As You can see it works great on glasswool. We could cut entire 10m bundles at once!
5:the last bit of the first layer of glasswool gets installed
6: 2 layers plus the foil and the wood studs
7: finito

[zijon]

last picture update for a bit as I will be on vacation for a few weeks. The roof is ready for cables and drywall, the place is nice and cleaned up and the additional walls are planned and drawn on the floor.
When I'm back the "piano" drywall and the metal framing will be ordered.
Regards

The pictures are shot out of opposing corners. It is always hard to get a hold of an entire room an photo but i think it is possible to get the general size of things.

[Toni-P]

looks like its gonna be good

where in Germany are you located exactly?

[zijon]

Originally Posted by Toni-P

looks like its gonna be good

where in Germany are you located exactly?

Between Karlsruhe and Freiburg. Southwest Germany

[zijon]

as i am not able to do actual work right now (i'm on vacation) i've been doing quite a lot of research and i have some doubts about the soundproofing of the roof. i don't know if the tiles side of the mass-air-mass sandwich is going to do a good enough job. I mean the tiles are definitely heavy enough but i don't think they are really airtight. any thoughts/experience on that?
thanks guys

[diskodonz]

yes indeed. i think rain would be a big problem too.

[jensenmann]

Hi neighbour
The tiles will do something, but you won´t find any values of how much soundproofing they will give you. The only thing you can do is to measure how much noise actually enters your studio at each stage of construction and then decide what to do next to get the required soundproofing. Take an entire day when you can expect worst-case noise and measure the in short intervals. Write everything down to get an overview.
What may help (but cost a fortune) is to get the roof redone with an additional layer of Pavatex boards between studs and tiles (Aufsparrendämmung). Ask your carpenter about that.

[zijon]

hey jensen. that was gonna be my last resort if push comes to tug (did I get that saying right?)
My plans so far are to try to seal of the last row of tiles with some extra planks. I mean the two layers of acoustic drywall on the other side of the 120mm+50mm of fiberglass will definitely do a fairly good job, i'm just not sure if it's gonna be good enough.
by the way do you live in karlsruhe city? if so you gotta come over for a drink!

@diskodonz: i am fairly confident that the rain will not be of concern as i do not have any windows in the roofing and the roof is made of old school heavy duty tiles.

[MidasHatesGold]

nice to witness another german built. I have a similar room above my studio which ist about 200 sqm ...so this will be intresting for me.

best of luck from the north to the south.

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by zijon

that was gonna be my last resort if push comes to tug (did I get that saying right?)

"Push comes to shove".

But you got your point across just fine.

[zijon]

so finally I'm back on the action and I can hit you with some new pics. Not real ones, but at least some plans and concepts.
I've been trying to figure out some stuff regarding the decoupling of walls and the floor. Pic one shows the planned flooring construction. The styrofoam is for temperature- and structural sound-insulation, the fiberglass should take care of the rest. Essentially this is a massive mass-air-mass system with the top (lighter) layer coming in at about 5 tons
I was considering doing the real deal and floating the floor but I don't think I am competent enough to do this and I do not know of any spacialists to help me out on this (I was looking at these Jack up systems mentioned in a certaing, well quoted book around here) so I'll use the fiberglass. On top of the second layer of concrete I'll put one last layer of foam (compatible with floor heating) and then some nice laminate flooring. Remember, hardwood is a LOT more expensive around here.
Once the slab is poured I'll go in and divide the seperate rooms. That is - saw gaps in where the walls will be. This will hopefully do a great job at decoupling things like a drumset from the next room.

Next are the walls. The large walls at either end of the structure will be fairly simple using metal framing mounted on the new floor and the ceiling using special foam. Not touching the rear wall at all. The other walls don't really make sense using the metal structure so I'll go for wood. In the US, mason industries makes these great wall and ceiling hangers but I can't find any vendors or makers of similar products around here. Anybody know of any German-based company? That would be really great!

Another issue I am working on is the audio wiring. I started another thread on the matter and some help would be greatly appreciated.

Last bot not least I think I have the rough design for the wallmounted mic panels!
I will mount two of the larger babes with the speakon in the live room (in combination with an 8 channel Headphone preamp), the other large one in the drumroom and the small one in the vocal booth. Any suggestions?

Ah one last comment, my new interface is ready for action - a HDSP 9652, 24 ADAT IO and a good wordclock. I got a digital concole so this is perfect!

Wow turned out to be quite the long post. If you have managed to read this far you really rock and I am very glad you took the time!

[jensenmann]

for your floor this might be what you want: sylomer in der bautechnik - schwingungsisolierung für gebäude und bauteile, treppen, podeste und decken
check here for some impressions: booth1

In Germany you don´t want to pay the available hangers. Prices are insane. You´d better ask an expierienced acoustical engineering company to calculate your construction and give you the plans how to DIY the hangers. It´s possible, they will do it ;-)

Drop me a pm with your email, I can take some pictures in one of our rooms with DIYed hangers.


You should add more connections to your wallpanels. You can´t ever have enough possibilities and the day will come for sure when you could need even more of everything. Don´t forget video (better sebveral different formats), Wordclock, Timecode, lightpipe, Sub D 9 and 25, instrument wires (jack but not necessarily using jack connectors), enough speaker wires, studio monitors, listen mics, ....
You´d better not use jacks (Klinke) in your wallpanels. These connectors are not rugged enough and will get intermittant as soon as the first musician stumbled across a wire connnected to them (will happen at day 1)

[Analogue Kid]

Originally Posted by Unique

Zijon do not take me wrong:

1) Main floor with 2 iso booths and day light windows is OK
2) Upper floor with 4x3m control room with balcony on high slope roof is just not going to work ... it is too small!

One can barely move in a 4x3m with the smallest workstation and some outboard racks (without even mentioning carrying equipment up and down on steep stairs which almost preclude analog console or tape machine).

First and foremost build double flux air ventilation (with heat exchanger) with very low speed fans and silencers (inlets/outlets) to be able to change the entire air 2.5 to 5 times entire volume per hour (installed for example at the very top of ceiling with access to change air filter every 6 months). 2 to 6kW of audio equipment from which 50% is heat would be unbearable in such small (upper) space.

For the upper space consider possibly 1 complete closed floor (no more loggia) and reserve 6.0m wide by 4.3m deep for the control room with roof daylight (spaced doubled heavy 10mm glass to not hear rain) centered with below room windows. The stairs control room would have access on 1 side and 1 small machine room on the other side. Use affordable network cameras and video monitors to establish visual communication (some glass inside upper floor if you need to be fancy).

There are many "blind" control rooms in the UK with simple video monitor to have sufficient control room space for a console, recorder, racks, monitors and proper acoustics.

6x4m is a bare minimum for a control room (wider than deep) to receive equipment, a mixing engineers and few more humans and to be large enough to have proper monitor sound (without "boxy" bass and excessively too early reflections aka bedroom syndroms). Use ceilign heigh and slopes to your advantage for maximum volume and angled (non parallel walls).



Your studio sound will be judged by your control room sound which depends on 1) proper room size and acoustics and 2) monitoring system.

There is no signal processing to remove a too small/too bad sounding mixing room!

There is no better advertisement than good sound (size+acoustics+monitoring) from a mixing room!

Even if your budget is limited to entry level console/equipment : turn the potential space you have in your favor. Do not put yourself inside an audio jail.

Day light, air ventilation (fresh air and equipment remove heat) together with sufficient studio spaces are key assets.

Think about it again!



I did not yet mention acoustic isolation (low noise), electrical distribution, lighting ...

Yes I agree 100% with this, a studio is either definative or it is not,do not underestimate the importance of proper acoustic design and good monitoring.......


Andy

[zijon]

Originally Posted by Analogue Kid

Yes I agree 100% with this, a studio is either definative or it is not,do not underestimate the importance of proper acoustic design and good monitoring.......


Andy

I won't. More on the matter when it actually is time to get into the acoustics bit of the build.

[zijon]

The metal framing arrived today and I'll start putting that up this weekend.I've found some great flexible, stable rubber to put the framing on, conveyer belt material! I will use some industrial neoprene ceiling hangers for the non-slanted parts. the slanted part should be rather well decoupled as is (4 intersecting layers of wood between inner and outer layer.)
Also I've decided to go for the double framing when I saw the STC-Increase (I know stc is not everything BUT going from 53 to 65 according to manufacturers data - sounds great!).
Pictures once I actually did something

[zijon]

This weekend was slightly less productive as hoped because I managed to slice my hand open on a peace of the metal framing (I added a photo of the cursed peace of s***). Obviously that had to happen on sunday. Off to the hospital..well the function of my finger is fully restored now. But at least 2 weeks for the gash to close up :(

Some of the framing has found its place on the concrete and the walls and I was able to get one of the doors framed. Also, as you can see, the structural part of the second floor is taken care of.

Hopes are high to to get all the metal up next weekend!

Pic 1: Some of the metal waiting to go up
Pic 2: The cursed corner
Pic 3: The framed door
Pic 4: Finished woodwork

[zijon]

short follow-up here.
I've now installed 3 roof-light Windows, 2 of which will have to be soundproofed as they are in the control room. I plan to line the frame with some wood and neoprene and ad an extra layer of glass spaced about 4" away from the original double layer. I know more air would be better but the frame is just not deep enough.

The fireproof, soon-to-be-soundproof steel door with fermacell core is installed. (sorry, no pictures yet)

The rear wall framing is finished. I designed a fairly nice system for decoupling the wall from everything else. I attached a drawing of the principle.

Also the framing for the drum room is at a stage where I need the exact measurements of the windows to continue. I will do this once the glass is cut.

Plans for the weekend:
-Have the hole-guy drill the holes for the ventilation systems and the new hole in the chimney (during construction I will use a little wood stove to heat the place).

-Get the wiring started.

-Build a prototype of the lighting system to see if the LED's don't get too hot surrounded with all the fiberglass.

-start the framing on the vocal chamber. I had to redesign this slightly due to the fact that I had forgotten that the floor still is will gain about 8 inches due to the concrete slab still to be poured.

Pictures (sorry for the bad quality this time):

1: Drumroom framing
2: Rubber'n'Wood decoupling system
3: Decoupler
4: so far a standard window
5: windows in place

[tomooo]

Great space, great idea and I belive it will be a beautiful buld

Btw regarding control room size/ideas, i'm in the similar position (4x3,4m, h=2,8m), it is not ideal and basically no room for diffusion but hevy basstraping ,especially on back wall(heavy hangers) and you will be just fine for start.

Lookin forward to new progress pics

Best regard


Tomo

[zijon]

The holes for the ventilation system are in place. Quite an impressive process involving lots of noise, water and clay-mud. Also the chimney has been taken care of.
Also the door now fits and awaits weatherstripping.
I started constructing a prototype of the recessed lighting system. This involves some challenges as, essentially, we have lots of well-sized holes in the ceiling. I do not want to lose on the STL so I decided to cap each light fixture with a pre-molded 1,5" airtight cement casing. The only problem with this is heat. I know LED's do not produce too much of it but I don't want to take risks here so I want to set up a prototype and give it a test run.

[leoguiders]

Looks promising, keep up the good work!

Maybe I can come around sometime ;-)

[zijon]

you're more than welcome to come by. right now it's still quite a mess but give it some time and it'll be just great

[ArlosGuitar]

Your space is very much like mine sq/ft wise. My downstairs is 826cm x 592cm. Upstairs is roughly the same. Although you have a jump on production. I won't be starting mine for the most part till spring.

Studio Barn

We both have similar layouts on the main floor. What are your plans for the 2 pocket areas. I was thinking about moving my door and filling the areas with base traps. You should check out my layouts if you get a chance. We might really be able to help eachother out.