DIY Basement Studio / mixing room

[mr lee]

Been lurking here for a little while. Figured I'd post up my DIY Studio Build to keep me motivated and hopefully get some advice from you all. I've already redone the basement once, but now I'm tearing into it once again. This time I'll be building an acoustically treated sound room for audio production. This isn't a recording studio for vocals or live instruments, but rather a mixing/production studio. The room will be balanced and treated for maximum clarity and precision mixing.

Here are a few pictures of the studio before I started ripping it apart. You may not be able to tell from the pictures, but the setup was not optimized for the type of work I was doing.





this is the general principal of what I'll be building...


In order to do this, I'll be building a 6" separating wall with a solid door. All of the interior walls and ceiling will be re-covered with 5/8" rock and acoustical treatment. I'll be adding a loveseat against the back all and probably some kind of coffee table. The floor will either be solid wood with a huge rug, or I might just do shag carpet... haven't really decided.

teardown process




basic measurements


layout mock up


I'll update as progress is made. It will be slow as I'm in no rush, I just want it done right.

[mr lee]

Finally made some progress over the weekend.

Picked up a bunch of wood and ordered a new door - 1.75" Solid MDF Core prehung w/ 7.25" jam depth.

Framed up the wall (pardon the blurry phone pics, i need to bust out the dslr)

[mr lee]

progress.
















Need to order a bunch of Roxul Sound'n'Safe insulation as well as ToughRock 5/8" Fire/Sound Drywall.

[mr lee]

Another great weekend of progress. Had a few friends over to help with the electrical and plumbing. Again, sorry for the crappy phone pictures. I'll bust out the 7D and take some better pictures once it starts to come together.

Ran 5 new boxes, 3 with USB power. Installed 4x 4" can lights that will hold SYLVANIA White 4" Dimmable LED bulbs.












Next I had to re-route some plumbing for one of the exterior faucets. The pipe was originally ran below the floor joists. Whoever installed the remodel drywall installed 1x2" boards to frame and lower the ceiling to clear this pipe. Obviously not what we want, so now we're all clear to install drywall directly to the floor joists. We also re-routed for clearance of the new lights.

[mr lee]

Finally getting real sketches made.

Ended up using Google Sketch Up. Their free version was good enough for me to get this mocked up in scale. Some measurements are a bit off, but the general principal for the room is finally coming together.

[InternJesse]

Very cool, I love these threads, looking forward to more!

[mr lee]

Thanks for the kind words! I've been doing a lot of little things in preparation for insulation and drywal. Next I've got to wire up my exhaust fan/vent and add another light setup and then clean up some old wiring.

I've also started on some of my homemade traps. After all of the DIY's i've read, I hope I got them right.

[mr lee]

I'm finally making progress on the window wall. We plan on adding framed out removable inserts for the windows.







picked up a set of hs80s. pretty stoked.


Door should be here late next week. Then it's all downhill from there.

[mr lee]

Ordered some furniture!

[DR Music]

Originally Posted by mr lee

I'm finally making progress on the window wall. We plan on adding framed out removable inserts for the windows.







picked up a set of hs80s. pretty stoked.


Door should be here late next week. Then it's all downhill from there.

There are some awesome things you can do to the HS80m's now... look into it!

[Freya]

Originally Posted by mr lee

Finally made some progress over the weekend.

LOVE the tiled floor! Reminds me a lot of Toe Rag studios in London!

love

Freya

[mr lee]

Originally Posted by DR Music

There are some awesome things you can do to the HS80m's now... look into it!

in terms of modifying them?

[mr lee]

Originally Posted by Freya

LOVE the tiled floor! Reminds me a lot of Toe Rag studios in London!

love

Freya

thanks! Unfortunately I'll have a large area rug covering most of it, but it's still cool. We used the rest of it in the bathroom upstairs.

[DR Music]

Originally Posted by mr lee

in terms of modifying them?

Yes.
Zenpro.com

[mr lee]

Yeah, I've done a bit of reading on the ZenPro HS80's, however they don't sell the mod kit separately from the speakers.

Originally Posted by zenpro

What We Do:

Stock op-amps are replaced with Burr Brown brand (which delivers over 10x the slew rate, increasing detail and clarity)
Electrolytic capacitors in the signal path are replaced with Panasonic low ESR type caps, in combination with high quality WIMA polypropylene caps
Limiter circuit is disabled (preventing compression of the bass response, and allowing midrange transients the ability to punch)

sounds impressive... but is it worth it?

[mr lee]

Installed the solid core door last night. It was a major PITA due to the custom size, fitment, etc. Ended up having to shave the top of the door to clear the ducting on the opening side. It's not 100% level, but at this point, I'm just happy it fits.

[erikdrink]

Great, keep em' coming!

[erikdrink]

The pics that is

[mr lee]

Of course! Gotta keep making progress first. Furniture arrives on April 21st, so my goal is to have it painted and ready by then. My budget is dictating progress, so hopefully I can keep on track. Buying the HS80's didn't help, haha. Priorities.

[Ragan]

This is looking great. I know how tough hanging doors can be. My house is almost 100 years old, so 'plumb' is an illusion at best.

Here's the room I just finished building in my basement:

My Basement Studio Build

Cheers to a fellow DIY'er.

[mr lee]

Originally Posted by Ragan

This is looking great. I know how tough hanging doors can be. My house is almost 100 years old, so 'plumb' is an illusion at best.

Here's the room I just finished building in my basement:

My Basement Studio Build

Cheers to a fellow DIY'er.

Thanks man, I've been following your build for some inspiration as well! I can't wait to show you what I'm doing with the LED's and the diffusion panels. It will resemble your trap lighting treatment.

[Ragan]

Right on!

Sent from my ADR6300 using Gearslutz App

[mr lee]

Started framing out some room treatment.

bass traps!




Cloud..



Diffusion Panel

[DR Music]

Originally Posted by mr lee

Started framing out some room treatment.

bass traps!




Cloud..



Diffusion Panel

Best investment! Great job!!!

[AnthonyRochester]

are you following a 2D QRD pattern for the diffusor?

[mikahanau]

Originally Posted by AnthonyRochester

are you following a 2D QRD pattern for the diffusor?

looks more like a PRD for me

Nice build. I love to follow this construction thread

cheers Mika

[mr lee]

Yeah, here is the 2d QRD pattern. I hope it's right. In the pictures above, I was simply cutting and laying them out. They are in no pattern or order currently, hence why it looks like PRD.

This is my first time doing anything like this, so I really hope that i calculated it right. If it's slightly off I'm okay with that, so long as it works good enough.

[Cegor]

Can't wait to see the finished studio. Your going to have the biggest smile on your face when you listen to some records for the first time in you brand new studio. Enjoy it!

[mr lee]

Well... apparently my insulation is back ordered till next week, so I can't make any real progress until then. In the meantime I picked up drywall and started on a few little things in prep for insulation.

drywall... 16 sheets of 5/8, 4 sheets of 3/8


Exterior sign. This will be back lit with interchangeable plexiglass slides for "recording" or whatever we want.


Finally able to test out the back lit diffusion panel. I'm running LED strip lights on a frame behind the QRD and Cloud. The LEDs are color changing / dimmable via remote. A little "over the top" for my taste, however once the room comes together I think it will serve as pretty cool mood lighting.

[mr lee]