Turning unfinished basement space into tracking/mixing room

[Fab4ever]

Greetings all!

I am a perpetual engineering/musical newbie buying a house that has some unfinished basement space that I intend to use as a tracking-and-mixing recording room. It has concrete floor and currently two brick walls and no ceiling, just the beams from the first floor above.

I will get into the details of the room size, budget, etc. in a future post, but I wanted to start by asking those of you who have done this sort of work:

What are the most important things to do, in your view, to make a good sounding little space?

I assume I will be building walls and a ceiling. I have no construction experience, but I have two in-laws who do. But they have no recording or studio experience, so I need to tell them what I have in mind to help the room.

Some ideas I've read about so far:

* non-parallel walls
* making the walls separate from the existing brick walls
* perhaps sticking some of the standard fiberglass isolation (the fluffly pink stuff) in between the walls I build and the existing walls.
* a ceiling that isn't connected to the structure above it, but rather is connected to the walls. But what the ceiling should be made of I have no idea. Nor do I know if this is even safe or if it would pass a building code inspection.
* I gather that "floating" the floor is impractical for me, given my lack of knowledge and a limited budget.

So, lemme have it. What should I be thinking about? How do I design or at least rough out my ideas so my brothers-in-law, who have built many standard walls and ceilings, will know what to do?

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Fab4ever

* non-parallel walls

Always useful, but not essential.

* making the walls separate from the existing brick walls

Only to get a little bass trapping from the inner walls. Otherwise not essential.

* perhaps sticking some of the standard fiberglass isolation (the fluffly pink stuff) in between the walls I build and the existing walls.

Yes, mandatory.

So, lemme have it. What should I be thinking about? How do I design or at least rough out my ideas so my brothers-in-law, who have built many standard walls and ceilings, will know what to do?

Be prepared to do a lot of reading.

Here's some good places to start:

RealTraps - Maximum Studio
RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room
Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms

--Ethan

[Weasel9992]

A little supplemental reading: Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros, by Rod Gervais. Great book, very accessible.

Frank

[Fab4ever]

Thanks to both of you. Ethan, of course I have perused your site (and hope to have some money left over after the house purchase to buy some of your products!) as well as some of the articles you've written. I will keep studying. Thanks for the thoughts on the non-essentials. I will definitely plan on using the fluffy insulation between the walls and the brick.

And Weasel, I'll look up that book. Thanks for the rec.

Is there anything else offhand you guys can think of I should talk to my "builders" (that is, my brothers-in-law) about? And should I do anything about the cement floor, other than an area rug or two?

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by Fab4ever

Is there anything else offhand you guys can think of I should talk to my "builders" (that is, my brothers-in-law) about? And should I do anything about the cement floor, other than an area rug or two?

I know you didn't ask about electrical and low voltage rough-in, but I'm going to tell you anyway: conduit, and plenty of it...3/4" is fine. Not point-to-point necessarily (unless you'll never have access above the ceiling again), but lots of stub-ups into the ceiling from various locations (front wall monitor locations, side wall and back wall input locations, rack locations, etc)...whatever you don't need you can just finish with a box and a blank plate and save that puppy for later. Add up all your electrical needs, break that down into 20amp circuits, then add 50% to that number. So if you need (4) 20amp circuits, install 6. That'll keep you well ahead of the de-rated load.

Eh...I wouldn't bother with the cement floor if you're not going to float a new one. Get some rugs. It'll be fine.

Frank

[Fab4ever]

Thanks Frank! I admit I know nothing about electricity but I will pass along your comments, verbatim, to my "team."

[Fab4ever]

Here's another question:

After I frame the walls, do I want to stick a bunch of insulation in there along with the drywall?

[moracspace]

Stick it on in.Dont forget about wiring in the walls.Might help,might not!

[666666]

Good advise from posters above

I'd personally build a free-standing room inside the basement. Put up four walls and a ceiling sitting on top of those four walls... essentially a large "shoebox", sitting upside-down on your basement concrete slab... nothing touches any other part of the house. This will help TREMENDOUSLY with isolation, sound coming in and sound going out. Sound travels through wood framing like you cannot believe. If your room sits on the slab, fully isolated from the house framing, you'll be good.

I'd also say to stick with parallel walls. Why? Because one day you'll have to sell the house and you want it to show well. A potential buyer may see your studio room and be thinking, "this would make a great office!" or whatever... but not if you have some goofy non-parallel wall set-up.... in that case the potential buyer will be thinking, "damn, I'll need to demolish these walls and rebuild, ehhh!". As Ethan said, the whole "non-parallel wall" thing is not that critical... at least if you put good trapping / absorbers on the walls which you'd need to do anyway.

Electrical... I've never found a need for more than one single dedicated 20 amp circuit, at least for a DAW and a stack of analog outboard / mixers. If you're running a big old analog tape deck or a zillion watts of amplifiers etc that might be a different story. If you want to be safe and you have the capacity in your breaker box, I'd say just run two dedicated 20 amp circuits to your room. This should cover you and leave room for expansion into the future unless you have extreme / unusual electrical needs.

Also think about air ventilation, air conditioning / dehumidification, windows or lack thereof, possible basement water leaks, etc... there's a lot to think about if you really want to do it right and have a room that will serve your needs well for years to come.

Best of luck!

[jwl]

One other detail: on the new walls you build, don't put sheetrock on both sides of the wall. Counting the outer structure, this will make a 3-leaf system and you'll lose isolation. Instead, put both sheets of drywall on the same side. Still put insulation inside the frame. This will give you something on the order of 23dB (!) greater soundproofing. You can either face the drywall into the new room, or have the drywall on the outside of the room -- John Sayers' inside-out wall designs.

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by moracspace

Stick it on in.Dont forget about wiring in the walls.Might help,might not!

...or conduit, and plenty of it. You'll definitely want to do that before you insulate and put up those two layers of sheetrock JWL suggested...double the PITA ripping them open to get at the wall cavity if you need to remove the insulation and fish wire. If you've got twice the conduit you antipate you'll need then you'll never have to worry about being able to get from point A to point B with wire.

Frank

[Fab4ever]

Let me share a few more details:

1. This will be my first dedicated recording/mixing space. Heretofore I've been in a very lightly treated bedroom/office.
2. I'll be recording myself or one other musician. No bands, no drums even, at least not in this room. Which is a good thing, because.....
3. The space is small - essentially 12 feet by nine feet. Ceiling will be about 7 and a half feet tall.
4. The budget is also small - perhaps $2,000.

I *think* electricity won't be a problem. The one existing dry-walled wall is adjacent to the finished portion of the basement. There are three outlets already in that wall, the plugs of course facing the finished room. I intend to punch into the drywall from the unfinished side and "flip" the outlets so they will face the studio room. For what it's worth, I run a pc-based DAW without a mixer and few only a few preamps and compressors - and I generally record one track at a time.

I realize I have *lots* of reading, learning and planning ahead of me. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Fab

[Weasel9992]

12x12=lots of bass trapping

Seriously, all four corners, the back wall and the front/rear wall/ceiling corners are all candidates for bass traps in a room like that. Of course, I'm thinking in terms of mixing and playback as I write this, but it might be a good idea to just kill the room to the degree you can in the high end as well.

I mean, it all depends on how serious you really want to get here. If it's just for fun you may want to just shoot for "good enough" so you can have fun and produce a decent recording. It can get as involved as you want it to get.

Frank

[666666]

Originally Posted by Fab4ever

I *think* electricity won't be a problem. The one existing dry-walled wall is adjacent to the finished portion of the basement. There are three outlets already in that wall, the plugs of course facing the finished room. I intend to punch into the drywall from the unfinished side and "flip" the outlets so they will face the studio room.

You may indeed be fine with the existing electrical, but I'd still recommend running one new dedicated circuit to your room. That existing line you speak of is likely a 15 amp line (which is ok), but it may be shared with other devices in the house that pull a lot of juice and/or may kick crap back into the line, etc. It might be fine, or might give you a headache.

Since you are already in the basement, it should be easy to access the breaker panel and run a new dedicated line. If you relatives are in construction, they should know how to do it. You don't really need an electrician for this... just pop a new 15 or 20 amp breaker in the panel and wire it up. Though I suppose I should not be recommending this for safety reasons... but, if your relatives have done it before, have them do it for you... it's cheap and easy unless for some weird reason your breaker panel is very far away and not easy to access.... which is unlikely. Or... if your breaker panel is full, that could also be a problem.

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by 666666

Since you are already in the basement, it should be easy to access the breaker panel and run a new dedicated line. If you relatives are in construction, they should know how to do it. You don't really need an electrician for this... just pop a new 15 or 20 amp breaker in the panel and wire it up. Though I suppose I should not be recommending this for safety reasons... but, if your relatives have done it before, have them do it for you... it's cheap and easy unless for some weird reason your breaker panel is very far away and not easy to access.... which is unlikely. Or... if your breaker panel is full, that could also be a problem.

This is actually really easy to do. Just do a neat job, use the right gauge wire, conduit and don't run it near any audio cable you're planning for the walls. By "not near" I mean 18" or 2'. Your relatives should know the relevant code requirements for your county...you'll want to abide by them so an ispector doesn't make your parent take it all out should they decide to sell the house.

Frank

[666666]

Originally Posted by Weasel9992

....By "not near" I mean 18" or 2'. Frank

Frank, have you run into problems installing electrical wire closer than 18" from audio cables? I've had situations where I had to run them closer together, no issues yet but I certainly do not want to have any.

Isn't it true that if you run an audio cable perpendicular to an electrical cable it'll be a lot "safer" (in terms of possible noise coming into the audio line) than running it parallel?

I'd like to get this straight. i've run into many situations where both electrical and audio cables need to pass close to one another and I'm just trying to get the bottom line scoop oin this. Is 18" a proven standard figure, or was that just a good "safe" suggestion on your part?

I'm getting a bit worried... I had to run some speaker cables inside a wall about two inches away from a 20 amp circuit line... I made it so they were perpendicular to each other for whatever that's worth. Have not tested yet. The only way to have avoided this would have been to run an extra 20 feet of speaker cable and go up another wall etc... but I wanted to keep the speaker cable as short as possible, etc.

Thanks

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by 666666

Frank, have you run into problems installing electrical wire closer than 18" from audio cables? I've had situations where I had to run them closer together, no issues yet but I certainly do not want to have any.

I worked as an AV design engineer for years...I've installed literally thousands of jobs and yes, I've run into problems. I always tried to avoid it, but they come up now and again (usually when a client ignored our specifications in terms of low voltage infrastructure). Industry standard is 18" to avoid induction, but it's not *always* a problem.

Originally Posted by 666666

Isn't it true that if you run an audio cable perpendicular to an electrical cable it'll be a lot "safer" (in terms of possible noise coming into the audio line) than running it parallel?

Yes, that's true...the likelyhood of noise induction increases as the length of parallel travel increases. You still want to avoid even perpendicular crossing outside of condiut whenever possible though.

Originally Posted by 666666

I'd like to get this straight. i've run into many situations where both electrical and audio cables need to pass close to one another and I'm just trying to get the bottom line scoop oin this. Is 18" a proven standard figure, or was that just a good "safe" suggestion on your part?

Good, safe suggestion...no more, no less.

Originally Posted by 666666

I'm getting a bit worried... I had to run some speaker cables inside a wall about two inches away from a 20 amp circuit line... I made it so they were perpendicular to each other for whatever that's worth. Have not tested yet. The only way to have avoided this would have been to run an extra 20 feet of speaker cable and go up another wall etc... but I wanted to keep the speaker cable as short as possible, etc.

If they're outside of conduit you're running the risk that the line voltage cable will energize the speaker cable in some way. I mean, it's not a sure thing that you'll have noise...it's just a possibility. The only way to know for sure is to test it.

Did I get 'em all?

Frank

[666666]

Thanks Frank!

[Fab4ever]

Thanks again all for the good advice.

RE bass traps: I just today purchased some OC 705 for bass traps.... from GIK, as it happens! I am determined to do my best to treat the space properly.

I wish I had more room, and perhaps I can figure out a way to add a few more square feet.... but I don't think I'll be able to expand it very much.

As far as electrical, my brothers-in-law have a good bit of experience with electrical wiring and such, and the breaker box isn't far, so I wouldn't think doing what you suggest in adding a circuit to the room would be much of a problem.

Thanks again. Hopefully when I get a bit further along I can put up a diagram and get your further thoughts.

[Fab4ever]

An update and fresh questions.

I've decided I will not attempt non-parallel walls, nor am I going to try to float the floor or decouple the ceiling from the walls.

However, I am going to put insulation between the floor joists above the ceiling. Also, I am going to have an electrician run a new circuit from the wall panel to the room and install several fresh plugs for juice (along with overhead lighting.)

My issues/questions:

1. Should I stuff insulation into the wall frames along with drywall?

2. I'm not going to be able to do funky looking, inside-out walls... wife says we need a regular dry-wall look inside and outside. In short, it needs to look like a spare bedroom or office to perspective buyers whenever we sell the house. But... should I do double drywall? Should I use that green moisture-resistant drywall? (might be gypsum, I'm not sure). Or is there a drywall substitute I should use for its sound absorption properties?

3. I'm going to expand the room to be a little bigger than I had thought, but still pretty tight at around 11 - by - 12.5 or so. Ceilings should be just a hair under 8 feet. Aside from plent o' corner bass trapping, using absorbers at first reflection points and trapping/absorption on the wall behind the mix position, do you have other advice?

4. The floor is concrete. I'm gonna have a throw rug or two available to use if necessary, but is there anything else I should do about it?