16x20 Studio Shed Help

fivesixonesk8er

New member
I'm in the planning stages of building a 16x20 studio in the backyard. It's going to be equipped with a 16x12 tracking room, a 12x8 control room, and a 8x4 iso booth.

If anyone could point me in the right direction of the right materials to somewhat "Soundproof" the walls, and other materials at a good price would really help me out. I am somewhat new to the studio building and design aspect but I am definitely willing to learn!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
You need to soundproof the whole room - not just the walls. The structure needs to be decoupled and the inner surfaces need to have a lot of mass to them. All cavities are filled with insulation. All openings (switches, outlets, lights, etc.) need to be isolated by mass boxes or at a minimum putty pads and caulk.

HVAC is also a huge source of sound transmission.

How you accomplish the above is specific to your situation, what the room allows, the budget, existing construction, etc.

Bryan
 
Thanks bpape.

I need to know where I can find the materials for sound proof insuation and other suggestions on sound Treatment and Isolation at a good price.... Anyone?

Also, my budget is about $5000 or under for the interior.
 
I'm in the planning stages of building a 16x20 studio in the backyard. It's going to be equipped with a 16x12 tracking room, a 12x8 control room, and a 8x4 iso booth.

If anyone could point me in the right direction of the right materials to somewhat "Soundproof" the walls, and other materials at a good price would really help me out. I am somewhat new to the studio building and design aspect but I am definitely willing to learn!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


If possible, just make one large room. You will not like the 12x8 control room. That's what I had. I had every corner floor to ceiling covered in 4" OC703 panels and two of the ceiling wall/corners with the same. No amount of bass trapping is enough for a room that small. I finally got pissed, ripped the wall out and my mixes are 300% better.

Tracking sounds better in 1 big room too.
 
If possible, just make one large room. You will not like the 12x8 control room. That's what I had. I had every corner floor to ceiling covered in 4" OC703 panels and two of the ceiling wall/corners with the same. No amount of bass trapping is enough for a room that small. I finally got pissed, ripped the wall out and my mixes are 300% better.

Tracking sounds better in 1 big room too.

Right now, my control room is a 10x10 Bedroom with a Bed and no acoustical treatment, and my mixes sound great. I just want a separation between the two rooms.....

I just need to know WHAT and WHERE to buy the stuff to treat the room(s).
 
Right now, my control room is a 10x10 Bedroom with a Bed and no acoustical treatment, and my mixes sound great. I just want a separation between the two rooms.....

I just need to know WHAT and WHERE to buy the stuff to treat the room(s).



As you drill down on this subject you will (hopefully) realize that that is not even close to what you will need to know. Otherwise you may as well just give away the money.


-Casey
 
Right now, my control room is a 10x10 Bedroom with a Bed and no acoustical treatment, and my mixes sound great. I just want a separation between the two rooms.....

I just need to know WHAT and WHERE to buy the stuff to treat the room(s).


That's fine, I just thought I'd save you from kicking yourself in the ass when you have to tear shit out cause it sucks.
 
Ok you need to know a few basic elements of sound isolation. Sound can leak through any gaps, and can vibrate through structures. The basic method for sound isolation is to create an air-tight room, with a mass-air-mass structure. Mass-air-mass can be a layer or drywall, an air-gap(as much as possible, maybe filled with insulation), then another sheet of drywall. To reduce structural vibration, it is necessary to build a floating room within a room, with no flanking path for noise.

This is a very basic setup(1st attached pic). This is a good starting point though.

Within the shed, build a floating floor(9'x15'), and frame a room on top of this floor, completely decoupled from the rest of the shed(no flanking path to the rest of the shed). Install standard insulation and drywall, then build another stud frame between this and the rest of the shed, as shown. Install insulation in there, and drywall. Install a solid core door on each of these stud walls(old doors will be fine), with door seals all the way round. Make sure everything is caulked up, and try to run electrics surface(caulking up any holes).

One cheap but noisy way to ventilate is to use in-line fans with flexi duct(one intake and one extract per room). Remember holes mean sound leakage, so you need to work out how to get the vents through the ceiling/walls without any sound leakage(2nd attached pic is one suggestion to be adapted).

Now onto acoustics. You want to get as even a response as possible within this room, and the worst frequencies as bass frequencies, so minimum i suggest is bass traps in the four corners shown, but more corners(wall-ceiling) would be a good idea. You also want to absorb the first reflections, side ceiling and back wall. I'd suggest for a better setup also treating behind the speakers, and more side and ceiling panels.

Within a tracking room, variation is the best option, imo. I'd suggest a few moveable traps, and some ceiling panels. For both rooms, i'd suggest a reflective floor.
 

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You could try --

a-m-s.com (will not let me post a URL)

We've sold sealing products to them on occassion and they have TONS of supplies. But they may be mainly west coast.
 
Sorry I've not been around. Panda is on the right track. Room in a room is likely the cheapest and most effective method. Don't forget to decouple the tops of the walls with DC-04 clips and pay attention to isolating the hvac and electrical penetrations.

Bryan
 
Sorry I've not been around. Panda is on the right track. Room in a room is likely the cheapest and most effective method. Don't forget to decouple the tops of the walls with DC-04 clips and pay attention to isolating the hvac and electrical penetrations.

Bryan
Thanks Brian. I'm barely here either. Not liking this place so much recently... since FitZ was banned i think... but i still check back every week or so, to offer/receive little bits of advice.
 
i have a pair of 12*12 rooms (ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!)


heavily treated, so not too bad, but less then ideal.
 
It can't be said too many times, isolation (soundproofing if you prefer to call it that) and treatment are two entirely different things. The most isolated room can sound awful without treatment and the best treated room can be terribly noisy without enough isolation.
 
I'm in the planning stages of building a 16x20 studio in the backyard. It's going to be equipped with a 16x12 tracking room, a 12x8 control room, and a 8x4 iso booth.

you need to subtract the interior wall space which for decent isolation will be about 8-9 inches. as Panamonk shows in his drawing, you need to build decoupled walls, ceilings, HVAC, cable conduits, doors, windows, and possibly flooring depending on your needs.

generally speaking, using common construction materials that are correctly configured can give you a high degree of isolation. some of what depends on the situation - does your existing (?) structure have enough strength to support the additional mass needed? can the ceiling be suspended from existing joists or does it need to be support on new interior walls? can the foundation support it? using steel or wood framing has different qualities as well as configuration options.

a good investment is a sound level meter to measure your existing space to determine what level of isolation you need, and the second is Rod Gervais's book on Home Studio Construction - Build It Like The Pros.
 
I would seriously reconsider the plan. Your entire space is still fairly small and making it into a bunch of tiny rooms doesn't make sense to me.
 
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