Shed Studio Conversion

danagin

New member
I'm thinking of buying a storage shed and soundproofing it. I will probably put it on a slab with carpet. I need it to be mostly sound proof.
I don't want my neighbors to hear the bass drum inside their house but, not to worried if they can hear it outside too bad. I don't want it to be intrusive to them though.
This is what I am looking at
lancasterbarnsdotcom/acatalog/Elite_Vinyl_Victorian_Storage_SHeds.html
I plan on getting one at least 28' long.
What materials should I look at for the walls and ceiling.
Also, I was originally thinking of putting in a window unit for heating and air, but I didn't think about the noise from it inside the studio, so I will probably put in an outside unit and put 2 vents in the unit. What worries do I have about sound traveling out the vents? Any?
Also the shed thing was the cheapest room I could think off without adding on to my house. Any better suggestions on a $10 -12k budget for all the building?
 
Sound isolation is pretty tricky. You would need a floating floor, and chamber of air between the inside wall and the outside wall and the roof ceiling. double drywall lyers on the inside walls. Youd lose alot of floorspace
btw. I think it is almost easier to just build a tall sound wall between your yard and the neighbors. But it can be done. There is alot of info here if you check out past threads.
 
To get the results you want, probably the cheapest thing is to build a shed out of cmu (like cynder blocks) and fill them with sand or concrete. Soundproofing cheap construction is usually more expensive than doing it right from the get go. cmu is cheap, as is sand and concrete. The big question is how much of your budget do you want to use up in the construction and how much do you want to use for treatment inside. How far from your proposed studio to your property line? There is a lot of information that we need. Any more details you can give us?
 
I'm thinking of buying a storage shed and soundproofing it. I will probably put it on a slab with carpet. I need it to be mostly sound proof.
I don't want my neighbors to hear the bass drum inside their house but, not to worried if they can hear it outside too bad. I don't want it to be intrusive to them though.
This is what I am looking at
lancasterbarnsdotcom/acatalog/Elite_Vinyl_Victorian_Storage_SHeds.html
I plan on getting one at least 28' long.
What materials should I look at for the walls and ceiling.
Also, I was originally thinking of putting in a window unit for heating and air, but I didn't think about the noise from it inside the studio, so I will probably put in an outside unit and put 2 vents in the unit. What worries do I have about sound traveling out the vents? Any?
Also the shed thing was the cheapest room I could think off without adding on to my house. Any better suggestions on a $10 -12k budget for all the building?
I've built a shed studio on a budget, so I might be able to help.

My studio is pretty well isolated(not been able to measure it correctly yet though) but my drums are in the world war bomb-shelter.

What i did for my shed is: lay slabs, lay rubber sheet on the slabs, build a shed on top of this, frame outside this shed with no connection to the shed(ANYWHERE), and sheet it with OSB and plywood(with normal fluffy insulation between this and the original shed), then clad the outside with tongue and groove. On the inside we just sheeted with plasterboard.

This gave us a three leaf structure(if you can call the original shed tongue & groove walls a leaf) which isn't recommended.

As we were building this, we installed ventilation. The cheapest (but noisy) way to do this was to use in-line fans. We cut a hole in the outside leaf and snaked flexible ducting as far as we could, to the vent, and then as far as we could to a hole into the shed, then as far as we could to a hole in the plasterboard.

We have 2 doors, one opening into the inside shed, and one opening out on the outside shed.


If i were to do it again, I wouldn't waste my money on a normal shed. I'd slab, lay rubber sheeting, then frame the room(s) you want, all unconnected, then frame a structure all round as the outer shed (leaving as much space between the inner rooms and outer shed as you can). -Shown below-

Make sure that the roof/ceiling is the same(unconnected). Sheet the inner room(s) with sheets of plasterboard(double thickness if you can afford and the structure can support), and the outer with plywood(again double thickness and on the outside) and clad as you wish.

Make sure to install some kind of ventilation in this process though! And the electrics, etc.

I wouldn't install a window. Although it is nice to have some natural light, it'll be a lot harder to isolate than a simple wall.
 

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I'm thinking of buying a storage shed and soundproofing it. I will probably put it on a slab with carpet. I need it to be mostly sound proof.
I don't want my neighbors to hear the bass drum inside their house but, not to worried if they can hear it outside too bad. I don't want it to be intrusive to them though.
This is what I am looking at
lancasterbarnsdotcom/acatalog/Elite_Vinyl_Victorian_Storage_SHeds.html
I plan on getting one at least 28' long.
What materials should I look at for the walls and ceiling.
Also, I was originally thinking of putting in a window unit for heating and air, but I didn't think about the noise from it inside the studio, so I will probably put in an outside unit and put 2 vents in the unit. What worries do I have about sound traveling out the vents? Any?
Also the shed thing was the cheapest room I could think off without adding on to my house. Any better suggestions on a $10 -12k budget for all the building?


Maybe you can do it, I don't know. But you had better knuckle down and learn about acoustics and "best practices" or you're going to be throwing that money right out the window. Start by doing a search for "soundproof" in this forum and reading for an hour. I think you'll find it an eye-opening experience.

I'm not an expert. Fair warning.
 
It looks like pandamonk and I are saying similar things, build from the ground up. The double leaf structure is good because it gives you a better attenuation profile after the mass-air-mass resonance. Building from cmu will also work, but you would still need to put drywall and acoustic treatments on the inside. For ventilation, you want the system to be high volume low velocity to reduce noise as much as possible. If you are really serious, consider some expansion chambers in the ventilation system or lined ducts. But in the end, the conclusion is the same, soundproofing is a lot more than just putting foam on the walls or anything.
 
Agreed 100%. Decoupling and mass are the ways to get good isoltion. Drywall is about the cheapest mass you can get. Building interior walls not connected to the existing ones and adding your own joists that sit on those walls, paying attention to holes for electrical, lights, etc., and caulking everything will go a long way without spending a ton of money.

Bryan
 
Thanks!

I appreciate the info guys, my budget was just cut though. I got a kid on the way now. No loss though, I would much rather have a kid than a studio! But when the time comes, in a few years, I will take all of this into consideration.

I will probably do as you guys said, start from the ground up.
 
Time is time, and it has passed.

My son is a very healthy 17lb 4 month old. Now I'm back to planning.
I like the room within a room idea, I seem to read alot about it. Originally I was thinking I would insulate between the beems in the shed\barn\whatever they want to call those things, and put up some plywood over the insulation. Then drywall over the insulation with a .5in gap, then again with another layer of drywall with a .5 inch gap, in then end really being 4 walls. I was going to off set the spacers for the drywall that way there was no direct path for sound to the outside via solid transfer. I was going to do the ceiling the same way. To help with the sound I've read that you can hang cloth 1-2 inches from the wall and that will help with the too live sound. Before I go planning on building my own building from the ground up I wanted to know what you guys thought. Thanks for all of the input!
Also on the rubber on top of the slab, wouldn't moisture be prone to get in there and rot things?
 
Dude!
A belated congrats to you n mom on the youngster! Very cool. Is he playin the drums yet? :D

What these guys said above bears lookin into. I built my room before I did enough research and I did ok...but could have been better.

So research before ya jump in and when it's done, you n the lad come jam without pissin off the neighbors.

Congrats again man...

Kel
 
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