suprstar's studio construction thread

[suprstar]

I've measured and drawn up my room as close to scale as possible, if the pic doesnt get scaled by the bbs, it's 20 pixels per foot. The blue walls are framed drywall, the black ones are poured concrete. The floor is concrete, and the ceiling is 8' in some spots, 7' in others. The joists are 12" I-joists loosely filled with pink fiberglass batting. I'll be putting in a drop ceiling, so the final heights will be something like 7'6" and 6'6" where the ducts and pipes are.

What I'm considering is to build a little makeshift vox gobo (red, by furnace) to help kill off some of the ambient noise in the rest of the house. IDK if I need to catch reflections there since there's no wall behind it.. I also wanna build a big 703 wall/gobo (red, other corner) to catch some bass and hide the water softener and water heater in the back corner. Is a bass trap effective that far away from the corner? And a couple acoustic panels behind the mixing desk to absorb reflections.

Does that seem like a logical plan for the room I have? I'm wondering about the affect of that open side, will I need to totally deaden up that left wall to balance out the (non) reflections on the right?

Thanx, I'll post some pics and stuff as it all comes together..

 

[suprstar]

This is what I started with a year ago, the furnace, ws, and hwh aren't in place yet... There is now some rough drywall up, and it's packed with junk

 

[gethypedmusic]

Good luck with everything! I See potential from that spot and set up!

-HyPe

 

[Dogbreath]

Quitcherslackin! BACK TO WORK!





Looks like it's gonna work out good for ya. Keep us posted wit da pics, huh?

Later dood.....

 

[Supercreep]

Nice. Keep the pictures coming.

My only concern with your design is that you've got your desk set up with the speakers firing against the close wall 15 feet away. The left and right sides are not symetrical - so you will have reflections from your left speaker arriving at your ears much quicker than your right side.

Can you arrange your desk so that your speakers throw towards the open room? You can have L/R symmetry and avoid rear room reflections that way.

 

[suprstar]

I thought of the asymmetrical thing too, but I hadn't considered the rear reflections, that really is an excellent point.. Man, you got me thinking now! I had this huge post written up, and during the course of writing it for an hour, I thought of a lot of answers to a lot of the questions that came up.

The door is already in place, but I can move it easy enough.. 1 sheet of drywall and a couple hours of work, no prob.. I can make a couple floor-ceiling gobos in the corners. If I put em on wheels, I can cover the door and just move it when I wanna get in there. And hide the ws/hwh. You guys think a 4x8' gobo with 3/4" MDF backing and 2" 703 would do the trick? would 4" 703 be dramatically better?

Even if the desk isn't exactly centered on that wall, I can get it pretty close, and it'll still be way better acoustically than the original plan. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Supercreep]

Against the wall isn't the optimum position for playback, either.

I understand the ideal placement for your ears is about 38% into the room.

So you don't really have to move the closet door - just move the desk back into the room a ways.

 

[suprstar]

Yeah, I'll measure some stuff tonite and decide about that. Not a lotta work anyway, and I have extra drywall I need to use up. And I know a little out from the wall is better, I can maybe get out a foot or 2 tops, but there's a lotta crap to fit in there and I'm gonna need the space. DAW, rack, drums, guitar stuff, keyboards, 15x17 isn't a lot to begin with!

 

[Dogbreath]

15x17 isn't a lot to begin with!

You're not using the 30X30 open area?

 

[suprstar]

Nope, I wish... That 30x30 side is about 1/2 rec room, the kids wreck our upstairs living room, so we put a couch and entertainment center for em, and there's a pool table and poker table... The other 1/2 is a small bathroom and storage right now, which is pretty much packed floor to ceiling.. That little nook off the main room is my little cave. Kids, dogs, and wives are allowed by invite only

Anyway, I got the door moved over the weekend, fixed the drywall and painted it up. I also got some of the ceiling framing built to box out the ducts and pipes, etc., but then I ran out of 2x4's and had to quit, back to home depot tonite! I think I can get my ceilings pretty high, it'll be more like 6'10" and 7'8". My goals for this week are to run an electric circuit and get some outlets on that closet wall, and finish all painting. So far it's still all just standard basement finishing, nothing really 'studio' about it yet..

 

[valem]

Nope, I wish... That 30x30 side is about 1/2 rec room, the kids wreck our upstairs living room, so we put a couch and entertainment center for em, and there's a pool table and poker table... The other 1/2 is a small bathroom and storage right now, which is pretty much packed floor to ceiling.. That little nook off the main room is my little cave. Kids, dogs, and wives are allowed by invite only

Tell them to move out....who needs a family when there's so much mixing to be done....

 

[suprstar]

Haha

Construction is slow but going.. Ducts and pipes are all boxed out, drywall and ceiling framing is complete, the 1' boxout needs final mud and paint, that'll be tomorrow. We have the drop ceiling perimeter chalk-lined all the way around the finished walls, I'll be putting ceiling in next week. Door is moved as you can see, I'll move my desk to that wall after the ceiling's in. This is what it looks like today, it's a total mess! I can't wait til it's done and cleaned up.. This is me standing in the 30x30 room looking into the room, which is currently set up like the floorplan in post 1:

 

[Chili]

Man, that reminds me so much of when I did my basement studio. Layout is different and you're using more space than I did. But looking at the construction pics, seeing the same fan box, the same stool, the same drill, and that SM57 sure looks familiar.

I had a sleeper sofa in the basement that I just didn't want to move, so I built the studio around it.

It's going to be great when it's done. And the feeling you'll get when you cut your first track in your new studio.. well, you know. Just make sure no one's watching.

 

[suprstar]

I TOLD you this as gonna be a slow thread So ALL drywall and painting is done, electrical is done, all the ceiling perimeter and main T's are up, and all the crap got re-arranged to the new floorplan.

Desk is on the wall opposite the open room now, and about 4' off that wall, which is about 25%.... About as good as I can do, I still have a good useable space and I can get into the closet easily. I unwired and re-wired EVERYTHING, including the mixer, the rack, and the v-drums. I have about 10 cables left over that apparently weren't connected to anything

Next week - ceiling..

 

[Chili]

Hey Suprstar, how's the studio coming along??

 

[Dogbreath]

yeah....didja get the ceilin done yet?
inquiring minds etc...


It does look like you're makin some headway tho. Cool. It took me about 4 months to do my room..............the 2nd time.

Keep da pics comin dude.

 

[suprstar]

WTF, this board has lost TWO replies I posted to this already....

Been outta $$ for a while due to a new DAW, dual core amd, 3.1 / 4gb / 2tb, smokin fast! And a dmp3 So I've been doing cheap work on the other end of the basement, painting, molding, etc. Since all the drywall is 100% done I got the mics set back up and everything is functional again. And cleaning is REAL cheap, so I did a lot of that.. It's a lot more open and pleasant to be in now!

I just bought a ton of ceiling tiles yesterday, I managed to fix 8 cases of 4x2' panels in a mazda 626, and none were in the trunk They had a super sale at Menards, USG 'acoustical ceiling tiles'. With a mail in rebate, they were 70% off. I've had the T-bars up for weeks, so I got about 100 sq ft of tiles up last nite, I didn't have much time..

So if I took more pics now it wouldn't look like much progress, I DID say this would prolly be a slow thread right??

 

[Supercreep]

Nice work!! Keep the pictures coming.