G
goatfarmer03
New member
ABOUT ME
First off I am a very inexperienced Carpenter, so this whole thread might end up as a step by step walk through for me. Which will be excellent not only for me, but for others that visit this forum. Starting on a clean slate of measurements and building from there will offer up a great picture-led tutorial for anyone with ideas or questions having to do with building home studios.
I have read up a bit on acoustics myself, but would in no way call myself experienced in this field either. I'm basically a Singer/Songwriter with an Acoustic Guitar that has a vision for his attic, and I am ready to upgrade from this spare room nonsense I've been working in for the past year.
THE HOUSE AND RECORDING SITUATION
This house is a brand new construction, me and my wife just moved in Feb '08 and I have had all my recording stuff in this spare bedroom. (It really isn't that much Hardware, because I have an in the box work flow). In our old house and this one I have recorded mainly Acoustic Instruments and Vocals for myself. But I have dabbled a bit recording Electric Instruments, and also doing quick mix jobs for local bands demos (of all kinds of genres). So I will more than likely not be recording drums live, ever.
The houses location is very convenient for a studio though. Here's a Google Satellite link of my neighborhood (pan down just a bit till that dark square is in the center of the screen). This shot was taken before my house was constructed, my house resides on the bottom right corner of the pond (the dark square in the center of the image). As you can see, I live on an "off in the boonies" road, and even then my driveway is 460 ft long (surrounded in trees). Still, if I am sitting up in my attic, and the wind is blowing correctly I can faintly hear the cars on the highway down the street. But currently my attic is nothing but roof and rafters (see picture below) so there is absolutely no insulation from sound at all. That along with noise from downstairs is the only outside sound I have to worry about coming in. Outward sounds are of no concern when it comes to neighbors, my closest neighbor is across the pond from me and every other direction is acres of trees. Sounds within the house, between the attic and the downstairs are of some concern, but I don't mix at ridiculous levels and I rarely record anything that hooks into an Amp. So take that for what it is.
WHAT I HAVE AND WHEN I NEED
My attic is currently a bare space and I need to start from nothing for the building process. I plan to build this over the next year or so, which makes my budget somewhere around $4500 but that could be stretched to $7000 if need be.
THE PLAN
That is the space (click to expand). You can see the pull down attic stairs peeking up at the bottom center of the picture. I plan on putting a door right there and closing off the entire area in front of it. I'm going to keep the space behind it for regular attic space. All the dimensions I gave are according to that plan. That single piece of plywood is pressed up against the left edge of the rafters for an idea of scale. It is also there to show my wall plan. To avoid ridiculous amount of bass build up in those 45 degree floor-to-wall angles, (the attic area is a 45/45/90 triangle) I want to wall off the bottom 4 feet with a single piece of plywood (indicated by the red lines). This will cut my workable space into 9'5"x14'5"x8'5", which seems like a very decent size for a single room home studio. And a lot larger and nicer than what i currently use. I also want to do something to flatten off the ceiling since having a 90 degree angle way up there won't be good at all.
My Question is where do I start? I imagine the floor would be the best place, but what should i plan on doing to it in order to achieve a fair amount of sound isolation from everything below? The floor (as you can see) is just bare joist spans with some cheapo insulation, and the roof is just shingles/plywood/roof planks. Its all yours after that, I am open to any suggestions, ideas, or comments.
Thanks for reading all this
-wes
First off I am a very inexperienced Carpenter, so this whole thread might end up as a step by step walk through for me. Which will be excellent not only for me, but for others that visit this forum. Starting on a clean slate of measurements and building from there will offer up a great picture-led tutorial for anyone with ideas or questions having to do with building home studios.
I have read up a bit on acoustics myself, but would in no way call myself experienced in this field either. I'm basically a Singer/Songwriter with an Acoustic Guitar that has a vision for his attic, and I am ready to upgrade from this spare room nonsense I've been working in for the past year.
THE HOUSE AND RECORDING SITUATION
This house is a brand new construction, me and my wife just moved in Feb '08 and I have had all my recording stuff in this spare bedroom. (It really isn't that much Hardware, because I have an in the box work flow). In our old house and this one I have recorded mainly Acoustic Instruments and Vocals for myself. But I have dabbled a bit recording Electric Instruments, and also doing quick mix jobs for local bands demos (of all kinds of genres). So I will more than likely not be recording drums live, ever.
The houses location is very convenient for a studio though. Here's a Google Satellite link of my neighborhood (pan down just a bit till that dark square is in the center of the screen). This shot was taken before my house was constructed, my house resides on the bottom right corner of the pond (the dark square in the center of the image). As you can see, I live on an "off in the boonies" road, and even then my driveway is 460 ft long (surrounded in trees). Still, if I am sitting up in my attic, and the wind is blowing correctly I can faintly hear the cars on the highway down the street. But currently my attic is nothing but roof and rafters (see picture below) so there is absolutely no insulation from sound at all. That along with noise from downstairs is the only outside sound I have to worry about coming in. Outward sounds are of no concern when it comes to neighbors, my closest neighbor is across the pond from me and every other direction is acres of trees. Sounds within the house, between the attic and the downstairs are of some concern, but I don't mix at ridiculous levels and I rarely record anything that hooks into an Amp. So take that for what it is.
WHAT I HAVE AND WHEN I NEED
My attic is currently a bare space and I need to start from nothing for the building process. I plan to build this over the next year or so, which makes my budget somewhere around $4500 but that could be stretched to $7000 if need be.
THE PLAN
My Question is where do I start? I imagine the floor would be the best place, but what should i plan on doing to it in order to achieve a fair amount of sound isolation from everything below? The floor (as you can see) is just bare joist spans with some cheapo insulation, and the roof is just shingles/plywood/roof planks. Its all yours after that, I am open to any suggestions, ideas, or comments.
Thanks for reading all this
-wes
