FINISHING FINALLY!

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CJWalker

Member
Need some basic tips on having a working basment studio. Most impotantly the sound proofing. (ie glass angle, AC, wiring, isolation, lighing, power) Also ,I want to put a small bathroom down there too so does anyone have any recommedations about working near plumming??

Thanks guys!
 
Don't know if this will help, but here goes ...

A/C ... check out a post called HVAC which I did a while back. Got some pretty good advice out of it.

Window ... check out another post called control room window in this forum. There's some tips in there.

Electric ... at the very least, dedicate separate circuits to the control and studio rooms

Audio wiring ... get high quality cable for your audio. You will be happier later. I skimped a little here and got pretty much "medium" quality and now wish I had invested a little more. Also, mount the connection boxes on the surface of the drywall instead of countersinking them to avoid all those extra holes that would need to be caulked.

Isolation ... "Room within a room" (airspace in between stud walls) would give the best isolation. Multiple layers of drywall will also help. Also hanging drywall on Z-channels is a good idea. Sealing all cracks and holes after installing soundboard/drywall is also a good idea. This is a very broad topic ... there's a lot of options depending on what you want to do.

Plumbing ... I wrapped the supply pipes with pipe insulation and duct-taped r-11 insulation around the drain/vent pipe. I've noticed virtually no rushing water noise when in the control room.

Lighting ... I couldn't afford the expensive "cool looking" lighting ... so I just have simple light fixtures in the center of each room and supplement with lamps here and there.


Anyway, hope that helps. Sound Studio Construction is such a wide topic ... it's tough to get into all the aspects here. I know I recommend this pdf file a lot ... but I think it really helps you to understand the concepts and get thinking along the right lines ... here's the obligatory link :)
Auralex Acoustics 101

Good Luck!
 
Big Kahuna:

I've heard that fluorescent fixtures can add some noise to your recordings if there are any weaknesses in your cable or connector shielding. Also ballasts emit an audible hum that gets louder with age. Did you avoid fluorescents and if so what did you use? If not- have you noticed any of the problems I've mentioned? In my control room I pretty much work by the light of my monitor and in my recording space, 1- 100W incandescent bulb.
 
the talk of light bulbs.. i remember a couple years back when i was younger i used to stay up late at night and the little bees would fly in at night attracted to the lights in t he TV room. and me and my friends got joy out of catching them in a cup and then untraping the open end of the cup into a halogen light that was open ended... hmmm.. i guess some budhists might get on my ass for that.. thanks for reminding me of times wheni liked to burn carbon based life forms.
 
Yea, its awesome to watch those stupid bugs fly right into those 500w halogens. Its best when they explode as you hear a "PING" noise. It kinda smells though.
 
I avoided fluorescent lighting completely and got a couple of incandescent fixtures because of the problems you mention. Basically they look like track lighting ... but in a simple fixture instead of a track. They were pretty cheap, actually. They use 3-40W mini-bulbs in each fixture.
I'm thinking of maybe getting some halogen bulbs for them ... any comment about that? No, I don't intend to kill bugs with the halogen bulbs ... although if a couple want to fly into them and fry ... that's their right, I suppose.

I originally tried to put in dimmer switches for these lights so I could set a mood ... but that added hum significantly ... so I took them out. There's more expensive shielded rheostats that would solve this problem though, I think. I haven't noticed any additional noise whether these lights are on or off since I changed back to normal 2-way switches. They are on a separate ciruit than the outlets, by the way ... so maybe that helps.
 
Dimmers are cool but add loads of noise...I was dumb and had like 700w of dimmed halogens in my recording area at one time...

NOISE!!!!!!
 
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