Need help building soundproof studio for husband

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Danielle241

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My husband currently does his music in the garage. He produces the beats, records vocals with artists, and records their live music (guitar, etc). We have been talking about building him a studio and I decided for an early Christmas gift we would go ahead and spend the money on it. We are going to build a "shed" type building in the corner of the back yard, that way we wont be taking up half of the garage building a room in it, plus he will be able to start from scratch, designing it the way he wants it to be.

Some questions I have are how to soundproof the room most inexpensively, what to use as insulation (I have heard all different things), should we carpet the entire interior (walls, floors, ceilings, etc), and what else can be done to make no sound get in, and more imortantly make no sound get out and bug the neighbors.

We arent building a very big space. He just needs enough room for his computer and music equipment, the mic stand, and room for the artists to perform for him to record.

I dont know much about music, thats his specialty, but he doesnt know much about building, which I am pretty good at. So I want to get all the information I need and have the instructions so he can have the best studio for the least amount of money.

Also if you have any other ideas or comments on building the studio or anything else I would greatly appreciate it!!!!!
 
'soundproofing' probably means different things to me than it does to you.

so what do you want to do? its pretty much impossible to create a room that doesnt allow sound in or out. what you want to do is 'treat' your room, acoustically.

i'm gonna leave this to the pro's here though.
 
Hi Danielle,
Welcome to the forum!
If you are intent on building him a little project studio, you'll need to do
fair bit of research to make it work out nice. This is an okay place to get advice, some otehr places are John Sayers recording forum adn the harmony-central recording forum.
I'm not a pro, I have a little bitty studio space in my basement but I did about a years worth of research before I started building. I'm pretty happy with the results I got for the money I invested.
Just as a starter, there are two things to talk about:
Soundproofing - keeping sound from getting in & out of the studio
and
Acoustic treatment - making the space inside the studio suitable for recording.

Some quick, general rules for soundproofing:
for high frequencies, airtight = soundtight
for low frequencies, mass stops it, the lower the frequencies (bass, drums, etc) the more mass that is required to contain it. (drywall, concrete blocks, bricks etc)

Some quick genreal rules for acoustic treatment:
bass traps are your friend
rigid fiberglass insulation "703" is what you should build into your design, the smaller the space the more you will want available - it works by having the sound vibrate the fiberglass which absorbs the sound.

One last tip - if this is going to be a smaller space, don;t try to cram a control room, live, room, iso booth etc into small seperate spaces; just use one big room and treat it accordingly.

don't forget HVAC and safety factors! (fire, power etc)

research! research! research!
Good Luck!
Chris
 
Yes, you are gonna need a lot of mass in order to stop the bass frequencies from escaping. "Soundproofing" is very hard and expensive. Check out John Sayers' forum for more advice in this regard.

Since you are building the studio from scratch you have an opportunity that I have never had, and that I am sure many people on here have never had -- you can build a studio without parrallel walls! From a recording perspective, this is quite important. It will improve the sound of the room immensly.

Cheers,
Mike
 
As far as I know the military has acheived 100% sound proofing up to 120dB from the source inside the room. Which basically means someone could be bashing a snare drum inside the room as hard as they can and the person outside wouldn't have a clue what's going on lol.

The civillian world has probably acheived this too but I haven't really read much about anyone doing so.

Partial sound proofing is possible but pretty expensive. We had it at the studio at my high school. They just covered the walls with alot of acoustic foam (the bumpy stuff) and had the walls insulated. You could still hear music inside but it didn't become a distraction because it was pretty quiet.
 
Danielle241 said:
My husband currently does his music in the garage. He produces the beats, records vocals with artists, and records their live music (guitar, etc). We have been talking about building him a studio and I decided for an early Christmas gift we would go ahead and spend the money on it. We are going to build a "shed" type building in the corner of the back yard, that way we wont be taking up half of the garage building a room in it, plus he will be able to start from scratch, designing it the way he wants it to be.

Some questions I have are how to soundproof the room most inexpensively, what to use as insulation (I have heard all different things), should we carpet the entire interior (walls, floors, ceilings, etc), and what else can be done to make no sound get in, and more imortantly make no sound get out and bug the neighbors.

We arent building a very big space. He just needs enough room for his computer and music equipment, the mic stand, and room for the artists to perform for him to record.

I dont know much about music, thats his specialty, but he doesnt know much about building, which I am pretty good at. So I want to get all the information I need and have the instructions so he can have the best studio for the least amount of money.

Also if you have any other ideas or comments on building the studio or anything else I would greatly appreciate it!!!!!
Click to expand...


Hey Danielle241,

Here is a link to a lengthy arcticle in regards to information that will help you somewhat in building an environment for your husbands music equipment etc.

There is some information in here that you will overlook but if you take the time to read this arcticle you will have a better understanding of where you will be heading and how to get there!

Good luck!! :) :)

Here's the link...http:www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html



Gorty :)
 
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