Studio Construction Pics

  • Thread starter Thread starter mshilarious
  • Start date Start date
OK, after a few more months, it's time for an update. I finally brought in the pros, Sam Moore and his crew from Soundside Construction of Manteo, NC, and they have totally been kicking ass. In addition to the studio, they are expanding two bedrooms and adding a bath, and various sundry other projects. After three weeks, we are about a week from closein inspection on all of it.

First pic is the front wall. All the drywall in the studio was torn off, except behind the wet bar (not in this picture) and the left wall. I am dealing with decoupling those walls from the other side, due to shear wall construction here in hurricaneland. Also it would have been traumatic and expensive to demolish & rebuild the wet bar/rack :eek:

OK, so you can see the slanty walls with boxes to soffit mount the mains, also a little slanted soffit to hide audio wiring (some of which you can see) and hold the center channel over the window. The window has had the factory storm window added and caulked tight.
 
By the way, those cans will be removed and all lighting will be surface mount, or mounted in a floating cloud yet to come. I'm trying to seal up that ceiling good, all walls (except mentioned above) will be finished with 2 layers of drywall hung on RC.

Here's the back wall, with the rack shown in the earlier pics. They have built some more slanty soffits, mainly to aim the rear surrounds at my head. The door will be replaced with a solid-core unit. This corner worries me most, because the heat pump compressors are right outside that door :( Further work on the exterior wall may be required :o

I'm very pleased with the monitoring layout, I'll end up with all monitors at the specified angle for surround, and within 6" of equidistant from the mix position. We had a fun morning last week where I broke out a calc and applied some trig so the angles were good. Then when they were done, we dropped lines back to the mix position, they were worried when it was like 1" off, but I was like, dudes, my head is 12", don't sweat it! Real carpenters are amazing :)

Tomorrow the HVAC guys come to quiet down the furnace in the room, and baffle the intake. Also I get a humidifier! :)
 
mshilarious said:
Then when they were done, we dropped lines back to the mix position, they were worried when it was like 1" off, but I was like, dudes, my head is 12", don't sweat it! Real carpenters are amazing :)
:)
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Amen. It is such a joy to watch artisans skilled in their trade. Hopefully(as the McHouses become ever popular), never a lost art. :) :) :)

Awesome, Jon. So is that the same room where my MSH mics were made? :D
 
SonicClang said:
Books are actually reall good for acoustics. They act as really good diffusors because each one in a shelf tends to be a different height, depth, and thickness. Book shelves are actually recommended for that quite often if you've got no other means to diffuse sound.
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Do a search for "bookshelf" in this forum and see if you feel the same way after.
 
Lookin good..

so I didn't see a overall design though.. whats it going to look like?
 
VSpaceBoy said:
Lookin good..

so I didn't see a overall design though.. whats it going to look like?
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You are correct sir! Here is the floorplan. Overall room dimensions are 18' x 15' x 8.5'. The dotted lines are either the soffits, or the 8'x8' "floating cloud" of ceiling tile above the mix position. This plan doesn't show any of the treatment, but there is plenty of that too, there will be 6 1'x4' 4" panels in the ceiling corners, and probably 4 2'x4' 2" panels on the walls. Above the floating cloud will be 4 2'x4' 4" panels. All walls and soffits will be crammed full of insulation before being closed up.

The rough-in wiring is done now, including all the audio wiring. Next photo will be the insulation.

One detail I added to the outside wall was a layer of Hardiboard on top of the plywood. Dunno exactly what it will get me, but the siding was already off so it was cheap to do. I had the guys caulk the plywood too, before the tar paper and then the Hardiboard. The solid-core door hasn't come yet, so right now with the crap door with holes in the weatherstripping, I've only got -22dBC on the compressor :eek: I expect that will improve dramatically, or I will cry :(
 
The solid-core door hasn't come yet, so right now with the crap door with holes in the weatherstripping, I've only got -22dBC on the compressor
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What the fuck does a solid core door got to do with a compressor???? :confused: geeeezus Ms.
 
That hardiboard should help isolation as a different density/material.

As for the compressor line.. are you calling your new room the compressor and saying that you're seeing only a 22db reduction in spl? :confused:

If thats the case, I can see why you would be dissappointed. I guess it'll be time to look for leaks soon.
 
No, the heat pump compressor, outside the door. And right now the room is still full of leaks, since there is no drywall installed, and the old door as I said above has gaping holes in it. Also there is no interior door at the moment, it's open to the rest of the house. So the 22dB comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I just measured it for the before-n-after comparison.

Anyway, HVAC is done now, doors have arrived but are not installed yet, and the drywall arrived too. We're still about a week off closein inspection, so there is barely enough room in here for me right now with all this stuff stacked up around me :eek:
 
Doors are in . . . insulation tomorrow, drywall should start by the end of the week :)
 
Insulation is done now, I'll wait until the RC is up to post a pic. The framers are going to hang the drywall, to make sure the details are right. I guess drywall hangers are more interested in production . . .

Anyway, the contractor knows a guy that runs a drywall crew, he is going to stop by for consultation tomorrow . . . supposedly he's gots lots of experience soundproofing a studio, and has a studio himself . . . he has said he usually puts the RC between two sheets of drywall :eek: I told my builder there was no way in hades we were gonna do that.

Unfortunately I will have the PC totally shut down & sealed up tomorrow in the daytime, as I have most days, so I will not be able to pull links to support my case :(
 
supposedly he's gots lots of experience soundproofing a studio,
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Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:

he has said he usually puts the RC between two sheets of drywall
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Lots of experience huh. What a crock. His experience doesn't mean diddly squat other than wasting peoples money. Tell him for ME, he is full of shit.
Ask for a before and after plot of the transmission loss.

good god. Everyone knows how to "soundproof" a studio now days. Untill you measure it for real. fuck
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:

Lots of experience huh. What a crock. His experience doesn't mean diddly squat other than wasting peoples money. Tell him for ME, he is full of shit.
Ask for a before and after plot of the transmission loss.

good god. Everyone knows how to "soundproof" a studio now days. Untill you measure it for real. fuck
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He came over this AM, fortunately he didn't stay long, so I didn't say anything. I had already expressed the importance of proper installation of RC on my guys, when they mentioned missing the studs when driving screws through the RC, he had a blank look on his face. It was painful.

I can tell you right now, there is no way his crew is gonna touch the sheetrock in my studio until layer 2 is up and it's ready to finish.

Re: the hardiboard, who knows? I had a choice of putting back the original styrofoam insulation, or the hardiboard, they were the same thickness and the hardiboard is much heavier. I don't expect anything other than the usual gain from another layer on a surface, but even then I think I am at the point of diminishing returns with respect to STC of walls vs. the windows & doors, so it might be moot.

I can guarantee there are only gonna be TWO leafs and ONE airspace in this system though!!!

Last night I told the kids upstairs to stomp as hard as they wanted for five minutes, while I recorded the "before". It looks like the "after" will probably be on Tuesday.
 
Wow, three weeks later and it's almost done. Just waiting on the electricians to return and finish out the wiring.

I neglected to get a pic of the RC before the drywall was hung :o but here are some photos of the near-complete studio.

But first, a few words on TL. It's very good outside, other than the door where the storm door is not installed yet. They are saving that for the very last thing, because they come and go through the studio door.

TL is also very good on the interior. Structural transmission of vibration through the ceiling is not so good. The ceiling is 2 layers hung on RC, but when my kids jump on their bedroom floor above (which is practically all the time), I think it is actually worse than before (which was the standard 1 layer of drywall, no insulation). Mainly this is because the vibration transmits through to the cloud, which shakes the wires and creates high-frequency noise. That will go away somewhat when the cloud is insulated.

But I have a new theory about RC--it hangs down on the open side, away from the ceiling, because of the weight of the drywall. But when you have a strong enough stomp on the floor above, I think the ceiling joists are deflected enough to smack the open flange on the RC.

I know it isn't a bad installation, because the guys used short screws to avoid shorting the installation. I think I made an impression on them :D And the drywall guy came back to mud it, did a nice job and is a decent guy after all. Turns out he is a guitarist, and his bro builds amp. Sligo, I think. Couldn't find much on the web about 'em.

Moral of the story is RC seem good for sound isolation, not so good for vibration :( But I should be able to record loudly once the kids are in bed, since TL upstairs seems to be in the 50dB+ range.
 
Pic of the cloud--I used two types of tiles, because I needed 16 and boxes are 12, so I figured why not? The outside tiles are real soft, 0.70 NRC, and the inside ones are really rough, could be good for diffusion :confused: They are 0.65 and look cool, anyway.

There will be 8 cans installed in the cloud; 4 for compact flourescents (deskwork) and 4 halogen minicans (mood lighting while recording) :cool: There will also be 3 halogen track lights on the ceiling proper, and the rack/wet bar has its own halogens.

After that is done, the cloud gets 4 2x4 4" sheets of fiberglass, and the edge will be faced with fabric.
 
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