My New Studio Build (perhaps overly detailed)

[TerribleTim68]

My stepdad is a general contractor that builds high end custom homes. He’s simultaneously shocked that material prices have gone up so much and that gone construction hasn’t slowed even a little. In fact he’s busier now than any other year he’s run his business.

We are experiencing that too. I am a commercial foodservice design consultant and prices for equipment and construction costs have skyrocketed, yet we're absolutely swamped. not sure if you've seen all those cranes over in the Redmond area.
I keep getting price increases from manufacturers pretty much every other month to the tune of 10-20% increases each time. We estimated that equipment for our projects has gone up roughly 250% over the last 18 months, if you can even get it. Anything that needs computer boards for the controls has lead times up around 3 to 4 months and anything that needs foam for insulation is more like 6 months minimum IF they can even get foam.
Nobody can get rubber to make gaskets. God forbid you want something manufactured in the UK, shipping pushes those lead times out to almost 9 months. Made in China? Forget it, don't even try right now.

Welcome to the new world!

 

[silky smoove]

not sure if you've seen all those cranes over in the Redmond area.

I haven't been to Redmond in quite some time. I live in West Seattle, and two days a week I go to my office in Kent. Otherwise I'm frequently in Magnolia, Lynnwood and the North Bend area. I know Redmond has always been a very development-friendly city so I'm not surprised to hear that there are a lot of cranes out there right now.

 

[tothemax]

I ordered basic cabinets from Home Depot about Dec. 15th 2021, for our laundry room. Nothing exotic regular white, only custom feature was 18" depth (Home Depot's branded Kraftmaid style). They arrived 2 weeks ago... The craziest part was that the sales rep basically begged us not to do local pickup, have it shipped to our house at extra cost. The explanation was that deliveries were at risk in the warehouse, damages from handling and weather. He said it would still be guaranteed but with the current delays, the best option was to have it delivered direct. COVID has really put a new face on trying to get projects done...

 

[TerribleTim68]

I ordered basic cabinets from Home Depot about Dec. 15th 2021, for our laundry room. Nothing exotic regular white, only custom feature was 18" depth (Home Depot's branded Kraftmaid style). They arrived 2 weeks ago... The craziest part was that the sales rep basically begged us not to do local pickup, have it shipped to our house at extra cost. The explanation was that deliveries were at risk in the warehouse, damages from handling and weather. He said it would still be guaranteed but with the current delays, the best option was to have it delivered direct. COVID has really put a new face on trying to get projects done...

Shipping is a wreck right now. Freight damage is at an all time high. It's a mess. I'm sure he was trying to protect your order, because he knows.

 

[ThirstyMonkey]

Shipping is a wreck right now. Freight damage is at an all time high. It's a mess. I'm sure he was trying to protect your order, because he knows.

I know it's only anecdotal, but this was my experience. I ordered some new studio furniture from Sweetwater and almost ever piece arrived damage. I didn't even have to open the boxes to know there was a problem. Of course Sweetwater made it right, they took the replacement items and repacked them themselves in their own packaging and had them delivered by a specialty carrier. I'm sure at best they broke even on the transaction. Anyway, all of this is to say it's great when salespeople do right by their customers like the HomeDepot employee did for tothemax.

 

[badstink]

Straight to the Point:

The youtube video links throughout this thread are displaying as "Video unavailable". Is there a new youtube channel I can visit to view your videos? In particular, I'd like to see the videos of sound isolation and decibel measurements that were in Posts 2703, 2845, 2850, and 3232.

Longer comment:

OMG! What an incredible thread! I stumbled into it while doing a web search for "IsoDoor" and have spent the past 4.5 hours enjoying your journey! Your studio is beautiful inside and out!

I'm having a new 250 sq ft man cave room built inside my home and I am seeking real-world examples to determine if the IsoDoor product is worth the investment.

Maybe things have changed since 2015-2018 but IsoDoors are now being sold pre-hung with a customizable door jamb depth to match specific needs based on framing and drywall layers and you have 4 options for hinge and handle orientation (LHI, RHI, LHO, RHO). The pre-hung doors include all perimeter seals (an automatic door bottom, an acoustic threshold, and rubber perimeter seals). This might have made your life easier during the door purchase and installation phases, especially for the orientation problem you encountered.

 

[silky smoove]

The youtube video links throughout this thread are displaying as "Video unavailable". Is there a new youtube channel I can visit to view your videos? In particular, I'd like to see the videos of sound isolation and decibel measurements that were in Posts 2703, 2845, 2850, and 3232.

YouTube recently put bizarre copyright claims on a bunch of my videos and I've found links to them here and elsewhere no longer functioning. It's very odd and I don't really know how to resolve it. I've challenged these copyright claims and we'll just have to see what happens.

If you have specific questions about my experience I'd be happy to answer them.

OMG! What an incredible thread! I stumbled into it while doing a web search for "IsoDoor" and have spent the past 4.5 hours enjoying your journey! Your studio is beautiful inside and out!

Thanks!

I'm having a new 250 sq ft man cave room built inside my home and I am seeking real-world examples to determine if the IsoDoor product is worth the investment.

An IsoDoor is a great choice for a sound isolating door in my experience. You could also build one of Rod Gervais' super doors as described in his book, but I was completely over building anything by the time I go the point of the sound door and just opted to buy one instead. The IsoDoor product is good quality for sure. There were a couple spots where the outermost veneer on the door peeled a bit, but it's not noticeable unless you know what to look for and where. I would definitely recommend them in general. As to whether or not they would be beneficial, I'll say this; If you've sorted out the isolation of the walls, floors, ceiling, electrical outlets and switches, lights, plumbing, and HVAC, then a sound door is a good thing to consider. If you haven't sorted out those other conduction paths than I wouldn't be inclined to spend the money on a sound door.

Maybe things have changed since 2015-2018 but IsoDoors are now being sold pre-hung with a customizable door jamb depth to match specific needs based on framing and drywall layers and you have 4 options for hinge and handle orientation (LHI, RHI, LHO, RHO). The pre-hung doors include all perimeter seals (an automatic door bottom, an acoustic threshold, and rubber perimeter seals). This might have made your life easier during the door purchase and installation phases, especially for the orientation problem you encountered.

They were not available pre-hung when I bought mine. That's an interesting change. The orientation options were all available when I bought mine, but I didn't account for the asymmetry in my wall construction which resulted in the door needing to swing into the vestibule rather than the live room, which was not the intended goal.

Almost all of the recording work I've done in the studio since it was finished has been via overdub sessions rather than tracking a live band all at once. Very few groups want to track as a band anymore, and if I'm being honest with myself, my studio is really only big enough to track drums and two other players via DI at once anyway. Hindsight being what it is, if I were building this same studio over again I would divide the current main room into a live room and control room using sliding glass sound doors rather than swinging ones to divide the vestibule, live room, and control room. I'd end up with a live room suitable for tracking one person at a time regardless if they're on drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals, percussion, or whatever. I could then treat the live room such that it's more lively and make the control room more suitable for dedicated mixing tasks as well as including a small sofa or love seat for clients listening to a mix while I'm working on it. The control room would be rotated 90-degrees from its current orientation to make this work. Oh well. Nothing to do about it now as I have no intention of tearing out drywall to frame in a new wall and redo all of my acoustic treatments.

 

[badstink]

YouTube recently put bizarre copyright claims on a bunch of my videos and I've found links to them here and elsewhere no longer functioning. It's very odd and I don't really know how to resolve it. I've challenged these copyright claims and we'll just have to see what happens.

If you have specific questions about my experience I'd be happy to answer them.

Usually the door is one of the weakest links of a soundproofed wall so I'd be interested in knowing what level of sound reduction you are experiencing through the door. Did you happen to run a decibel level test from inside the room and from the other side of the door? If so, would you mind sharing your measurements?

I hope Youtube Support responds favorably to your challenge requests.

 

[silky smoove]

Usually the door is one of the weakest links of a soundproofed wall so I'd be interested in knowing what level of sound reduction you are experiencing through the door.

It is definitely the weak link of that wall assembly. I sprung for the optional HD LF core on my IsoDoor, and even then it still gets easily outperformed by the other walls without a door. My sound door opens into the storage vestibule which is a space without any sound isolation measures. Just drywall screwed directly to the studs and fiberglass insulation in the stud bays. If I'm standing in the vestibule and someone is on the other side of the sound door with it fully closed and they speak at normal volume I can hear them, some of the words are muffled, but it's still loud enough that it's intelligible. The back of my drum throne is about 3' from the door. If I'm playing drums full tilt and my wife pops out and stands in the vestibule she can do it comfortably whereas inside the main room the level of the drums is deafening (I always wear ear protection). It's definitely effective, but it's not going to make things totally silent.

Did you happen to run a decibel level test from inside the room and from the other side of the door? If so, would you mind sharing your measurements?

I've never done a full TL chart, but I did some simple iPhone db meter comparisons with the door open and with it closed. I did similar checks with the exterior door open and closed. I don't recall the measurements off-hand. Since the sound door opens into the vestibule which has its own door it's not a fair comparison. That said, if I stand at the exterior door the TL is significant. It's effective to the point of needing to listen very closely to hear anything when I previously had band rehearsals in the main room. Comparatively the west wall (no penetrations) and the east wall (one exterior light and an exterior power outlet for penetrations) are only slightly louder. The north wall where the HVAC penetrates the space along with two other electrical penetrations for a future project is the side with the least TL. Even then it's still remarkably quiet. You can hear a band rehearsal out of that side, but it just sounds like someone is playing a song on their iPhone speaker somewhere in the distance.

I hope Youtube Support responds favorably to your challenge requests.

It's a bizarre one since I'm not playing any copyrighted material in any of them. I'm guessing it's a software error that mistakenly generated a bunch of claims on my videos.

 

[TerribleTim68]

YouTube recently put bizarre copyright claims on a bunch of my videos and I've found links to them here and elsewhere no longer functioning. It's very odd and I don't really know how to resolve it. I've challenged these copyright claims and we'll just have to see what happens....

I'd be curious to know more about the copywrite claims. YT generally tells you exactly what the claim is, but you have to go into your YT Studio pages and look at the data there. In my case, the very first 3 videos I posted to YT back in 2009 all have a copywrite claim on them, so if I go in my YT Studio page and look at the list of my videos, I have this -

If you hover over the "copywrite claim" wording it'll pop up a "Show More" link where you can get more data. Clicking on that gives me this -

So you can see, in the case of that specific video, it's a copywritten song by Sixx A.M. In this case I'm okay because the song owner has allowed it to be used on YT, but that specific video can never be monetized.

YouTube recently changed A TON of copywrite regulations, so that's why your videos probably have issues now wen they did not before, because the rules have changed. Disputing it doesn't always do much, and ultimately they have all the power. I was able to dispute my claims based on "Entertainment video only" and was given the restrictions of "allowed for viewing, can never be monetized". I have, since my early days on the tubes, learned to be more careful about what music I'm using and where I source that music from. There's a lot of good "royalty free" music out there, some of it is even free to download without the need for a subscription service.

I can talk much more about this, but this thread isn't about YT regulations and copywrite claims. I only post this because I know what I've learned dealing with it myself, so my hope is that it helps you.

 

[peterpalmieri]

It’s fun to revisit these threads. Silky I hope you are well. My new 24u Dangerfox desk arrives this week. I will have to update my thread.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

I'd be curious to know more about the copywrite claims. YT generally tells you exactly what the claim is, but you have to go into your YT Studio pages and look at the data there. In my case, the very first 3 videos I posted to YT back in 2009 all have a copywrite claim on them, so if I go in my YT Studio page and look at the list of my videos, I have this -
View attachment 4937866
If you hover over the "copywrite claim" wording it'll pop up a "Show More" link where you can get more data. Clicking on that gives me this -
View attachment 4937867
So you can see, in the case of that specific video, it's a copywritten song by Sixx A.M. In this case I'm okay because the song owner has allowed it to be used on YT, but that specific video can never be monetized.

YouTube recently changed A TON of copywrite regulations, so that's why your videos probably have issues now wen they did not before, because the rules have changed. Disputing it doesn't always do much, and ultimately they have all the power. I was able to dispute my claims based on "Entertainment video only" and was given the restrictions of "allowed for viewing, can never be monetized". I have, since my early days on the tubes, learned to be more careful about what music I'm using and where I source that music from. There's a lot of good "royalty free" music out there, some of it is even free to download without the need for a subscription service.

I can talk much more about this, but this thread isn't about YT regulations and copywrite claims. I only post this because I know what I've learned dealing with it myself, so my hope is that it helps you.

YouTube just got sued recently for purposely flagging content and keeping the money I think there's gonna be some big changes regarding laws to protect against this soon.

 

[silky smoove]

It's been a long time since I provided any updates on this thread. Nothing major to report on studio use. I've been involved in a high profile GB group for a couple years now and it has eaten up all of the time I would normally spend in the studio. I do a few mixes here and there, and occasionally I'll track bass or drums on a project if someone hits me up, but I'm not actively seeking work at this point. I simply don't have the time or bandwidth between my day job, playing in the aforementioned GB group, rock climbing, skiing, and generally trying to enjoy life with my wife. That's fine. I still use the studio as my own personal rehearsal space, and I do my day job from there two days a week.

Now, on to the point of this update: After several years of use the light bulbs in my interior fixtures have started to burn out. No big deal. That's just part of maintenance. I have six fixtures in the main room, each of which has three bulbs. I grabbed a step stool and went to remove a bulb to confirm its type before ordering replacements. Imagine my surprise when I realize that the entire fixture is not screwed into the mounting box! It's aligned to be flush, and the screws are in the fixture base, but due to the thicker than typical drywall section, the included screws can't reach the mounting box. My electrician never bothered to tell me, and just let them all dangling.

I've never had to touch the fixtures as the bulbs had been going strong until recently, so until now I have never noticed anything being amiss. I quickly ordered some longer #8-32 machine screws in oil-rubbed bronze finish to match the fixture bases. They'll be here this week and I'll be quickly replacing the ones provided by the manufacturer. Several years after opening the studio, this is not a repair I envisioned having to do, but fortunately it's an easy one. A step stool, a Phillips head screwdriver, and 12 screws is all it'll take to secure all of the fixtures in-place. Fortunately they appear to be in no risk of falling down, but still... How structural is electrical wiring really?

 

[CryingBass]

Dangling fixtures, like dangling chads, are always problematic.

if that’s your biggest problem after that build, you are in good shape.

 

[Carl Hillman]

Sounds like an outfit I've used before...Good E. Nough Electrical LLC

 

[beans-on-toast]

On one hand, the fixtures float and move with the drywall. Probably not much of that going on. Attaching the fixtures to the mounting box will either add stability or transfer energy to the box and be a noise source. Probably overthinking this issue….

 

[silky smoove]

On one hand, the fixtures float and move with the drywall. Probably not much of that going on. Attaching the fixtures to the mounting box will either add stability or transfer energy to the box and be a noise source. Probably overthinking this issue….

I had this same inner monologue when I was ordering the longer screws, haha.

 

[peterpalmieri]

Life happens the studio will always be waiting for you. Hope all is well.

 

[JeroB666]

It's been a long time since I provided any updates on this thread. Nothing major to report on studio use. I've been involved in a high profile GB group for a couple years now and it has eaten up all of the time I would normally spend in the studio. I do a few mixes here and there, and occasionally I'll track bass or drums on a project if someone hits me up, but I'm not actively seeking work at this point. I simply don't have the time or bandwidth between my day job, playing in the aforementioned GB group, rock climbing, skiing, and generally trying to enjoy life with my wife. That's fine. I still use the studio as my own personal rehearsal space, and I do my day job from there two days a week.

Now, on to the point of this update: After several years of use the light bulbs in my interior fixtures have started to burn out. No big deal. That's just part of maintenance. I have six fixtures in the main room, each of which has three bulbs. I grabbed a step stool and went to remove a bulb to confirm its type before ordering replacements. Imagine my surprise when I realize that the entire fixture is not screwed into the mounting box! It's aligned to be flush, and the screws are in the fixture base, but due to the thicker than typical drywall section, the included screws can't reach the mounting box. My electrician never bothered to tell me, and just let them all dangling.

I've never had to touch the fixtures as the bulbs had been going strong until recently, so until now I have never noticed anything being amiss. I quickly ordered some longer #8-32 machine screws in oil-rubbed bronze finish to match the fixture bases. They'll be here this week and I'll be quickly replacing the ones provided by the manufacturer. Several years after opening the studio, this is not a repair I envisioned having to do, but fortunately it's an easy one. A step stool, a Phillips head screwdriver, and 12 screws is all it'll take to secure all of the fixtures in-place. Fortunately they appear to be in no risk of falling down, but still... How structural is electrical wiring really?

As someone who works with power generation, electrical wires can dangle a surprising lot of weight haha.

Glad to hear you are using the space!

 

[silky smoove]

Here are the before and after shots of the latest studio construction project. This has precisely zero to do with audio, but it was a planned part of the overall building construction since its inception. I even stubbed out 240V and a separate lighting circuit for this structure addition. Next steps are construction of a deck, removal of 3-4 arborvitae, construction of a fence between the posts along the alley, installation of privacy curtains or screens, installation of an exterior grade chandelier, and finally installation of a hot tub and cold plunge.