Couldn't agree more, I took great care with every screw. I spent days caulking, going around with a flash light looking for gaps etc. "Perhaps" nobody will be as meticulous as you will....
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My New Studio Build (perhaps overly detailed)
- Thread starter silky smoove
- Start date
Couldn't agree more, I took great care with every screw. I spent days caulking, going around with a flash light looking for gaps etc. "Perhaps" nobody will be as meticulous as you will....
Absolutely. Contrary to what most people outside of the studio building world think, the drywall in this case is the source of sound isolation. You need mass, decoupling and dampening to get the most out of this assembly. Without taking great care you can easily remove decoupling from the equation and cut your STC and TL values in half. I'm not going through all of this effort to end up with an STC of 34 because a drywall guy was hurrying to get through the job and onto his next paycheck.
Today's round of glamour shots from yesterday...
Mo' stacks
Building wrappers (MC TruWrap perhaps?)
Bubble...
Siding nearly complete
Building the corners and trim
End of the day
Our cat named Turtle being a goofball (this was a critical step in the construction process)
Mo' stacks
Building wrappers (MC TruWrap perhaps?)
Bubble...
Siding nearly complete
Building the corners and trim
End of the day
Our cat named Turtle being a goofball (this was a critical step in the construction process)
There isn't much I can do on this until the door arrives, gets installed and then we pass final inspection, so I did a bit of planning. I worked out the framing plan for the interior walls. I had to bump the "vestibule" framing up from 2x4s to 2x6s to allow the sound isolation door to mount properly. I haven't decided on a final model yet, but I'm thinking of using a full-lite Overly door. Their full-lite door offers an STC of 49 as opposed to their non-lite doors which go all the way up to 53. I'll be sacrificing a little isolation, but having a full-lite exterior door in line with a full-lite interior sound isolating door will allow some natural light into the space. There aren't any windows for isolation reasons, so this will be a major win in that regard. The door in the frame weighs around 230lbs, so I'll need to get the wall framing right before hanging it... To say the least, haha.
- Jun 29, 2006
- 5,148
- 3,217
- Disclosures
- President, CEO, CFO, CIO, Chief Engineer, Technician, Janitor - Reiner Amplification
Studio doors can be pretty expensive so there are always tradeoffs. Sometimes you see an outer door that matches the building architecture, then a separate internal door. Unfortunately, this requires more depth to mount. Easier if you are doing a room within a room but difficult when space is limited.
Do you think that some sort of "recording" light outside the door is will be required to prevent interruptions?
Do you think that some sort of "recording" light outside the door is will be required to prevent interruptions?
No recording light will be needed. You walk in through the exterior door into the storage vestibule. Once inside you'll be looking through a full-lite door with clear glass. If there's a performance going on you'll have 24"x60" of clear glass to look through before entering the sound isolated space.
Quick update:
The contractor had a hard time sourcing the entry door (not the sound isolation door which I will provide). Seems to be a popular style (36" wide, 6'-8" tall, 2x6 frame, fiberglass construction, full-lite with frosted glass) as most suppliers were back-ordered. We're a couple weeks out on getting that.
Once the door is installed the painter that who's bid I accepted this morning will be out to paint the structure to match the house (dark gray body with white trim), and will paint the door to match the trim. That's weather dependent, but should only take one day to complete.
Once the painter is done, the downspouts and gutters guy who's bid I accepted last week will be out to install continuous vinyl gutters and downspouts that will tie into my site drainage system. The drainage system will not be fully installed at that point to allow some wiggle room on the placement of the downspouts (i.e. working top down rather than bottom up). Interesting side note: To buy vinyl gutters and downpouts in 10' sticks, along with all the fasteners, couplers, ties, etc. it was going to cost a little north of $200 and would have taken me a few hours to complete. The result would have been multiple sticks attached with a coupler (i.e. the system would have seams) and hangers that are highly visible and less effective than the vinyl continuous type. Compare that north of $200 number along the labor for me to do it myself to the bid I got to have the pros come in and end up with a much nicer product... $300 total. Talk about a no-brainer!
Once the gutters and downspouts are in I can finish up the site drainage. The site drainage is the last item on the docket before the city will come out for final inspection. Essentially I'm a few weeks out (weather depending) on being able to start doing interior work on the structure. I've turned an old garage into an empty space. I've turned an empty space into a foundation with a building sitting on top of it. I'm more than ready to FINALLY turn that building into my studio.
The contractor had a hard time sourcing the entry door (not the sound isolation door which I will provide). Seems to be a popular style (36" wide, 6'-8" tall, 2x6 frame, fiberglass construction, full-lite with frosted glass) as most suppliers were back-ordered. We're a couple weeks out on getting that.
Once the door is installed the painter that who's bid I accepted this morning will be out to paint the structure to match the house (dark gray body with white trim), and will paint the door to match the trim. That's weather dependent, but should only take one day to complete.
Once the painter is done, the downspouts and gutters guy who's bid I accepted last week will be out to install continuous vinyl gutters and downspouts that will tie into my site drainage system. The drainage system will not be fully installed at that point to allow some wiggle room on the placement of the downspouts (i.e. working top down rather than bottom up). Interesting side note: To buy vinyl gutters and downpouts in 10' sticks, along with all the fasteners, couplers, ties, etc. it was going to cost a little north of $200 and would have taken me a few hours to complete. The result would have been multiple sticks attached with a coupler (i.e. the system would have seams) and hangers that are highly visible and less effective than the vinyl continuous type. Compare that north of $200 number along the labor for me to do it myself to the bid I got to have the pros come in and end up with a much nicer product... $300 total. Talk about a no-brainer!
Once the gutters and downspouts are in I can finish up the site drainage. The site drainage is the last item on the docket before the city will come out for final inspection. Essentially I'm a few weeks out (weather depending) on being able to start doing interior work on the structure. I've turned an old garage into an empty space. I've turned an empty space into a foundation with a building sitting on top of it. I'm more than ready to FINALLY turn that building into my studio.
No new construction updates as of yet. Still waiting for the entry door to arrive and get installed. Door, then paint, then gutters and downspouts, then site drainage, then final inspection by the city, then cutting in the trench and conduit for the electrical, then buttoning up the exterior hardscaping, and then finally I can move on to interior work.
Some news of actual progress: Today I made a decision regarding the interior design. I was wrestling with a number of different ways to implement the soft dividing wall that would divide the live room from the control room. I've been wanting dedicated live and control rooms from the start of this project, but Tom at GIK rightly pointed out that putting a traditional framed wall in the middle of my space would result in two rooms that were each small enough to be very difficult to work with acoustically. He suggested that I put in a soft dividing wall (2x6 framing, rock wool and fabric) that would provide sufficient isolation between the two spaces to have a drummer playing on one side and me tracking on the other, without all of the acoustic problems of a hard wall. The idea was to have the wall built in panels that could be slid or hinged out of the way so that when I was mixing (i.e. not actively tracking someone) I could open the panels up and move them into the first reflection points of my monitors and effectively have a much bigger room in which to work.
All of that sounds great right? I agree. The problem is that it increased the overall project cost, added building complications, interrupted the isolation perimeter, increased difficulties in running XLR cables (either via a 16 to 24 channel snake, or hardwired wall panels) from the control room to the live room, separated the HVAC zones, etc.
I decided to step back and ask myself why I was clinging to the idea of dividing the space so adamantly. In my mind it does seem a little more pro to be in a room by yourself while the guy in the control talks to you from the control room. That's all well and good, but it doesn't really merit the added efforts, cost and complications I described in the previous paragraph. Thinking more logically I tried to rationalize it by considering the noise level in the control room while a drummer is banging away. Have you ever noticed how loud drums are? They're loud. REALLY loud. This would help with that problem... but then again so would a pair of these:
So all of this means that if I were to drop about $150 on two pairs of isolation headphones (maybe less if I can find a less expensive manufacturer that delivers a product I like) and I get over the "but it would look more pro this way" mentality, I can avoid a lot of added cost and complexity while improving a lot of isolation and acoustic variables in the construction.
Yeah... This is a no-brainer on my end. Soft dividing wall is going away in favor of one large open space. That's not a decision I thought I would ever make on this, but one that I think will yield a much better end product.
Some news of actual progress: Today I made a decision regarding the interior design. I was wrestling with a number of different ways to implement the soft dividing wall that would divide the live room from the control room. I've been wanting dedicated live and control rooms from the start of this project, but Tom at GIK rightly pointed out that putting a traditional framed wall in the middle of my space would result in two rooms that were each small enough to be very difficult to work with acoustically. He suggested that I put in a soft dividing wall (2x6 framing, rock wool and fabric) that would provide sufficient isolation between the two spaces to have a drummer playing on one side and me tracking on the other, without all of the acoustic problems of a hard wall. The idea was to have the wall built in panels that could be slid or hinged out of the way so that when I was mixing (i.e. not actively tracking someone) I could open the panels up and move them into the first reflection points of my monitors and effectively have a much bigger room in which to work.
All of that sounds great right? I agree. The problem is that it increased the overall project cost, added building complications, interrupted the isolation perimeter, increased difficulties in running XLR cables (either via a 16 to 24 channel snake, or hardwired wall panels) from the control room to the live room, separated the HVAC zones, etc.
I decided to step back and ask myself why I was clinging to the idea of dividing the space so adamantly. In my mind it does seem a little more pro to be in a room by yourself while the guy in the control talks to you from the control room. That's all well and good, but it doesn't really merit the added efforts, cost and complications I described in the previous paragraph. Thinking more logically I tried to rationalize it by considering the noise level in the control room while a drummer is banging away. Have you ever noticed how loud drums are? They're loud. REALLY loud. This would help with that problem... but then again so would a pair of these:
So all of this means that if I were to drop about $150 on two pairs of isolation headphones (maybe less if I can find a less expensive manufacturer that delivers a product I like) and I get over the "but it would look more pro this way" mentality, I can avoid a lot of added cost and complexity while improving a lot of isolation and acoustic variables in the construction.
Yeah... This is a no-brainer on my end. Soft dividing wall is going away in favor of one large open space. That's not a decision I thought I would ever make on this, but one that I think will yield a much better end product.
Some sort of movable sonic divider can be used but does take up room: The Fab Faux Abbey Road Side 2 mostly on Vimeo - YouTube. Recorded at Sirius Radio for the Howard Stern Show.
An alternative is to think outside the room. Move the drummer into the shed beside the studio or into the house. Use a video link and run cables.
An alternative is to think outside the room. Move the drummer into the shed beside the studio or into the house. Use a video link and run cables.
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As a drummer myself who's played behind those plexiglass abominations I can tell you that they're simply awful for the performer. You're subject to all of these weird reflections while in the driver seat. I'm really surprised to see Abbey Road using them. To me it would make your recording a mess of early refections, phasing, and sorts of nonsense that would render your overheads unusable. That said, Abbey Road as an organization clearly knows more about the inner workings of a studio than I do, so who am I to argue?
Neither are viable. The shed beside the studio is too small for those purposes and is actively used for a combination of lawn tools storage, bicycle storage, backpacking equipment storage, and general tool storage. There's simply no room, and even if there was it's backed up to the property line and pretty close to my neighbors to the east and slightly south. I would have to sound isolate that structure to make is suitable for such a loud source right up next to their place, and I'm not prepared to do that even if I could mitigate the loss of storage space for things I mentioned.
Moving the drummer into the house is also a non-starter. Most of the bottom floor of the house is occupied by my wife's business. The upstairs is occupied by... Well... Us, haha. Any and all tracking simply has to be done inside the studio. There's no other alternative. Additionally, I'm not going to drop all of this time and money on a space to not track in it.
Abbey Road views in this video: Sgt Pepper It Was 40 Years Ago Today 1 Hour BBC TV ... - YouTube
Amps are isolated in side rooms as are the drums. Fascinating to watch their process.
Amps are isolated in side rooms as are the drums. Fascinating to watch their process.
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- Jun 29, 2006
- 5,148
- 3,217
- Disclosures
- President, CEO, CFO, CIO, Chief Engineer, Technician, Janitor - Reiner Amplification
so what are the downsides to being all in one room? you can't listen on monitors while they are playing, have to listen on headphones? i mean you could have them track some, then play it back to hear it, and adjust and again. i mean i do that in a proper studio all the time. i guess just listening to the mix while they are tracking on headphones is the only downside?
great move, a bigger tracking room is always a plus, i love tracking full band live.
great move, a bigger tracking room is always a plus, i love tracking full band live.
I just bought a Roland TD-25KV set of V-drums. I then replaced two of the PD-85 trigger pads with a single PD-100X (I prefer to play a one-up one-down kit configuration), so now all three trigger pads up top are the same. I also added two BT-1 triggers for stuff like hand claps, tambourine, shaker, cowbell, etc. I'll be using this kit with my modern jazz and funk band. Our focus is corporate events, private parties, etc. so we run everything direct to the PA (drums, bass, guitar and keys) with no amps on stage at all. That lets us all have our own monitor mix/level from the board that gets fed to headphones or in-ear monitors individually (I can tailor the mix and level for each member of the band to get just what they want), and is completely independent from the FOH sound. That then allows the FOH to essentially be on a volume knob (faders) without having to at least get it over the volume of an acoustic drum kit and a pile of guitar and bass amps. Volume control is absolutely crucial for these types of events, and this lets us do it easily.
I've used electronic drums in the studio as a means for triggering Toontrack's Superior Drummer 2.0, but the ability to record acoustic drums was a major driver for this studio build.
As the engineer you have to monitor from headphones rather than your monitors.
As the engineer you have to either wear isolating headphones or ear plugs when tracking a loud source (drums, guitar amp, etc.).
You have to track through headphones and then verify through monitors, re-adjust everything as needed (one extra step).
As the engineer you have to remain still and silent throughout the tracking process.
The performer can't be in the control room with their amp in the live room, which requires them to track through headphones.
None of these are deal killers, but they do make for a slightly less cool space. Oh well. The advantages from going to one big room as opposed to trying to divide it with an expensive and complex series of soft wall panels is going to be worth the sacrifice.
If I were to track a full band in that space I would need to run guitars, bass and keys direct while the drums were being put down. I would then re-amp after the fact. The room simply isn't big enough to track a full band, even with gobos strategically placed. Not a worry though. Setting up a direct sound for guitars and bass that sounds good enough for tracking is very easy thanks to recent advances in modeling technology. Keys tend to prefer being tracked direct regardless, so that's a non-issue.
Just got a call. The entry door is in! Working on getting the install scheduled so I can keep moving forward.
Nothing much new to report. The entry door still isn't installed, but hopefully it'll go in soon.
I have a consultation setup with an HVAC contractor to sort out the details of the mini split and fresh air supply for the structure. That's happening on the morning of June 1st. Once I have that squared away I'll be able to finalize my acoustic treatment plan.
I have a consultation setup with an HVAC contractor to sort out the details of the mini split and fresh air supply for the structure. That's happening on the morning of June 1st. Once I have that squared away I'll be able to finalize my acoustic treatment plan.
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