My name is Rick Hatch. I've been reading on this site and others for quite a while on studio building and acoustics. Thanks to everyone who contributes their valuable time and information to helping us less-informed!
Well, my wife and I bought a new house here in Calgary in May 2005. With an unfinished basement I was excited to use the space for a rehearsal space for my band/recording studio. I have recorded the first two CDs for my band Sittin' Idol in makeshift studios in various rental houses, and while they have turned out well, it was not without a lot of remixing and fighting the room so to speak. Well you can hear for yourself at http://www.sittinidol.com
/shameless plug
Sorry about that, let's get back on topic
Anyhow, I made a fairly simple plan (no splayed walls as we will need to sell the house eventually)
The room on the right is the control room, followed by a storage closet, then the live room/rehearsal room.
Control room is about 14' X 9'7"
Live room is about 17'9" X 14' in the wide section.
The stairs come down to the laundry room, and behind that is the furnace/utility area.
Well, in between getting married and trying to have a honeymoon (No thanks to Hurricane Emily) I got the framing done around July. This was the first stage where I thought "Wow this is a lot more work than I thought", having never built anything really at all before. I'm a painter by trade so it's less construction...
The electrical rough-in was not too tough, as my father-in-law is an electrician. I decided to use a regular grounding system rather than star grounding as we've never had any problems with hum or buzz in the past.
Insulating was pretty easy and then you've got these pics:
Man, what a pain in the ass it was working around all the band gear!!!
I put two layers of 1/2" drywall on RC on the walls in the live room. On the ceiling in the live room, we had some old "soundboard" (brown stinky shit) so I used that and then the two layers of drywall.
In the control room, we used one layer of 1/2" drywall, no RC.
Caulked around all the edges, and here are some pics of the first layer of drywall.
In these pics you can see the PVC pipe for cable runs, as well as the snake. OOps, those should have been turned 90 degrees, but you get the point, the PVC should be at the bottom.
These are pics of the live room drywall (first layer.)
Me hamming it up for the camera a bit
cross section of wall, after first layer of drywall.
This pic shows the cable run going from the live room. To finish it, I used some grommet covers (like for computer desks). When it is stuffed with insulation at both ends, I do not find this to be an isolation leak.
Outlet boxes gave me a bit of a bitch! I should have used extra deep outlet boxes, but using regular ones I mounted them as far out as possible, and with 2 layers of drywall there was still a substantial gap from the face of the drywall to the face of the box. This was solved by using extra long machine screws to mount the actual plugs and switches, but I wish I would have done it right the first time! (If I had a nickel for every time I said that!)
Here are a few pictures of the outlets. I used putty packs behind the boxes and sealed them to the drywall with acoustical caulking.
Here is a pic of the electrical panel, which is located in the live room. I finished the front with MDF, but I haven't sealed it with weather stripping yet. I have a feeling that this is the weak link in the room as far as isolation to upstairs goes. To close it, I used some double magnetic closers (not shown in the pic)
Fast-forward a few months (to save you from dying of boredom)
Here comes the paint (this is the easy part)
Next the flooring (laminate, $.99/SF CAN from Home Depot)
Sorry about the fuzzy pics, I think some laminate dust got on the lens
We were using the basement to jam throughout the construction process:
I neglected to take pictures for a while, but suffice it to say that an air nailer is ESSENTIAL for doing baseboards and finishing carpentry.
Also let it be known that caulking is God's gift to bad carpenters (i.e ME)
Well the whole process is almost complete. I have been building absorbers based on some of the forum members' experiences (THANK YOU AGAIN!!) using Roxul mineral wool (RHF boards 4.0PCF.) Hanging those from the ceiling is a challenge by yourself, but it is doable. After a bit of acoustical treatment, the control room sounds A LOT better! Now I just need some new monitors! (Alesis M1 active)
Here are some pics of what it looks like now:
Control room (it's still messy) will it ever get clean???
A picture of the "cloud' in the live room. It is 8'X6' . Yeah that was a bitch to mount. In this pic you can also see my guitar wall hangers, mounted with toggle bolts. I still need to caulk around those to seal the wall up.
Here is a picture of the storage closet. The pegboard is great for hanging cables, tools, etc.
So, a few thoughts? The isolation from live room to control room is great, with the closet in between. I am working on a plan to build a window plug for the live room (see my "Window Plug Question" thread) which will help isolation to the outside a lot.
The band is still semi-loud on the main floor of the house, but it is livable. And it is a LOT quieter than before building. Considering that my band is just shy of jet-engine volume levels, it's pretty damn good.
I don't have a sound meter, but inside the live room, without earplugs it is quickly painful. Upstairs, the sound is clear but quiet (you can identify the song being played but it doesn't shake the pictures off the walls like it used to)
Thanks to everyone who I've learned from, it's been a crazy experience so far.