John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Picture 1 of a bunch.

This picture is of the lower, righthand corner in the diagram. You can see the door to the room, the left side of the slanted ceiling, and the 40" high corner, and the electrical switches.

Picture 2 of a bunch.

This is the lower, lefthand corner of the diagram. I guess I probably should have rotated the diagram, huh?

In this corner, are two white doors going to an insulated, chaulked, double layer of plywood storage area that I can crawl in. There is a small possibility that I might de-screw the plywood on the short wall under the slanted ceiling, move one stud over, and mount two 19" rack rails, to mount my recorders. Since I'm getting tired and lazy, I might just rack them somewhere else.

Picture 3 of a bunch.

This picture is the side wall with the single window, which would be the left side of the diagram. The window is leaving very soon, it wasn't attached to the structure of the house but rather the cedar paneling with finishing nails, so when I pulled the paneling down, not only did the window start to come out, it also warped badly. I still have to yank the radiator and insulate behind it, then put it in before I start cranking the heat.

You can also see that there is a slanted ceiling that extends into the room about 4' or so, I think its 51" actually once I put plywood or sheet rock on it, but the entire back of the room is one giant dormer. More on that in a minute

Picture 4 of a bunch (six?).

This is the back corner of the room, showing the 7' high dormer edge. YOu can also see the eave/slant thing thats there. BTW its hollow, and I intended to use it as storage, or to mount gear in. This picture would be the upper left if the diagram. The floor which you can't really see has a 8' long stairwell across the back of the room (under the two windows) which I made my flip-floor vocal booth over. The vocal booth floor is still there, I took down the walls to get the ceiling out so I could reinsulate.

Back wall, which is the top center of the diagram. Two windows, one gets to be inside the vocal booth, one outside, based on where the stairwell and the flip-floor covers. Yes, I intend to make shudders to help isolate, but my vocal booth originally wasn't soundproof, the idea was just to cut down on the machine noise getting back into the microphone. Akai recorders are noisy beats, all things considered, and I have 7 of them plus the optical mastering recorder.

6 of 6.

This picture is the side wall, and you can see the "sofa nook". This would be the left side of the diagram from the edge of the door up to the back wall. The ceiling above the sofa is going to be 7' flat all the way across, rather than an ascending slant from 8.5' in the center of the room down to 7' at the back wall (top wall in the diagram). This is because the bathroom (which you can see the shower plumbing and diverters in this shot) is intact and the 2x4 joists of the sofa nook go right into the bathroom, and I didn't want to destroy the tile ceiling in the bathroom. I should have, because its starting to fall apart anyway, its a 1941 bathroom, but not doing so made my wife happy. I epoxied the few tiles that fell and called it a day. Its not our main bathroom anyway, I use it more since its right off the studio. The wiring hanging down is cat5e (network) and the white wire is a power feed for the webcam that will be mounted above the sofa in the back corner (upper right of the diagram). This is on one of the wall switches so I can shut it off just by removing power and not have to go with my browser to disable it. Flip on, flip off, easy as pie.

I haven't started insulating above the sofa nook as of yet, I have a little roof R&R to do there and I didn't want the insulation to get wet. The leak is minor, but I put it off until the end. I also have to pack insulation into the bathroom ceiling along the edge, staple the plastic in, the seal it up with plywood. There is one horizontal 2x4 missing (its been cut, drilled, and screwed in for fitment) which allows me to slid the insulation in, then I can seal it up and put on a plywood or sheet rock face.

There you have it, panoramic view, lame-ass style

OK, that's where I thought you were talking about the slant being - near as I can tell, if you absorb the side opposite the slant, maybe with a couple of gobos for portability, the only other "gotcha" would be flutter between the two parallel side walls. Maybe a couple of John's slanted slat absorbers, from midway to ceiling?

If they turn out to make things too bright, you could skin them with some front-mounted 703. You'd need a pretty good angle in that room to get RFZ going without just absorbing everything - probably in the order of 12-15" slope in a 48" panel - Before you committed to that, you could just lay up some scraps of plywood on each side of the room, stood off the wall at the front by the amount it takes to get around 20 degree splay on each. That should tell you whether it's worth it or not.

The Side Wall Absorbers here are what I'm suggesting, only it doesn't look like you'd have room for them unless they were only the upper half of the room -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Gee it's fun to tell OTHER people what to build, it's not nearly as tiring... Steve

I'm suprised no one commented "what a friggen mess"

OK, that's where I thought you were talking about the slant being - near as I can tell, if you absorb the side opposite the slant, maybe with a couple of gobos for portability, the only other "gotcha" would be flutter between the two parallel side walls. Maybe a couple of John's slanted slat absorbers, from midway to ceiling?

I can do that. I also have auralex foam bass traps, and tons of 2x2 3" pyramid panels also. I planned to foam the short wall, and run bass traps in those corners, and up the slant corners just to tame the short wall a bit. The reason because is the monitor stands I have are essentially 2" pipe, with swivel adaptors (its a q-lock workstation I've chopped up) so I can swivel, tilt, and angle the monitors property. When I had the cedar paneling in the room, I did have my console against the slant and I found the room sounded SIGNIFICANTLY better just by sliding the monitors down the pole, about chest height instead of ear height, and angling them up at my ears. I ended up with a 7 degree angle off horizontal for the monitors, which sounded the best in the original, uninsulated space. What this did is put the monitor backs facing at the short wall, not the ceiling slant. I still had standing waves, but they were behind my sitting position thus impacted my listening position significantly less. Obviously with the remodel, different materials, different insulation, different distance from the short wall all this could change.

If they turn out to make things too bright, you could skin them with some front-mounted 703. You'd need a pretty good angle in that room to get RFZ going without just absorbing everything - probably in the order of 12-15" slope in a 48" panel - Before you committed to that, you could just lay up some scraps of plywood on each side of the room, stood off the wall at the front by the amount it takes to get around 20 degree splay on each. That should tell you whether it's worth it or not.

I can do this as well, it would be a good late fall project, so I'll give it a good try.

BTW, looking at John's design, the slates appear to be parallel to each other. Is there an advantage to tilting the slats? Some up, some down, et al?

Gee it's fun to tell OTHER people what to build, it's not nearly as tiring... Steve

Of course it is! I do the same, though mostly with vehicle related stuff. Some of us like our toys In fact, this afternoon I'll be welding turbo flanges to 351W V8 manifolds

Windsor? Not Cleveland? Not a Ford man, but I thought Cleveland was "Da Bomb"? Probably 10 years behind on that one too...

On the parallel slat thing - not according to Barefoot - he's convinced me that unless you put individual "septums" between sections of a slat absorber, the wavelengths are so long relative to the trap that they just average out anyway. If you wanted to do that just for the "wierdness" quotient, I doubt it'd hurt anything...

Toys? Toys? Not me, man (check the pic)

Got the stainless one's at Costco a while back -

Now, if I can just find enough time to actually PUT stuff in these, maybe I can find it when I need it (not shown - another FULL top and bottom, and another top box, dozens of "totes" with stuff scattered everywhere) See, I'd be a hypocrite to comment on your mess (what mess?) Steve

Windsor? Not Cleveland? Not a Ford man, but I thought Cleveland was "Da Bomb"? Probably 10 years behind on that one too...

The Clevor is "da bomb", however it was made only in the early 70's, and wasn't an available option for my 93 F350 While there is a lot of hoopla as to which motor is better, "out of the box" the Clevelands produced more torque and power as a general rule, depending on the configuration and what it was in. But as far as I'm concerned, its all just raw material to work with. A 351W can produce a lot of power if balanced, blueprinted, heads and intake ported, proper tuning both in fuel and spark, etc. There always is more power available in any engine until you reach the limits of your mains or your head gaskets, and there are solutions to that as well.

On the parallel slat thing - not according to Barefoot - he's convinced me that unless you put individual "septums" between sections of a slat absorber, the wavelengths are so long relative to the trap that they just average out anyway. If you wanted to do that just for the "wierdness" quotient, I doubt it'd hurt anything...

I can do weird if it makes sense, but making angled slats is an awful lot of work so if its not going to buy me anything significantly, I'll make normal slatted resonators and call it a day. I visited a local furniture wood place and I'm thinking a nice light wood like Birch or oak. I love wood

And you're going to scream at me, but I like the look of carpet so I'll be using some carpet here and there on the walls as a decor thing, knowing its going to eat the highs quite a bit.

Toys? Toys? Not me, man (check the pic)
Got the stainless one's at Costco a while back -

Costo, huh? I've been looking for inexpensive cabinets for a while, because most of my tools are either on one of two work benches, the floor, my truck, or the basement. I have stuff scattered everywhere. I'll check out Costco to see what they have locally. The stainless is sure purty. The stuff Sears has is garbage. One tranny rebuild and the cabinets will be broken (I like the ones on casters, that have a work surface so i can bring the tools outside in an organized fashion, and have a work surface as well. This is why one of my workbenches (huge wooden office desk) has 6" pneumatic casters on it. I often wheel the entire thing outside and work on it instead of lugging heavy items into the garage on dolleys.

Now, if I can just find enough time to actually PUT stuff in these, maybe I can find it when I need it (not shown - another FULL top and bottom, and another top box, dozens of "totes" with stuff scattered everywhere) See, I'd be a hypocrite to comment on your mess (what mess?) Steve

heh-heh. I tend to be a slow while I'm working on a project, then I clean it up tidy afterwards. Its just that "in progress" work area looks scary, and because I have many projects going on at one time, progress is slow, therefore everything looks messy for a long time. Much to my wife's disappointment, of course

Got a lot done these past few days.

I now have CATV wiring, phone wiring (house and studio lines), my business phone system is mounted in a rack in the basement, and the studio has two extensions wired. Soon I'll flip the rest of the house over so each phone in the house is a different extension, and program it so the studio line rings in the two studio extensions, and the house line rings everywhere.

Insulation is almost done, I have (4) batts to go, I have one 2x4 thats cut and fitted for a messy corner spot that has to be screwed down, and finally, finish up the plywooding of the walls and ceilings. Major progress.

On the truck front, it passed inspection at the DMV yesterday morning, (in NJ) with all the emissions junk, air pumps, charcoal canisters, catalytic converters et all, removed. Well, the cat is there, I just hammered a straight pipe through it and welded it in so it looks like a cat

Amazing what a little bit of code modification in the truck's ECM can do

Anyway, back to work. The goal is to start layer two of the walls/ceilings after this weekend. I've decided to use sheetrock instead of plywood for the second layer, as per your suggestions.

The question is, should I screw it down to the plywood, should I glue it down to the plywood, or should I slap on furring strips and screw it to the strips?

What do you think? I'd *prefer* to attach it direction to the plywood, only because I don't want to lose another inch in ceiling height on the slanted side, but other than that I'm cool with it. Maybe I could get away with direct fitment to the slant, and furr strip everything else?

Sorry for the stupid questions, I should know the answer by now.

If I'm right in thinking that the plywood is directly screwed onto the joists without Resilient channel under it, and that there's another center of mass outside the insulation that is pretty well sealed, then that's it for your air spaces. You would want to fasten the drywall directly to the plywood, but try to find some Laminating screws, they are designed to fasten one layer to another without fastening to the studs.

If you can find the right screws, you should put a stripe of construction adhesive parallel to, and about 2" away from, each joist. This line is where your laminating screws should go also. What you want is for each layer to be somewhat free to resonate on its own, so that you have two DIFFERENT resonant frequencies therefore no ONE freq. can get through due to sympathetic vibes.

You also do NOT want any fasteners to go thru both layers AND into the joists, that lets sound flank your air space by going thru the fasteners and joists. That's why the offset fasteners, in line with the glue but NOT with the joists. Even though sound will follow the fasteners, it gets dispersed in the insulation instead of traveling through the joists.

Yeah, cars can be fun to play with - there's quite a bit of new stuff that wasn't available when I was heavier into it, like the "high piston pin, long rod" thing that's got a lot of guys building new engines - who-da thunk a minor change in geometry could do all that?

Glad to hear you're making some progress in several areas - not sure I even remember how to spell the word... Steve

If I'm right in thinking that the plywood is directly screwed onto the joists without Resilient channel under it, and that there's another center of mass outside the insulation that is pretty well sealed, then that's it for your air spaces. You would want to fasten the drywall directly to the plywood, but try to find some Laminating screws, they are designed to fasten one layer to another without fastening to the studs.

I think I have found the right fasteners, 1" long sheet rock screws. They would screw into the plywood through the sheetrock, and not hit the joists.

I shall follow your advice.

Yeah, cars can be fun to play with - there's quite a bit of new stuff that wasn't available when I was heavier into it, like the "high piston pin, long rod" thing that's got a lot of guys building new engines - who-da thunk a minor change in geometry could do all that?

Actually, the longer the rod, the longer the piston stays at TDC thus providing more torque for a longer duration. Combine this with a short stroke crank and you can generally rev the snot out of it. Lighten and balance everything of course.

There are a lot of tricks that can be had. For example, my FWD continental (3.8L V6) likes to spit out head gaskets, so through careful and clever machining, using copper o-rings, I run no head gaskets at all. None, zero, zilch, et all. 129K miles later I'm still getting awesome power and breezing through emissions without cats, canisters, air pumps and what not. And light to light, I can spank 'stangs and vettes and such light to light. I lose at the higher speeds, but light to light it wins most every time.

Not bad for a FWD 4-door leather-clad pillow.

Glad to hear you're making some progress in several areas - not sure I even remember how to spell the word... Steve

LOL. I had a temporary delay in getting motivated, but the bug hit me this past sunday so I'm making progress left and right. What really sucks is as I work around the perimeter of the room, I have a huge amount of junk that has to rotate to the opposite side of the room, so I can setup ladders and such.

To quote my wife... "you have too much shit". While I promptly disagree, I do see her point. Humping the gear left in the room around and a around, then putting a sheet over it is a pain in the butt.

Once I finish the sheet rock, tape and spackle, I'll be doing something fun. I'm going to build the console table out of rectangular steel tubing, weld to fit in the room. Then I'll shuffle it to the back of the room, and start laying down the pergo. I don't want to weld over the new fancy imitation wood if I can help it. I've outgrown the need for fire

Well. Isn't this special.

Three walls are insulated, chaulked, and plywooded. I didn't intend to rip down the back wall or the cove area where the sofa is going, simply because they didn't fall off like all the other rotted, termite eaten cedar panelled walls. I'm thinking hey, great, right?

Anyway, moved all the boxes out of the sofa cove, so I can put a stool there and staple insulation up in between the joists. Brrrr, I feel a draft coming from the floor.

So, I gently pry a few cedar panels off, and viola! The whole wall fell down. No insulation. Duh. Its not even badly insulated, its simply NOT insulated at all. Found three mice skeletons, about 20 rabid spiders, and what looks like a dead bird. Yes, in a wall. Dead stuff.

So, I ripped down the entire wall, insulated it, and now I'm putting up 3/4" plywood.

Here I thought i was done except for the ceiling. Imagine that.

What I'd like to know is, why does my house have to have dead stuff in the walls? Why cant it be Knightfly's house? Someone tell me that.

BTW, what I think is a dead bird, is going on ebay, in case anyone is interested

Even though I widened the entrance to the room by sawzalling out the old nasty doorframe that was falling apart (and held in with two finishing nails, it was wedged in there good!), I cut out the doorframe a little larger, but aparently not large enough for a 23" wide door, the next size of interior doors at home depot. I went to three home depots and a lowes, and none of them had anything wider than an 18" door, and narrower than a 22" door, which is all the space thats there considering the studs on both sides are support studs i really don't want to cut. So, I felt a little defeated loading a prehung 18" wide door into my truck, but hey, I dealt with it for two years, and its just to the bathroom/passageway anyway. I'll hate it for the next 20 years, but it won't kill me. I just can't record people who like Klondikes. Well, I can record them, they just can't use the bathroom

As coincidence will have it, the original door is actually a 18.5" door, so I planed both sides of it so now its a 18" door, and I'm going to hinge it on the other side of the doorframe, going in. So I'll have two doors helping control noise leaving the studio. Whats absolutely amazing is the prehung door is taller than the original door, so I had to lop it down a bit off the bottom, as I did the frame. This lowers the doorknob 4". Which means (pure luck) the original door will have its doorknob 4" higher than the new door, so i can use normal doorknobs and not have them bang each other. I did a test fit, using the doorknobs I bought, and amazingly enough I can close both doors fully without the doorknobs making contact with the other door.

For me, that makes up for having to chuck a dead bird-like thing out the window.

*sigh*

"why does my house have to have dead stuff in the walls? Why cant it be Knightfly's house?" -

What makes you think it ISN'T Knightfly's house? I live in the house your builder's retarded illegitimate son rode his unicycle west just to build, in hopes I'd be stupid enough to buy it...

Not only can I call your dead bird, I can raise you some mice, maybe half a dozen dead rats, and several families of birds raised in places that birds should never be able to access. I've got to excercise EXTREME self-control every time I climb on my Case Backhoe so that I don't just "drive around inside the house for a while", then say "oops - accident; better call the insurance" -

so, instead, I keep windows open to let all the "blue air" out while I invent new strings of cuss-words and slowly replace the entire F-ing house from the inside out.

All this because my wife and I were in possession of more horses than senses when we moved here in 1978, and this place had 9-1/2 acres and a barn - you'd think that in 25 years even one idiot working alone could have run out of things to undo, but I'm a VERY accomplished procrastinator.

I'm getting better though, really I am...

Man, I LOVE steel tubing - I've gotten so I actually STOCK several sizes of square, the smaller sizes the .095" wall nests into each other pretty good, great for sockets with pins, jackstand style, or different attachments, etc - I'm hoping to get a wire machine eventually, it's kinda iffy using stick on light weight stuff.

The good news is your doorknobs miss each other - the bad news is, doorknobs leak sound...

Gotta run, wifey's home with "honey-do" stuff... Steve