1 room studio in Belgium
Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 9:44 pm
Hello, I’m a sound engineer and drummer from Luxembourg. I currently live in Belgium and I’m planing on building a home studio/practice room.
I used to have a studio in Luxembourg which I sold a few years ago.
I’ve been a member of this forum for several years now and read and learned a lot! Thank you all for that!
I mainly do live recordings outside of my studio with the occasional overdub happening at my house. If I have a big project I usually rent a studio for a week to do the tracking and I do the editing and mixing at home. Since I’m a drummer, I would like to have a space to practice without annoying everybody at home.
What I need is a good control room and a space to practice and overdub the odd guitar, drum or vocal track.
I bought a house in Bouillon Belgium 6 years ago and now is the time to plan and build my studio. The house is from late 1800 and build out of local stone (mix of limestone and slate) there is a little barn of 13,74m x 4,06m on the ground floor which will be transformed into a studio. The walls are like mentioned stone, behind the left wall are a bathroom and laundry room, the right wall is a outside wall. These 2 walls are about 60cm thick. The floor is on 2 levels and made out of concret, it was put in about 20 years ago. The 2 levels are just 0,65cm hight difference (there’s a step of 0,65cm height 4,49m into the barn) the hight is 3,71m on the bottom half and 3,45m on the second level. I was planing on leaving the back 3,81m of the barn for my wife to build an art & craft room. That would leave me with a length of 9,928m and the with of 4,06m.
Above the barn are the Kids bedrooms. The only thing between the barn and the bedrooms is a solid oak floor which is held up by 8cm x 23cm wood beams. I always thought the ceiling had some fibreglass insulation but I was mistaking, the previous owner being a carpenter had loosely filed bags of wood chips attached between the beams.
The front of the barn is a big barn door made out of oak without any insulation. I think the design of the studio is easier if I block the door of. Even though being able to use the door would make it easier to shift gear in and out of the studio.
The main fusebox of the house is in the bottom part of the barn. The fuses have to stay accessible. There are also 2 heater pipes sticking into the room, which I’ll try to get moved.
I attached a plan and photos to see more details.
I don’t have a sound level meter yet so I did tests with my SPLnFFT app on the iphone. I’m not a hard hitter so me playing at a pretty intense level was 95 dbc at 1m distance. In the bathroom (behind the left stone wall) we measured 63 dbc. In the kids rooms above the barn 80 dbc outside the barn door 86 dbc.
We don’t have Neighbours attached, they are about 10m away and where never bothered by me playing drums. The goal is to get to a point where the Kids can play in there room while I’m practicing. Or that the Kids could sleep when I’m mixing. I’m usually mixing at pretty low levels I find mixing at higher levels very exhausting and only turn up the volume to check from time to time if I can feel the snare drum etc…
There are not many outside noises, there might be the odd tractor passing. The street is about 20m from the house. Not much traffic in this village. So the concern is mainly the noise I create not leaking out to much!
When I sold my old studio I kept my sound booth (plans attached). The booth is build of OSB. Each element has a hole of 104cm x 220cm at the back they attached a plywood frame of 10cm hight around the hole. The frame has a plywood board of 2cm inside leaving a 1cm gap at the back. This 1 cm is filled with sand and sealed with a sheet of MDF. The sand helps get more mass without much extra space. The front of the wall panels where covered in some kind of a acoustic cloth. The booth sounded very neutral and dry which was great but I rather have a live sounding room this time! The floor was build of a OSB board which was standing on hight adjustable rubber feet, on top of that OSB where little 1 cm spacers in-between which was sand again, on top of the spacers was a second OSB board followed by a fake wood floor. The ceiling was the same as the walls. In one of the corners was a second small booth made out of glass and a wood frame.
Since I’m very limited in space I was thinking of building a 1 room studio. I rather have the extra volume to make the drums sound better then having a separate control room and tracking room. Although I thought to reuse the little glass corner booth from my old studio so I could put an amp or a singer in there if I need a little sound separation.
I figured out That John’s components.skp fits with a little resizing into the lower part of the barn, which would leave the top part for the drums.
My wife has access to here room through our garden in case I have customers. But for normal days she should be able to get into here room through my studio without having to walk through the rain.
I currently have a budget of 5000€ for the studio build, I have to be able to buy all the material for the main structure and acoustic treatment! I won’t do any finishing touches like for example adding a wood floor yet, I think it’s better to invest the limited money I have into making sure I get the sound volume down as much as possible and get a decent acoustic in the room. I can then save up and add a nice floor later. My brother in law is a carpenter and will help me do the build, so I don’t need to hire a contractor.
My questions are:
1) What’s the best way of insulating the existing ceiling (Kids bedroom floor) without creating a 3 leave construction? It will be hard to attach something in-between the studs. If I ad OSB or Plasterboard underneath the studs I will end up with a 3 leave construction once the studio is build.
2) Shall I add a layer of OSB with green glue in-between to the barn door? As far as I understand that would be one leave. And the studio wall would then be the second leave.
How important is it to keep the relation between height and width/length of John’s components design? Since I could build the elements higher then John did.
3) I’m currently using B&W Nautilus 805 speakers which due to there shape can’t be soffit mounted. I want to keep them as near field monitors but I’m looking into buying some new speakers to soffit mount after I saved up some money. What shall I do for the time being just keep a big enough space free in the acoustic element and finish it once I have new speakers? I still have some Tannoy Reveal Active monitors which I never liked to much are they worth being soffit mounted, has somebody tried that before, would it improve the sound of these monitors?
4) I thought of adding a window into the wall where the fusebox is to be able to access it. Would that be the best idea or does somebody have a different suggestion? The fuse box is behind one of the acoustic elements so I would also have to build that on little wheels to be able to move it out of the way first.
5) Since I have the old sound booth standing around I was wondering if it makes sense to reuse the elements as much as possible? Otherwise I would have to try and sell it or bring it to the recycling center. Also Is it a problem if parts of the walls are build of these OSB elements and the rest of plasterboards? Would it make sense to add a extra layer of plasterboard or OSB onto the old OSB elements with green glue in-between? I’m a bit afraid of the parts which are just a 22mm OSB and nothing else. I googled a lot to find test results for OSB boards but couln’t find much. It would be great to know how much OSB reduces sound at different frequencies compared to 12,5 mm plasterboard.
6) An other big problem is the heating and ventilation. I have a ventilation element left from the old booth which is basically a 2m heigh box build of OSB, It has 4 fans on top pushing air into the booth. The air has to travel down, up, down and up again within the box before being let into the studio. A second similar box was attached on the opposite wall, with the fans mounted the other way, sucking the air out of the room. The problem was that I never managed to heat the booth properly and had to put an electric heater inside the booth. I looked at the Daikin Sarara Ururu but that alone would cost without installation almost 2000€ so roughly half my budget. Is there an alternative or am I best served with electric heaters? Also these Ventilation boxes where definitely the weak point of the sound insulation. I never measured the booth when it was up but I remember hearing most sound escaping through the ventilation units.
due to the size of the files I didn't manage to upload the Sketchup designs. I'm not very good at Sketchup, but I tried my best:
Studio Design File: https://goo.gl/fcDkaF
Old booth sizes: https://goo.gl/f4hK4N
I highly appreciate every comment and suggestion you might have. If I missed anything please let me know and I’ll try to provide the extra infos needed.
I used to have a studio in Luxembourg which I sold a few years ago.
I’ve been a member of this forum for several years now and read and learned a lot! Thank you all for that!
I mainly do live recordings outside of my studio with the occasional overdub happening at my house. If I have a big project I usually rent a studio for a week to do the tracking and I do the editing and mixing at home. Since I’m a drummer, I would like to have a space to practice without annoying everybody at home.
What I need is a good control room and a space to practice and overdub the odd guitar, drum or vocal track.
I bought a house in Bouillon Belgium 6 years ago and now is the time to plan and build my studio. The house is from late 1800 and build out of local stone (mix of limestone and slate) there is a little barn of 13,74m x 4,06m on the ground floor which will be transformed into a studio. The walls are like mentioned stone, behind the left wall are a bathroom and laundry room, the right wall is a outside wall. These 2 walls are about 60cm thick. The floor is on 2 levels and made out of concret, it was put in about 20 years ago. The 2 levels are just 0,65cm hight difference (there’s a step of 0,65cm height 4,49m into the barn) the hight is 3,71m on the bottom half and 3,45m on the second level. I was planing on leaving the back 3,81m of the barn for my wife to build an art & craft room. That would leave me with a length of 9,928m and the with of 4,06m.
Above the barn are the Kids bedrooms. The only thing between the barn and the bedrooms is a solid oak floor which is held up by 8cm x 23cm wood beams. I always thought the ceiling had some fibreglass insulation but I was mistaking, the previous owner being a carpenter had loosely filed bags of wood chips attached between the beams.
The front of the barn is a big barn door made out of oak without any insulation. I think the design of the studio is easier if I block the door of. Even though being able to use the door would make it easier to shift gear in and out of the studio.
The main fusebox of the house is in the bottom part of the barn. The fuses have to stay accessible. There are also 2 heater pipes sticking into the room, which I’ll try to get moved.
I attached a plan and photos to see more details.
I don’t have a sound level meter yet so I did tests with my SPLnFFT app on the iphone. I’m not a hard hitter so me playing at a pretty intense level was 95 dbc at 1m distance. In the bathroom (behind the left stone wall) we measured 63 dbc. In the kids rooms above the barn 80 dbc outside the barn door 86 dbc.
We don’t have Neighbours attached, they are about 10m away and where never bothered by me playing drums. The goal is to get to a point where the Kids can play in there room while I’m practicing. Or that the Kids could sleep when I’m mixing. I’m usually mixing at pretty low levels I find mixing at higher levels very exhausting and only turn up the volume to check from time to time if I can feel the snare drum etc…
There are not many outside noises, there might be the odd tractor passing. The street is about 20m from the house. Not much traffic in this village. So the concern is mainly the noise I create not leaking out to much!
When I sold my old studio I kept my sound booth (plans attached). The booth is build of OSB. Each element has a hole of 104cm x 220cm at the back they attached a plywood frame of 10cm hight around the hole. The frame has a plywood board of 2cm inside leaving a 1cm gap at the back. This 1 cm is filled with sand and sealed with a sheet of MDF. The sand helps get more mass without much extra space. The front of the wall panels where covered in some kind of a acoustic cloth. The booth sounded very neutral and dry which was great but I rather have a live sounding room this time! The floor was build of a OSB board which was standing on hight adjustable rubber feet, on top of that OSB where little 1 cm spacers in-between which was sand again, on top of the spacers was a second OSB board followed by a fake wood floor. The ceiling was the same as the walls. In one of the corners was a second small booth made out of glass and a wood frame.
Since I’m very limited in space I was thinking of building a 1 room studio. I rather have the extra volume to make the drums sound better then having a separate control room and tracking room. Although I thought to reuse the little glass corner booth from my old studio so I could put an amp or a singer in there if I need a little sound separation.
I figured out That John’s components.skp fits with a little resizing into the lower part of the barn, which would leave the top part for the drums.
My wife has access to here room through our garden in case I have customers. But for normal days she should be able to get into here room through my studio without having to walk through the rain.
I currently have a budget of 5000€ for the studio build, I have to be able to buy all the material for the main structure and acoustic treatment! I won’t do any finishing touches like for example adding a wood floor yet, I think it’s better to invest the limited money I have into making sure I get the sound volume down as much as possible and get a decent acoustic in the room. I can then save up and add a nice floor later. My brother in law is a carpenter and will help me do the build, so I don’t need to hire a contractor.
My questions are:
1) What’s the best way of insulating the existing ceiling (Kids bedroom floor) without creating a 3 leave construction? It will be hard to attach something in-between the studs. If I ad OSB or Plasterboard underneath the studs I will end up with a 3 leave construction once the studio is build.
2) Shall I add a layer of OSB with green glue in-between to the barn door? As far as I understand that would be one leave. And the studio wall would then be the second leave.
How important is it to keep the relation between height and width/length of John’s components design? Since I could build the elements higher then John did.
3) I’m currently using B&W Nautilus 805 speakers which due to there shape can’t be soffit mounted. I want to keep them as near field monitors but I’m looking into buying some new speakers to soffit mount after I saved up some money. What shall I do for the time being just keep a big enough space free in the acoustic element and finish it once I have new speakers? I still have some Tannoy Reveal Active monitors which I never liked to much are they worth being soffit mounted, has somebody tried that before, would it improve the sound of these monitors?
4) I thought of adding a window into the wall where the fusebox is to be able to access it. Would that be the best idea or does somebody have a different suggestion? The fuse box is behind one of the acoustic elements so I would also have to build that on little wheels to be able to move it out of the way first.
5) Since I have the old sound booth standing around I was wondering if it makes sense to reuse the elements as much as possible? Otherwise I would have to try and sell it or bring it to the recycling center. Also Is it a problem if parts of the walls are build of these OSB elements and the rest of plasterboards? Would it make sense to add a extra layer of plasterboard or OSB onto the old OSB elements with green glue in-between? I’m a bit afraid of the parts which are just a 22mm OSB and nothing else. I googled a lot to find test results for OSB boards but couln’t find much. It would be great to know how much OSB reduces sound at different frequencies compared to 12,5 mm plasterboard.
6) An other big problem is the heating and ventilation. I have a ventilation element left from the old booth which is basically a 2m heigh box build of OSB, It has 4 fans on top pushing air into the booth. The air has to travel down, up, down and up again within the box before being let into the studio. A second similar box was attached on the opposite wall, with the fans mounted the other way, sucking the air out of the room. The problem was that I never managed to heat the booth properly and had to put an electric heater inside the booth. I looked at the Daikin Sarara Ururu but that alone would cost without installation almost 2000€ so roughly half my budget. Is there an alternative or am I best served with electric heaters? Also these Ventilation boxes where definitely the weak point of the sound insulation. I never measured the booth when it was up but I remember hearing most sound escaping through the ventilation units.
due to the size of the files I didn't manage to upload the Sketchup designs. I'm not very good at Sketchup, but I tried my best:
Studio Design File: https://goo.gl/fcDkaF
Old booth sizes: https://goo.gl/f4hK4N
I highly appreciate every comment and suggestion you might have. If I missed anything please let me know and I’ll try to provide the extra infos needed.
I'm not even sure if that would be legal! Sounds like a fire hazard to me.
If you do not "beef up" in between the joists, then you will have to put mass on the bottom of the joists, and therefore you WILL have a 3-leaf problem. So your options are 1) Either you beef up between the joists, or 2) you have a 3-leaf system. There are no other options! You cannot have it both ways at once. (The only other possibility is to add extra mass on top of the room floors above you, but that's even more problematic)