Building A Studio - What Do I Need?

Hello,

The family and I will be moving into a new flat in the next few weeks and one of the storage cupboards / rooms in the flat seems to be big enough and suitable for a studio build.

I dont have any pictures of the actual room yet but it is similar in size to the one ive put in this thread only difference being mine is slightly bigger. (not much)

So my main concerns are how im going to block sound from leaking into the flat which would disturb my little boy when he goes to bed and also I dont want to piss off the neighbours.

The room has a heavy solid door fitted and no windows so im assuming thats a good thing already.

So... can anyone guide me into the right direction on what would need to be done to soundproof this room?

Also consider my budget is minimal at the moment.

Equipment:

iMac
MPC
Midi Keyboard
HS80m x2
Audio Technica ATH-M50
Technics 1210 Turntable
DJM Pioneer 500 Mixer

Thanks

Best of luck to you! As far as treating the room goes look into the "Live End Dead End" method for treating control rooms. This may not be the best configuration for completely deadening the room but it will help tremendously.

In an LEDE studio, the area around the monitors is deadened, or made absorbent acoustically. The remainder of the room (behind the listener) is made “live” or reflective. The main principle is that the arrival of reflections at the console is in a specific order: 1. direct sound from the monitors; 2. First studio reflection (from the recording room, through the mics and monitors); 3. First control room reflection (off the back wall, assuming it is 10 feet or so behind the engineer). The idea is that by staggering these arrivals, the control room reflections don’t interfere with monitoring recorded studio acoustics.

Another serious option would be building a false floor that has hockey pucks secured to the bottom in even intervals in order to absorb any resonances transmitted to the floor.

You could also use those shelves to create a false ceiling that would tilt up toward the door. The highest point of your ceiling would be near the door and the lowest point would be where the shelf begins in the deepest part of the room.

Do what you can to save money when building your control room and don't worry so much about buying Auralex foam and the like. In our studio we use carpet squares for damn near all our acoustic treatment and it works fine.

Hope this helps
sé

Some general tips...

http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/guita ... eps-197744

http://tweakheadz.com/acoustic-room-treatment/

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul00/a ... oustic.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec04/a ... layout.htm

MessyBeatz wrote:
So... can anyone guide me into the right direction on what would need to be done to soundproof this room?

So are you just looking to soundproof this room or do you want to acoustically treat it as well?
The two things are quite different and require different treatment.
Most of the advice so far seems to be about acoustic treatment.

Seeing as the room is so small to start with, i am guessing you wouldn't want to do anything to the walls that would result in a smaller room. This limits what you can do somewhat.
The heavy door is a good start. You may find that simple household draft excluder all around the door will help stop sound from leaking into the rest of the flat. Obviously shutting all doors between your studio and your boy's room will help.

Studiospares in North London sell a few products that might help with sound leakage.
Acoustistop is a very dense material available in a roll that you could fix to the walls and the door . It's only 2mm thick so it won't affect your room size.
They also do a floor tile that is somewhat thicker that will help stop sound from leaking through the floor.

http://www.studiospares.com/search?q=acoustistop

These are relatively easy to fit, however,...
Any treatment like this is not going to be cheap if it's done properly but products like those above can be bought piecemeal, as and when you can afford them and added a bit at a time.

Your real problem is going to be bass which is quite hard to stop.
Have you considered using headphones at critical times, like when your boy is asleep etc?

Those Sound on Sound articles Clint posted above should have some good advice.

While all the tips given so far are awesome you didn't mention what kind of gear you have and what kind of work you plan on doing inside this 'studio'.

Have you considered investing in some very good headphones?

Thanks for all the info and input so far.

@Clint - thanks for the links. Lot of reading to do but very useful what I've read so far.

electric dragon wrote:While all the tips given so far are awesome you didn't mention what kind of gear you have and what kind of work you plan on doing inside this 'studio'.

Have you considered investing in some very good headphones?

It's just a small studio set up really.

Imac
HS80m Monitors
MPC

Plus lil extras... I mainly do all in the box music production and just have a pair of HS80m monitors. No subs or anything else.

I also do own some headphones, Audio Technica ATH-M50

Someone outside of the forums (a friend of a friend) suggested putting up insulation boards on the walls and ceiling. Like the one pictured.

Anyone know anything about these and if it's any good?

MessyBeatz wrote:Someone outside of the forums (a friend of a friend) suggested putting up insulation boards on the walls and ceiling. Like the one pictured.

Anyone know anything about these and if it's any good?

Commonly know as ROCKWOOL, used in building construction (in between wall cavities for soundproofing/insulation). Available from any decent builders merchant, even B&Q. Often found lying in skips outside building projects.

This is a quote from the bottom link that I posted from SOS.

"Roughly speaking, doubling the mass of a wall will halve the amount of sound it lets through, so the more layers of material that can be added, the better. Unfortunately, it takes a greater mass of material to attenuate lower frequencies, so for every octave drop in pitch, sound isolation is halved, which is why kick and bass are usually all that can be heard clearly when music is playing next door. Solid materials tend to transmit sound quite effectively, so soundproofed structures usually include air gaps to hinder the travel of sound. In the construction of suspended floors, the new floor is usually mounted on blocks of neoprene rubber, which help prevent the passage of sound vibrations. Sound-insulating material such as Rock Wool is then usually packed into any gaps left between the two sets of walls to provide further damping.

@Clint - I actually remember reading that last night. 1) I was falling asleep and reading and 2) I didn't know that was Rock Wool. Thanks man.

Dont know the exact size of your room Messy, but your HS80's may be too large for the space (unless you can roll-off some bass?). A set of smaller nearfields and/or decent heaphones are your best friends in this scenario.

Interested to see how this goes as i have an untreated 'studio' room, and use headphones to compensate for a lack of soundproofing and treatment. I'm a part-timer lol.

Actually that's not Rockwool, it's Celotex.
Rockwool is a brand of Mineral Wool and Celotex is rigid insulation board... a rigid foam kinda thing.
I found some Celotex in my cellar and use it in my room. I found that it stops mid/high frequencies from bouncing around my room really well... when placed in select places.
Although not really ideal for sound-dampening, I got it free.
I'd go for the densest Mineral Wool that you can afford instead of the Celotex.
But, I'm no expert in the matter as I've never tested any other material... I'm just going on what I've read.

Clint wrote:Dont know the exact size of your room Messy, but your HS80's may be too large for the space (unless you can roll-off some bass?).

I will try and get the exact measurements the next time im up there. Im sure the 80s has some kill switches on the back.. tbh i havent used them in over a year cause ive been in temp accommodation and most my music stuff has been stored.

Clint wrote:Interested to see how this goes

I will defo keep updating the thread as things are built and progress is made.

jimmie wrote:Actually that's not Rockwool, it's Celotex.
Rockwool is a brand of Mineral Wool and Celotex is rigid insulation board... a rigid foam kinda thing.
I found some Celotex in my cellar and use it in my room. I found that it stops mid/high frequencies from bouncing around my room really well... when placed in select places.
Although not really ideal for sound-dampening, I got it free.
I'd go for the densest Mineral Wool that you can afford instead of the Celotex.
But, I'm no expert in the matter as I've never tested any other material... I'm just going on what I've read.

thanks for the info man.

Ok I've now got the measurements.

54in x 68in

Also... I'm concerned about ventilation for this room as there is no windows. Any ideas?

It's going to get hot in here real fast, what about electrical outlets, dont see any there...anything you'll do to keep it cool will either have do to with altering the building and or introducing noise. IMO