Home (with Studio Room) For Sale

In the last couple of weeks, there has been a big development in my personal life. I have been offered a fantastic opportunity out of state, and will be relocating my family in the very near future.

This means my home (complete with the studio featured in the recent construction thread) is for sale. If you are looking for a comfortable home in a quiet neighborhood with a great yard (almost 1 acre including woods and access to a small lake) and would like a modest but great sounding studio room in your home - this could be the place for you. I am located in the Atlanta/West Georgia area.

As Imentioned in the construction thread - there is some trim and moulding work yet to be done, hang doors, do some soldering, and put the light switch/outlet covers on. Otherwise, it's a great sounding acoustic space and will be sold with acoustic treatments left in the room, as they really are part of the room.

sorry though - the desk is not being left with the house!

Building My Studio: Part 9 (Finishing Up)

Did I mention I really wanted a room with a vibe?

The front section of my wall - which is recessed and then angled at the top - was finished from top to bottom with 1/4" cedar planking.


The cedar planking looks, sounds, and smells great. It adds a lot of character to the room.

With the planking done, I finished the front wall by adding a low-profile skyline diffusor.




Lighting was installed, and ceiling tiles were mounted. I used a combination of absorbing and diffusing tiles, all mounted with foam safe adhesives.


The cloud over the monitoring area was created using 2 GIK 2" acoustic panels. Typically, these panels would have been hung 2" down from the ceiling, but by hanging them down an extra inch, I was able to obtain an improved performance in bass absorption.

Next, I turned my attention to the floors. While I would have really liked to have put down a hardwood floor, I ended up going with laminate. The type I used had a 2mm backing pad already attached to the flooring, and this particular type of flooring was specifically designed to have the look and feel of hardwood, but with a little more control on foot and impact noise.


The floors were a little harder to install than I thought. I don't know if it was because the quality of the laminate I was using or if it was me... or maybe a bit of both?










Next... hanging acoustic treatments on the walls. I used 4" GIK panels on the front and rear walls, and 2" GIK panels on the side walls. The placement of these was carefully pre-determined in order to maximize the acoustic performance of the room.









This is the right side wall of the main studio room. You can see in the front right the opening to the iso booth, where you can see 1 wall in there was also done with cedar planking.









The rear wall, shown here with (2) 4" GIK acoustic panels, framing a diffusor array made of (4) RPG Skyline LP (low profile) diffusors.











After a few months of testing and trying my studio, I ended up making a small change to the back wall. Both cosmetically and acoustically, it seems to work a little better with the room.










My iso booth had acoustic ceiling tile added over the drywall. The door in the back goes to my machine room/closet, and has 2 custom sized GIK 2" acoustic panels on it. The walls have auralex sound treatments on them.




Of course, after installing my acoustic treatments, I re-tested my room - Frequency response (once again with special attention to the bass) and RT60. The RT60 came out slightly better than I had expected, but still within the targeted range I had been hoping for. Frequency response was good. Remember the slight boost I had at 34hz prior to finishing the room? After installing my room treatment, the small bump at 34hz was still there, but reduced by almost half - reducing it to a nearly non-existent bump.

Building My Studio: Part 8 (Painting)

From here on out, I don't have as many pictures of individual steps... It's pretty easy to set down the screwdriver and pick up the camera, but not quite so easy when you have paint all over.

For my main room and iso booth, I chose to do a venetian plaster finish. It adds a great deal of character to the room, and it's hard to really mess up. It was a lot of work though. The entire room was coated with a thin layer of a Tuscan-style orange, applied with a 4" puddy knife.

From day one, having a "vibe" in the room had been important, and the warm and bold color, combined with the beauty of a venetian plaster finish, seemed like a great way to create the vibe I wanted.

After the first coat had dried, a second coat was applied. Again, a puddy knife was used, but this time, a sharper angle was held on the blade in order to create a slightly different effect as the plaster went on. This adds depth and variety to the finish. It's hard to really tell from this photo though...

I could have considered this a complete finish at this point, but I still had a couple of tricks up my sleeve. To take this traditional, warm looking finish stand out and have a bit more modern feel to it, I applied a 3rd coat....this time, I used a metallic copper glaze. Then, I lightly burnished the finish by hand rubbing the entire wall with a smooth piece of metal. When done well, this can polish the finish to a glass or marble like quality. I opted for only a light burnish, which added some sheen to the walls without getting too crazy.

The result - a finish that has a lot of depth, and changes dramatically depending on how the light hits it and what angle you look at it.

It's hard to photograph, but here is a shot of one section of the wall. You just have to see this to really appreciate it. It's very very cool!

Building My Studio: Part 7 (Baseline Acoustic Testing)

Prior to moving on with the finish work, I performed some basic "baseline" acoustic tests in my studio.


In this photo, you can see I have a measurement microphone, speakers, and a laptop set up. I measured overall frequency response in the room by using various broadband signals at different volumes, as well as using sine wave sweeps. I also measured an estimated RT60 time (the reverb in the room).

Prior to even doing the construction of the room, I had used various online calculators to help me estimate what room modes/nodes I might have, as well as what my RT60 calculation might likely be. While I know that my baseline acoustic testing was not perfect, I was thrilled to find out that my room was performing at or better than my predictions on everything. I was particularly excited that my bass-fighting strategy of insulating the floor, the corners in the room, and particularly the front wall and built in bass trap seemed to be extremely effective. My initial testing, prior to even "treating" the room with surface treatments revealed a bass response that was essentially flat from 300hz down, with only a slight bump at 34hz. My hard work and planning seemed to be paying off.

Another, very unscientific test I did was to move the subwoofer around to several spots and play low frequency material through it at loud levels. This was done to see if there where any rattles anywhere in the room, or if the floor or walls were reasonating. Everything seemed solid, and I was able to move forward to the next steps with confidence that I was on the right track.

Building My Studio: Part 6 (The Walls)

One of the first things I did with my walls was to add "sleepers", also known as braces to the walls. This makes the wall more rigid, and strong. The last thing you want in your studio walls is for the studs to be able to wobble around easily. If the studs can be moved fairly easily, your wall is not rigid enough and sleepers should be added.

There are a couple of interesting things about my walls. First, the builder used 2x6 studs, instead of 2x4 studs. I was thrilled about this as this makes for a strong, and thick wall. Second, I had some irregular spacing, which is (in my opinion) great. Traditional studs are usually placed 16" off center. When building a studio, I personally think that by having some irregular stud spacing, you can reduce sympethetic reasonance in the walls. I had some irregular spacing already, which was part of the design to support beams, conduit, piping, etc. so some spacings were less than 16", which also lends itself to a good strong wall.

At this point, I hired a professional to come in and put in my outlets. I made sure that I had thought through the layout of my studio in great detail so that I would have outlets where I needed them. I also made sure that the contractor knew how I was constructing my walls so he could properly space the outlet boxes. This is also a good time to install other boxes that will be used to carry audio signal from one location to another.

I had determined that my side walls would use resiliant channel to hang the drywall from, but that the front and rear wall would not. I did this for many reasons - tweaking the dimensions of the room, trying to create different reasonant properties in the walls, and of course taking into consideration the location of those walls. For example this photo is along the wall that separates the main studio from the future multipurpose room - considering I might have drums in there, these walls will help provide an few extra decibals of noise reduction. You can see some of the irregular stud spacing in this wall. This wall was quite strong, but I did eventually add some extra "sleeper" braces from the back side before finishing the wall.

The sidewall facing outside was already insulated with R13, which I felt was mostly sufficient considering the location of that wall - facing into my large, quiet backyard. I did strategically place some additional mineral fiber insulation into the wall in order to help with the overall acoustic performance, but this was minimal.




The front wall was given special treatment. The top left corner has over 8" of mineral fiber in it. The entire corner was treated with 4" or so, and the rest of the wall was treated with 2-3"... all on top of the existing R13. As with other parts of the studio, this was not done so much to keep the room quiet as it was to help the acoustic performance of the sound inside the room, providing broadband absorption that would due particularly well on the bass frequencies. This same basic process was repeated on the right side of the front room as well.





Once everything was done to my satisfaction, and some cables were ran where needed within the walls, I moved to hanging drywall. The first layer of drywall was 1/2" thick, and was hung vertically. The front, center portion of the wall recieved a second layer of 5/8" drywall, but only because I had some leftovers from the ceiling. You can see that I have a squared opening roughed out in the wall for future use which will make sense later.











As with everything else, the drywall was hung with screws - no nails. I did all of this by myself, and it was a breeze compared to the ceiling, but I still recommend that it's better to have a friend help you. Mounting drywall on the resiliant channel requires special attention. If even just a couple of screws go into the studs, you completely lose the advantage gained by using the resiliant channel in the first place. I carefully measured and marked the drywall prior to securing it to make sure this was done right.




Before hanging the second layer of drywall, I did caulk and/or mud over all screws and all seams in the wall. Then, the second layer of drywall was hung. As before, I used 1/2" drywall, but the drywall was hung horizontally this time. I felt that this would make a stronger wall, with less reasonance. As before, I took careful steps to make sure I was securing them into the resiliant channel, and not hitting screws from the previous layer.

Between the layers of drywall, I used a product called Quiet Glue. This product was "sandwiched" between the layers of drywall. You can visit their website for full details, but essentially, it improves the damping of the wall, which leads to a better performing acoustic wall. There is a similar, more famous product, called Green Glue, which is reported to have better performance. After researching both, I opted to use the quiet glue though as it seemed a good fit for my personal use. In this last photo, the room is done with the exception of the final piece of the second layer, and you can see that I've already caulked or mudded over all of the screws on the second layer.



My isolation booth was done in a slightly different manner. The main drain pipe for the house runs down the wall in the back part of my iso booth. So, I built out the wall by the drain pipe, and then put in extra insulation around it and covered that one section with 1 1/2" of drywall. The rest of the walls recieved just a single layer of 5/8" drywall, due to trying to preserve as much space in my small booth as possible. The outside wall was stuffed with a ridiculous amount of mineral fiber and R13 insulation. As with the rest of the walls, I used caulk and/or mud to cover every screw and seam.

Building My Studio: Part 5 (The Ceiling)

I went back and forth on this part of the process... Some builders told me to do the walls first, and others told me to do the ceilings. Finally, I decided to do the ceilings first. Word of warning... this is one part of the job that could benefit from just hiring a pro to do it, or at least have some friends over to help. I hung my ceiling completely by myself, without a drywall jack, because I was too stubborn and proud to ask for help and too cheap to hire someone. Well, I got it done but it took a long time and was exhausting. 5/8" firecode drywall is HEAVY! Now, try lifting it over your head while standing on a ladder, holding it in place with one hand and putting in screws with another....

I opted not to use a suspension system to isolate the ceiling from impact noise from above. While this would have been nice, once again, I felt that it came at too great a cost both in ceiling hieght and financially, without enough reward for it to make sense. So, I opted for a traditional method of hanging the drywall directly to the joists.

Before I hung drywall, I installed a second light in my room. Ahhh... much easier to see now.

As you can see, I have a very thick R19 insulation stuffed in the ceiling. This particular type of R19 is specially meant to not just provide insulation but for sound control as well, and it works great. Much better than "the pink stuff".

I do have a 4" drain pipe that runs through one side of the ceiling, and I spent some extra time putting extra insulation and mineral fiber around the pipe to mute the sound a little more.

Then I hung the drywall - again, using screws instead of nails. This was a long an laborious process working by myself.

Bass frequencies build up in corners - along the wall/ceiling joints, and especially in corners like this where two walls and a ceiling all come together.

Before closing up the ceiling all the way, all of the corners were given a little extra insulation with mineral fiber, in hopes of getting the best bass response possible from my room.

The ceiling in my iso-booth recieved a little more attention. I started by giving pipes running through or by the cieling a little extra insulation and mineral fiber to surround them.

In this photo, you can see that I placed a complete layer of compressed mineral fiber in the ceiling. This is in addition to the good quality R19. The intent of this was of course to help keep the iso-booth quiet, but also to once again - combat the build of up bass frequencies, which are typically worse the smaller the room becomes.

In this room, I also used the foam taping to help reduce the transmission of vibrations from the ceiling to the drywall. Even though the impact of this is most likely very minimal, every little bit helps, and this was just using up leftovers so that they wouldn't go to waste.

Once the drywall was installed, there wasn't much more to do on the ceiling at this point. There was no need to do a traditional finish on the ceiling, as I had already planned to use acoustic treatments on the entire ceiling surface. So, I merely spread caulk over screw holes, edges, and seams and moved on to the next step.

In my next installment, I'll show you the walls...

Building My Studio: Part 4 (Built in Bass Trap)

One of my major goals with my room design and construction was to have a room with good frequency response, even before I did any "surface" acoustic treatments. Bass frequencies in particular can be difficult to control, so I was particularly focused on the bass frequencies.



My plan was to build my studio in such a way that a great deal of "bass -trapping" was built right into the walls. The central part of this plan was to build a large bass trap in the front of the room. I wanted to build this in such a way that I could also add additional angles to the room, which would further aid in fighting room modes and nodes, and add character to the room as well.

I started by framing the recessed section of the front wall with bracing to create an angled wall near the top. It isn't very pretty at this point, but it is functional!













Once the bracing was in place, 4"thick "slabs" of compacted mineral fiber were mounted inside the frame. As you can see, I used the 1/16" foam taping on top of the studs as well. The foam taping also covers the edges of the mineral fiber, helping keep it in place.











At this point, 5/8" drywall was secured to the recessed section and the newly created angled bracing. As with the floor, screws were used. no nails!
















I now have a fairly large cavity behind the angle portion of the wall...

...which I line with slabs of mineral fiber, and then stuff the cavity full with more mineral fiber and a few R19 scraps.

At this point, there is no real good way to test the effectiveness of this, but in theory, it should absorb a great deal of bass frequencies, and the angled wall should contribute to a good overall sound within the room. I just have to trust at this point that I'm on the right track...

Next, we turn our attention to the rest of the walls....

Building My Studio: Part 3 (The Subfloor)

The last article left off with the floor covered with a plastic sheeting, to prevent moisture from seeping in through the foundation. Additionally, the outside of the room had been framed with horizontal 2x4 studs, which not only held the plastic sheeting in place, but provided the foundation for building the subfloor.

Many studios use 2x4 studs as the basis of their subfloor, essentially elevating their floor by approximately 3 1/2 inches. This provides for an easy way for cabling to be ran under the floors, but also is a step that could lead to better isolation from the rest of the building and improved acoustics in the room.

In my studio, I chose to use 2x4 studs, but instead of standing them "tall", they were laid on the "short" side of the stud. With my limited ceiling space, this essentially gave me 2 more inches of height in the room by laying the studs on the short side. At the same time, this still allowed me to obtain some improved isolation and acoustic properties in my room.

"Uboats" are a popular way of floating the floor, and in areas where isolation is critical, are a valuable item to consider in your floor construction. I am on the lowest level of our home and well removed from train tracks, highways, and other low-level noise that comes through the floor, so did not feel that my money was best spent on this type of isolation. Additionally, using the uboats would chip away at my ceiling height - something I had determined from day one was a top priority.

My floor was secured directly to the concrete. Caulking was used to help keep the integrity of the seal created by the plastic.

Before laying my floor, I carefully considered my initial and future cabling needs, and planned channels into the floor to allow cabling to easily be routed.

The floor was assembled like a spine and ribs. The "spine" running down the middle was a main channel to connect the front and back of the room, and the ribs allowed channels of cabling to the sides of the room. This structure also helped create what I feel to be a more rigid floor, by using shorter lengths of wood. The 2x4 studs were carefully hand selected to make sure the floor was level and strong. In this photo you can see that I have about 1/2 of the main room done.

No pneumatic driver used, I pounded all those nails into the concrete by hand....

While building the framing of the subfloor, I also built in an audio access box - leaving plenty of room for future expansion. Originally, I built 1 in the front and 1 in the back, with the assumption that I might have my main desk in the front, and a rack of gear behind me as well. Ultimately, I opted for a better designed desk so that I could eliminate the rack, and I removed the back access box. This was the one item in my studio that I changed plans on partway through. Luckily, it wasn't hard to fix, but I did learn a lesson!

Once the "ribs" were all done and the subfloor was completely framed, I ran high-quality cable to all the necessary locations.

Next - I put a special 1/16" thick foam tape on top of the studs. After much research, I felt that this would give me a great deal of bang for the buck - helping to decouple the floor top from the frame, without costing a fortune or eating up my ceiling height.




















The floor was then insulated with 2" thick Mineral Fiber (which would compress to 1 1/2" once the top of the floor was on.) The Mineral Fiber has excellent insulation and acoustic properties. Filling the floor prevents the cavities from becoming reasonating chambers, helps control the bass response in the room, and can aid in isolating the studio.



Once this was all completed, it was time to lay down the actual subfloor. Some studios will do multiple layers, using multiple materials. Again - considering my location, my budget, my desire to preserve ceiling height, etc - this was not the best option for me. I chose to use good quality plywood. I am not 100% positive, but I believe I used the 5/8" thick variety. Don't use less than 1/2" thick plywood, and if you use 1/2" ply, keep your bracing close together in order to make a strong floor.

















Before securing any pieces to the floor, I fit them all together like a puzzle. Once I was satisfied everything was where it needed to be, I secured the floor using screws...LOTS of them. Using screws makes for stronger construction, and ensures a rigid floor that won't be squeaky.


Rough spots were sanded, the floor was checked to make sure it was level, and seams were given a light rubbing with caulk.


Up next - Altering the room acoustics with a built in bass trap and creating more angled surfaces in the studio to help keep those pesky room modes and nodes under control...

Building My Studio: Part 2 (Getting Started)

In my last entry, I discussed the thought process one should go through in planning their studio, and explained what my thoughts and priorities were. Once you have all the general ideas and plans, it's time to get serious about what you need to do to convert those ideas to a useable workspace.


Layout and ergonomics are extremely important. Acoustically, it is best if your monitoring position is approximately 38% back from the front wall, and that your speakers point down the longest part of your room. Before you drive a single nail, you should know what type of desk you'll use, where it will go in the room, where your monitors will go, where your instruments will go, where your friends and clients will sit, and so forth. Make sure that you think through everything you need to do in your workspace, and that your rough plan and ideas take these issues into consideration. check out GIK Acoustics, Realtraps, Auralex, and John Sayers Site for mountains of information that will help you with this.


Once you are confident that your rough plan and ideas are "on track", it's time to get down to details. Room shape, dimensions, and overall volume are very important factors that can make or break the acoustics in your studio. If your room dimensions are all divisible by the same number, you are going to have problems with room modes and nodes. In laymans terms, what this means is that you can have an unusually large build up or lack of certain frequencies in your room at different areas. For example, a room with 12x10x8 dimensions is not ideal because all of the dimensions are divisable by the same number (2).


My room dimensions were pretty good, but the front of my room was not symetrical, and for accurate monitoring, it needed to be.





My room was not the same length running the entire width of the room. A little over 2/3 of the room was about 8" longer than the rest. My solution to this was to modify the left front wall, by building a second wall over it. But, instead of evening the entire wall, I only did approximately 1/3 of the wall. This resulted in a wall that was symetrical, but was about 8" longer in the center of my room. I felt that this would help with the bass response in the room as well as help combat room modes and nodes by having different dimensions in different parts of the room. On top of that, it added a little more character to the room. In this photo, you can see the wall, which was the first physical step in the construction of my studio.



After turning one doorway into a wall, and one wall into a doorway, the walls were all correctly framed and I turned my attention to the floor.




I laid contractor grade plastic on the floor to help keep any moisture from creeping in. Around the edges, studs were laid on the floor to "frame" the floor of the room and also secure the plastic sheeting firmly in place. With all this done, I was now ready to begin serious construction.



I'll go into detail on some popular floor construction methods, and how I did MY floor in the next installment of this series. Stay tuned!

Building My Studio: Part 1 (Planning)

This is the first of several installments on the process of designing and building my new home recording studio. I am not an acoustics or construction expert, but after years of reading and studying related topics both in print and in person, (and learning many lessons the hard way!) I've certainly come to a point where I am comfortable tackling projects of this size and scope. I have had numerous questions about my studio - how I did certain things, why I did certain things, and so forth. While I won't cover every last detail, I will hit all the major highlights. Feel free to email me in person if you have further questions. This is not just meant to be a recap of my own experience, but a guide to help you with yours. At times, I'll write directly about my own experience and at other times I'll write this in the form of advice/instruction to the reader.

When building a home studio, there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration from day one. Some of the top things you need to consider are:

(1) What are the physical limitations of your available space? For many it is a basement, an empty bedroom, a garage, or an attic. All have challenges and benefits.

(2) What is the PRIMARY purpose of the studio? (Is it a mixing room? A Mastering room? An "all in one" room?) Different uses should drive the design and construction in slightly different ways. In addition to primary uses, are there secondary uses? (ie: will you teach guitar lessons in there? Use your mixing room also for a little bit of overdub work? etc.)

(3) Are you going to build a multi or single room studio? With limited space, you really need to think this out carefully. It's easy to think that you can subdivide a room to put in a small control room or iso booth, but more times than not you'll find yourself squeezed into a tight space that is uncomfortable to work in. Use tape on the floor to help you visualize the space before you commit to any subdividing.

(4) What is your budget? Can you afford to go "all out" or do you need to stretch the buying power of your dollar as much as possible?

(5) Finally, in the large majority of home studios, one must often make some compromise between ISOLATION (ie: keeping the room quiet) and ACOUSTICS (ie: keeping the room sounding good). Which is most important to you?

For me, my studio was to be in my basement. It is a walk-out basement with good light, and a fair amount of space. Ceiling height was acceptable, but not ideal. Some framework had already been done when the home was first built, and due to the fact that some of the walls were load-bearing, I opted to work my design around the existing framing.

The primary purpose planned for my studio was.... well, everything! I do a fair amount of mastering, so that was a key issue, but I also do tracking, mixing, writing, and just practicing. I do most of my work on my own or with a small number of friends, but I also needed to be able to record a full band. So, I needed something that would handle all of these well.

I wanted a multi room studio, but also wanted to use my space wisely - most of the time it will just be me and up to a couple of other people in my studio, so I'm not going to be using the other rooms all the time. So, here is what I came up with:

- My "main" studio room would be a spacious control room with acoustics suitable for mixing, mastering, tracking, and rehearsing. 90% of the action in my studio would be in this room so it was important to have a comfortable space with acoustic properties that could handle a wide variety of tasks

- I wanted a machine room to keep my computer and hard drive from making too much noise pollution in my main room. This was mostly to ensure that when mastering, I can have no background noise clouding my hearing of the music, and also to help keep it quiet during tracking. So, I planned out a small room with ventilation that could not only house my computer and external drives, but that could also serve as a closet to store mic stands, cables, and other gear.

- Even though I planned on doing a lot of my tracking in my main room, I wanted a small iso booth that could be used to mic up loud tube amps, or provide a quiet space for a singer or acoustic guitarist to record when needed. Space was limited, so I made the booth just large enough for a guitarist to sit comfortably.

- Finally, I wanted a versatile space that could be used for the occassional large session, to hold a drummer, or put some extra amps. Knowing that I might not use this space nearly as often as the other spaces, I designed this room to double as a home theater for my family. I designed it to have a number of connection options to the main studio so that I could use it as a tracking room, a lounge with playback abilities, or even a second control room that could be used for surround mixing. When not in use, my family would have a great sounding room for watching movies in, thereby making the most of my space.

My budget was limited. I knew I would need to do as much of it myself as possible, and would also need to shop for good deals. I had a small nest egg to get me started, and expected that I could add a little extra to my studio fund from time to time as I went. I knew that if I spent the nest egg too quickly, I'd end up stalling the project near the end though, so I really needed to budget and plan wisely.

Isolation and Acoustics were both important considerations to me, but I made the decision early on that if design or budget limitations forced me to compromise or choose between the two, I was more willing to give up some isolation in order to maintain good acoustics. This was an easy decision for me... My house has a large yard so my neighbors are not terribly close, and the rooms directly above my studio are not the ones most often used in our home. On top of that, I just wanted to get the best possible acoustics out of my available space and budget.

One final design consideration I made up front was regarding the overall look or "vibe" of the room. You will hopefully spend a lot of time in your studio, so make sure it has a comfortable feeling and decor that lends itself to a creative environment. If you expect to advertise and work on projects for others, good looks can help bring in customers and enjoy the experience. I determined that it was worth spending a little extra money on cosmetics if needed, to make sure I had a comfortable, appealing, creative environment to work in.

After making all of these decisions and doing a little more research, I was ready to dive in. My next installment will show photos of my initial space and start walking through the early phases of construction.