Building Studio 45 - My Home Based Studio
Posted: Mon, 2020-Jul-27, 20:10
Hi Everyone!
My name is Francis and I'm from the Eastern Ottawa area (Ontario, Canada). I've been lurking forums for quite a few years now and am here to share my build/story. I live off of a gravel road out in the country area on a 6 acres property (mostly forest) and am about 35km away from the city, so I guess you could say I am in a pretty isolated area. My closest neighbours are about. 5-600ft away from our house.
We built our custom home back in 2010 and did most of the work ourselves. I've worked in many different trades in the past and have gained a lot of knowledge and experience throughout the years. Our house is roughly 2700sq/ft and we have an attached garage that is 26' wide by 28' deep with a 23'x24' room above the garage. This area above the garage has cathedral ceilings/walls that runs all the way to the floor with a 12/12 pitch. The idea when we designed the house was always to use that space for my music/studio but originally I wasn't expecting to do as complex of a build. I have to admit, back in 2010 I knew very little about the concepts of sound-proofing and had I known, I would choose to go hardcore into a full studio build I would have designed my studio in a much different way, in fact I would have changed a few things around and moved it all the way in the basement on an isolated slab. Truth is, that time has passed and I have to work with what I've got and that this big space above my garage. I guess you could say I'm that guy that made the mistake of thinking he could get high levels of isolation in an attic space using conventional construction methods.
In the many years of reading and searching for answers and similar threads, I have to say I've come across many stories of people wanting to build an attic studio with high/decent amounts of isolation but in the end VERY few have actually done it. So this is sort of why I'm here today. I'm the guy who made the mistake of starting his studio build and then started reading and searching on forums.
So here I am, roughly May of 2016.
Things seemed to be coming along great right? Well, that's what I thought too! I also thought I understood how to "soundproof" my studio but the truth is it all started going downhill and fast once I started reading more and more specific posts online. Without going into too much detail, after weeks and months of reading thread after thread and post after post I came to realize that all the progress I had made so far was not going to get me the level of isolation (soundproofing) I was hoping to achieve. Basically I figured out that I was going to waste a lot of money and time for nothing in return.
It's crazy how many different products are out there to supposedly help sound proof rooms in your home, but if there's anything I've learned in the past 4 years, it's that building a recording studio is NOT by any means the same as any other typical room in your home. In short, most conventional construction methods do not mix well with the detailed requirements of building even a semi-pro studio. I found that there's many misconceptions of what's required to get the best level of sound isolation as possible using none of those fancy and expensive products.
Of course I understand that this level of soundproofing isn't always an option for everyone but for the purpose of Studio 45, I plan to achieve the highest level of isolation possible in the given space that I have......within reason of course. If I really wanted a full pro grade studio, I would build a separate building all together from the ground up, but that's not an option for me at this point.
Here I am 4 years later, and I'm starting all over again with this studio build, and I do stress the "ALL OVER AGAIN" part only this time, I've done the research and I've got a completely new plan. In the next coming posts, I will be sharing with you all the work so far. I've done quite a bit but there's still tons of work to do. I understand that this will take time and patience but I'm very excited to final make progress.
To start with, here's a sample of what the studio will look like.
The goal is to build two fully decoupled rooms, 1 Control Room and 1 Live Room. I'm realistically aiming to get between 45-50db of isolation but hope to get a bit better than that in the end. Time will tell, but you'll see throughout my build that I'm taking the time and making the effort to make sure I get the highest amount of isolation possible. Feel free to ask any questions and/or shoot any feedback my way and I'll be more than happy to try and help.
Cheers!
My name is Francis and I'm from the Eastern Ottawa area (Ontario, Canada). I've been lurking forums for quite a few years now and am here to share my build/story. I live off of a gravel road out in the country area on a 6 acres property (mostly forest) and am about 35km away from the city, so I guess you could say I am in a pretty isolated area. My closest neighbours are about. 5-600ft away from our house.
We built our custom home back in 2010 and did most of the work ourselves. I've worked in many different trades in the past and have gained a lot of knowledge and experience throughout the years. Our house is roughly 2700sq/ft and we have an attached garage that is 26' wide by 28' deep with a 23'x24' room above the garage. This area above the garage has cathedral ceilings/walls that runs all the way to the floor with a 12/12 pitch. The idea when we designed the house was always to use that space for my music/studio but originally I wasn't expecting to do as complex of a build. I have to admit, back in 2010 I knew very little about the concepts of sound-proofing and had I known, I would choose to go hardcore into a full studio build I would have designed my studio in a much different way, in fact I would have changed a few things around and moved it all the way in the basement on an isolated slab. Truth is, that time has passed and I have to work with what I've got and that this big space above my garage. I guess you could say I'm that guy that made the mistake of thinking he could get high levels of isolation in an attic space using conventional construction methods.
In the many years of reading and searching for answers and similar threads, I have to say I've come across many stories of people wanting to build an attic studio with high/decent amounts of isolation but in the end VERY few have actually done it. So this is sort of why I'm here today. I'm the guy who made the mistake of starting his studio build and then started reading and searching on forums.
So here I am, roughly May of 2016.
Things seemed to be coming along great right? Well, that's what I thought too! I also thought I understood how to "soundproof" my studio but the truth is it all started going downhill and fast once I started reading more and more specific posts online. Without going into too much detail, after weeks and months of reading thread after thread and post after post I came to realize that all the progress I had made so far was not going to get me the level of isolation (soundproofing) I was hoping to achieve. Basically I figured out that I was going to waste a lot of money and time for nothing in return.
It's crazy how many different products are out there to supposedly help sound proof rooms in your home, but if there's anything I've learned in the past 4 years, it's that building a recording studio is NOT by any means the same as any other typical room in your home. In short, most conventional construction methods do not mix well with the detailed requirements of building even a semi-pro studio. I found that there's many misconceptions of what's required to get the best level of sound isolation as possible using none of those fancy and expensive products.
Of course I understand that this level of soundproofing isn't always an option for everyone but for the purpose of Studio 45, I plan to achieve the highest level of isolation possible in the given space that I have......within reason of course. If I really wanted a full pro grade studio, I would build a separate building all together from the ground up, but that's not an option for me at this point.
Here I am 4 years later, and I'm starting all over again with this studio build, and I do stress the "ALL OVER AGAIN" part only this time, I've done the research and I've got a completely new plan. In the next coming posts, I will be sharing with you all the work so far. I've done quite a bit but there's still tons of work to do. I understand that this will take time and patience but I'm very excited to final make progress.
To start with, here's a sample of what the studio will look like.
The goal is to build two fully decoupled rooms, 1 Control Room and 1 Live Room. I'm realistically aiming to get between 45-50db of isolation but hope to get a bit better than that in the end. Time will tell, but you'll see throughout my build that I'm taking the time and making the effort to make sure I get the highest amount of isolation possible. Feel free to ask any questions and/or shoot any feedback my way and I'll be more than happy to try and help.
Cheers!