DIY build - garage studio ALMOST DONE!

[Tortuga]

That is just awesome. Great job and I love how the whole family is involved.

Mark me as impressed.

Thanks Neil!

[Tortuga]

Last up for last weekend was the A/C niche. I really wanted to get a test of the sound mitigation with the rockwool in place, but it really wouldn't be useful without at least partially covering over the 3-1/2' x 4' gaping hole in the side...

There's a lot of framing around the niche, which provides lots of small potential sound passages that might not be covered by rockwool or missed with the caulking sealant. To help with that, we blocked around the top of the opening so that the drywall had a solid surface to seal to. Rather than use heavy 2x4s, we installed 3/4" boards, as shown below (red arrows). I also spent a bit of time shimming (green arrow) the framing to level everything out so we're not cracking drywall when running screws into the drywall.



Just in case anyone is interested, we installed the 3/4" blocking VERY quickly using one of my favorite tools of all time, the Kreg Pocket Screw Jig. This thing allows me to drill perfect angled slots into the face of a board so that I can clamp it in place, using one of their special clamps and run a self-drilling screw in, making an extremely strong joint - no glue or special joinery required. I've built quite a bit of furniture and things like this with the jig, and it'll eventually be a huge part of the joinery I'll use for the kitchen cabinets (face frames & carcasses) I'll build for my house.



After getting everything prepped, I started installing the drywall surrounding the niche on the outer studio wall and the inner 'ceiling' of the niche



... then the insulation



... and the nearly-completed product, with a outer-side wall and temporary topper. I'm using a durable piece of MDF for the top, as it'll basically be a platform for me to stand on when I'm loading / unloading the storage area above.



I also piece of drywall for the inside-back of the niche and temporarily put it in place so that I could run a test of the system as it stood at that point: 1 layer of drywall and rockwool / thermal insulation, with the only openings being the main door and missing drywall on one side of the niche. Rolled the amp in the space and my wife stood outside the garage as I ran my guitar for a few minutes with a fair amount of volume (not quite what would be needed to roll with a drummer, but getting there). The report was positive - while still allowing some of the noise out, she thinks the majority of the sound was on the side with the openings - victory!

[Ostinato Rubato]

Major winnage going on all up and down this thread.

[skybluegary]

Looking good!

[Tortuga]

Major winnage going on all up and down this thread.

Thanks Mike. It's a lot of work, but the excitement is really starting to build and that's helping drive me to get this thing done!

Looking good!

Thanks!

[Tortuga]

Last of the weekend updates for this round...

Yesterday, we managed to get all the drywall done on the inside. Big friggin job - 12 4'x8'x5/8" thick sheets, all told. We finished our second 5 lb box of drywall screws, and I lost count of how many 30 oz tubes of acoustic caulk / sealant - it's at least 10 by now. I'm pretty sure I stated in an earlier post that I was sealing the framing - I went around the entire inner-perimeter and caulked the crap out of all the plates (the boards that sit on the concrete floor), especially where there were dips in the concrete. I also caulked all the corner framing and we applied sealant to all the edges of drywall where they connect to a perpendicular wall (ie: wall to ceiling, wall to wall in the corner). When all is done, I'll run one more time under the drywall (we left a gap above the floor) as well as any gaps where the drywall doesn't fit solid to an adjoining piece. It's a hell of a lot more detail than a regular drywall job, but will hopefully pay off. I guess if I've really done my job right, we oughta be able to suck all the air out of the room via the A/C unit

Here's a few shots of the start and in-progress. You may notice I managed to get the inside of the A/C niche all done as well.









And, here's the conclusion. The pics are pretty much a spin around the room.









With all those hard surfaces, I've now got a serious echo chamber . Haven't had a chance to get the amp in there and try cranking things up, but there's still that pesky hatch that's got to get closed over before I can get a fairly-realistic test.

Today, I worked on the outer wall in the garage / storage area, getting the walls in order so we can get our shelving system back up, and finishing up the outer part of the A/C niche, in preparation for the muffler box coming soon. I'll get some pics of that later.

Next up is going to be a whole lot of taping and mudwork on the walls, both inside and out. I'm hoping to get a large part of that done in the evenings this week. If all goes well, my dad will be here next Saturday or the following week to install the door jambs that he brought out (he custom milled the whole system - my dad kicks ass!) and I'll be upstairs buttoning up the 'roof'. Seeya on the flip-side!

[JCDenton6]

This is going to rock when it's finished, just pure win!

[Tortuga]

This is going to rock when it's finished, just pure win!

Thanks! Was over at a friends' house last night having dinner, and was telling them how great a gift this has been, and how the excitement is starting to feed itself. I can't wait!

[jamminjohn]

Well.......

Whatzit looking like???????????

How's Dad's cut?????????

By now you have had an amp in there............

[Tortuga]

Well.......

Whatzit looking like???????????

How's Dad's cut?????????

By now you have had an amp in there............

Thanks for checking in!

My dad's cut went as well as could be. Based on prior experiences, he should have been in the hospital 2-3 weeks later and missed our family vacation. It would appear that some combination or one of the care we took in cleaning the wound and the highbrow antibiotics he was on took care of things and kept him healthy and away from the doctors - at least for now. We're not taking things for granted though - we're being extra cautious and taking breaks through the day. It's actually be fun slowing down a bit and smelling the sawdust

Made pretty decent progress this weekend. Right now, I'm taking an ice cream break with my family, then out for an hour or two of mudwork. Will try to post an update on the progress from the weekend in a couple of hours.

...might roll the amp out there for a minute to try things out, too

[Tortuga]

Weekend update - door jamb & door installation

Things are progressing nicely at the GRIMESPACE, now that a lot of the harder, 2-person work is out of the way. I've been concentrating on sealing the perimeters where walls intersect and the gaps at the floors with caulking, as well as getting everything ready for mud and tape. Since my dad was only going to be out for the one day this past weekend, we decided to tackle the door.

Unfortunately, I don't have pics of the door jamb preparation, as my dad milled everything from 8-foot, 5/4 (1") material at his house. This provides us with a very solid jamb with no air gaps to worry about on the door stop, and minimal cutting & final prep on site to join everything together. Another reason for the milling was that this was a custom width - it's pretty tough (if not impossible) to find jambs at a home center or even a good lumberyard that will work for walls using 2x6 plates and 5/8 drywall on both sides.

Building up the jamb after cutting to length & finishing the rabbets on the doorstops for the joinery





Installing the jamb



Planing the door to width



Jamb installed with hinges already mortised - getting ready to hang the door



Hinges mortised into the door



And, done



This door is a 32" width, exterior, solid-core door, that weighs a ton, and will hopefully do quite a bit of damage to the sound waves trying to escape. The door jamb is designed to allow for another door that opens out, into the laundry area. We're not going to do anything about it yet, until the room is fully ready to test for sound mitigation. If we are still having concerns, the other door will be installed.

Last thing of note for tonight. I did roll out my amp and lock down the room. Managed to get the amp quite loud and my wife came in shocked at how little sound seems to be getting outside. This is really great, considering I haven't finished the outer part of the studio "roof" - that is just open joists with insulation right now. Should get better when that is sealed over. I've also got a lot of potential leaks where the electrical wiring is coming through an unsealed hole in the wall at various places throughout the room. This also will only get better, as will spot where the A/C duct is going to be run. This really made my night, and pressed me to get quite a bit of the tape & mud taken care of. More on that tomorrow.

[Tortuga]

A/C Vent

The A/C unit we're using is a portable one that requires an exhaust for the hot air expelled by the system as it cools the room. Normally, this is handled by running the exhaust duct to a window, which I obviously don't have available. We'll be running that exhaust out a port in the wall for now. Eventually, I'll be building a muffler box that will route that air up to another exhaust with an inline suction fan. The muffler will be important, as sound waves apparently travel the same paths as air vents. Go figure

The plan was to build the molded duct piece right into the wall and then seal / insulate the crap out of it. When done, the plastic piece seen at the bottom will be permanently embedded in the wall. In order to give the muffler something to attach to, I'm using a piece of scrap plywood under another layer of wallboard - then I can run lag screws right from the muffler box into the wall without worrying where the studs are. More on that in a couple of weeks. For now, I started with the hole for the ports. The small hole above the larger cutout is for a surface-mounted electrical box.



Better shot of the duct piece. The round inlet is for the 5" tube coming from the A/C unit. The oval outlet will go directly into the muffler box, and fits like a champ through the middle of the studs.



Duct piece in place, surrounded by one layer of rockwool. I decided to put a second layer of rockwool in this wall rather than worry about the thermal insulation, as sound rejection is more important to me than worrying about limited exposure to heat / cold coming from this small area.



Completed outlet, with a plastic piece that'll be fastened to the drywall and/or muffler wall. That to be decided later...



...and the inside of the duct - in the niche where the A/C unit will 'hide'.

[Tortuga]

Tape & mud, part 1

Here's the room when the weekend started, even before installing the door. I had spent time prior to this squirting and smoothing acoustic sealant / caulking into all the gaps between drywall sheets wherever they met on the perpendicular (wall to wall, wall to ceiling - not where two sheets sat side-by-side).



Next step is to install yellow drywall 'tape' over the joints and corners. The tape is a mesh of fiberglas (I believe) that helps hold the 'mud' (joint compound) in place - kind of like rebar for concrete work.



Then, the real work begins - applying and smoothing the mud over the tape. I'm no pro, but can do a fairly good job at it - especially considering that I'll be spraying texture over everything later (which hides pretty much anything). Here's the tools



Next couple of shots are mid-way through the first coat (I usually do up to 3, scraping and sanding between). This shows metal edging installed around the niche so the wallboard (which is essentially just chalk covered with paper) doesn't get dinged and damaged when moving things in & out of the space.



...wannabe pro tapers. Always trying to teach my sons new skills.



Half the room completed. Ran though almost half a 5-gal bucket of mud doing this part of the room and most of the ceiling. Will finish the rest in the next day or so.

[GuitarBilly]

how did I miss this thread until now??? Dude, this is awesome!!! Great work and thank you for sharing the details.

Also, your kids are really cool

[Tortuga]

how did I miss this thread until now??? Dude, this is awesome!!! Great work and thank you for sharing the details.

Thanks man - glad you finally found it! I'm having a great time, and can't wait to get it done so I can rock out!

Not sure what to say about missing this thread, other than it might be an indicator that ppl aren't seeing the other forums. I would love to have put this thread in the main amps forum so I had a fighting chance at some of the primary traffic, but I thought it important to respect the structure. Maybe when I'm done, I'll put a "happy new studio day" thread over in the amps forum to see if I can lure a few of the folks

Also, your kids are really cool

Yes, they are!

[Ostinato Rubato]

what ELSE is there to do in Riverside CA?

it looks awesome man!

[Tortuga]

what ELSE is there to do in Riverside CA?

it looks awesome man!

Yup, you're right. Not such a bad place (I actually grew up in Long Beach), but we do miss our old stomping grounds. No Disneyland out this way, but plenty of beer and guitar rock

Thanks for the compliments. Stay tuned - lots of good stuff coming!

[Casey4s]

Looking good

I don't mind hanging drywall but god do I hate to finish it You and your helper seem to have it under control. It's really cool to see three generations working on a family project together, kudos

[Tortuga]

Looking good

I don't mind hanging drywall but god do I hate to finish it You and your helper seem to have it under control. It's really cool to see three generations working on a family project together, kudos

Thanks man! I really am having a good time working with the family on this one.

As to drywalling, I'm kinda the opposite - I get tired of cutting and hanging wallboard, and then running screws all day. For some reason, I kind of take to the taping knife. It's kind of like art to me, I guess. That said, I'll be knees-deep in mud this weekend trying to get everything ready for spraying texture. I'm sure I'll remember why I went to collage and got into IT

[SenatorClayDavis]

As to drywalling, I'm kinda the opposite - I get tired of cutting and hanging wallboard, and then running screws all day. For some reason, I kind of take to the taping knife. It's kind of like art to me, I guess. That said, I'll be knees-deep in mud this weekend trying to get everything ready for spraying texture. I'm sure I'll remember why I went to collage and got into IT

Yeah mudding can be kind of fun... it definitely is an art and it's awesome when you get good at it and you can do a whole seam in one pass. Though mudding ceilings is not fun and wears on your neck shoulders after a while.

This is one of the greatest threads in GAB's brief history and is the most detailed home-studio build documentation I've ever seen on the interweb. Kudos, dude.

[Tortuga]

As to drywalling, I'm kinda the opposite - I get tired of cutting and hanging wallboard, and then running screws all day. For some reason, I kind of take to the taping knife. It's kind of like art to me, I guess. That said, I'll be knees-deep in mud this weekend trying to get everything ready for spraying texture. I'm sure I'll remember why I went to collage and got into IT

Yeah mudding can be kind of fun... it definitely is an art and it's awesome when you get good at it and you can do a whole seam in one pass. Though mudding ceilings is not fun and wears on your neck shoulders after a while.

I've been doing mud work off and on for a long time, including working on construction sites with relatives when I was in collage back 25+ years ago. Never got good enough to do a seam in one pass, but I do alright, I guess. Of course, I'm also good at spraying texture (read: no way in hell I'm doing smooth walls)

This is one of the greatest threads in GAB's brief history and is the most detailed home-studio build documentation I've ever seen on the interweb. Kudos, dude.

Holy carp, dude - this just totally made my week! I've been wondering why I don't seem to be getting much traffic here and have been a little bit bummed, to tell the truth. Thanks for the boost!

...I guess on the bright side, my list of GAB invites for the grand opening will be short - guess we'll be drinking the better stuff!!!

I'm headed out the door right now with my oldest to do some work on the 'roof'. Hoping to have this thing totally rockable here in the next couple of weeks!

[clipless bumper]

kudos here too - you shouldn't be bummed - the views are way higher than the replies.

My music room is similar in size - but I've always thought it was too small.
Acoustics are going to be big in this room - controlling the reflections will be crucial.

I think that PA you just picked up will easily keep up - you just have to have it pointed in the right direction.
I have my speakers pointed back at the 'band'.
In a room like they - the PA is really just monitors.
Running it into floor monitors only would probably even help with the volume and mic feedback.

[Tortuga]

kudos here too - you shouldn't be bummed - the views are way higher than the replies.

My music room is similar in size - but I've always thought it was too small.
Acoustics are going to be big in this room - controlling the reflections will be crucial.

I think that PA you just picked up will easily keep up - you just have to have it pointed in the right direction.
I have my speakers pointed back at the 'band'.
In a room like they - the PA is really just monitors.
Running it into floor monitors only would probably even help with the volume and mic feedback.

Thanks dude - I do appreciate those of you who have piped in - its nice to know there's people interested, and one of the things I've liked along the way were pointers about design and construction techniques. I did just check the view count, and am pretty shocked! Thanks for pointing that out!

I seem to remember a couple of people talking about acoustics being an issue in a room with this type of almost square perimeter (weren't you one of them?) in my prior thread. Right now, with hard surfaces in all directions, the room has one hell of a reverb effect. Whistling in the room is pretty cool, as it's super-loud and picks up a very large quality to it. When I cranked the amp the other night, I was pretty shaken at how much the sound went absolutely every direction and just seemed to make it that much more intense.

So, my plan for acoustics is this: I'll build up triangular frames that'll go in the vertical corners. Those frames will be covered with acoustically-transparent cloth and filled with rockwool - I've seen a few articles on this type of bass trap, and have read that they are pretty effective. I may also run similar traps in the upper horizontal corners (where the walls meet the ceilings) around the entire perimeter, if I can find something to substantiate that it'll help. I plan to cover the floor with carpet - not sure if we'll use foam, it may just be commercial or indoor-outdoor carpet, unless I can find something or someone to tell me if padding would help with acoustics. Lastly, I'll build wall-mounted rectangular frames that'll be stuffed with rockwool to further help with taming reflections. I don't want to kill the acoustics in the room completely, because I really don't like that kind of environment and think I can tame things with partitions, etc. for recording if needed. Would love to hear what you or anyone else thinks of that strategy - is this going to be partially, fully, or not at all effective?

Glad to hear what you think about the PA. It'd be absolutely killer if it's all I'd need - or that maybe all I need is to add a couple floor monitors.

I really appreciate you (and everyone else) stopping by my little corner of GAB!

[SenatorClayDavis]

I'll build up triangular frames that'll go in the vertical corners. Those frames will be covered with acoustically-transparent cloth and filled with rockwool... I plan to cover the floor with carpet - not sure if we'll use foam, it may just be commercial or indoor-outdoor carpet, unless I can find something or someone to tell me if padding would help with acoustics. Lastly, I'll build wall-mounted rectangular frames that'll be stuffed with rockwool to further help with taming reflections. I don't want to kill the acoustics in the room completely, because I really don't like that kind of environment and think I can tame things with partitions, etc. for recording if needed.

I built floor-to-ceiling triangular bass traps as you mentioned (I used corner-bead for the frames) in my little studio and they seem to work quite well. I also carpeted the floor, and my floor is ply that floats on this plastic egg-crate sort of sheeting called Delta FL to reduce bass coupling to the floor. For the horizontal corners I built rectangular frames with rockwool and mounted them on an angle to the ceiling/wall. Other than that I have a couple acoustic foam panel mounted to the wall. It's not totally dead, and more designed to be neutral from the perspective of the mixing desk rather than neutral for amp mic'ing, but for a small room (10x10) made out of drywall I'm happy with the results.

[Tortuga]

I built floor-to-ceiling triangular bass traps as you mentioned (I used corner-bead for the frames) in my little studio and they seem to work quite well. I also carpeted the floor, and my floor is ply that floats on this plastic egg-crate sort of sheeting called Delta FL to reduce bass coupling to the floor. For the horizontal corners I built rectangular frames with rockwool and mounted them on an angle to the ceiling/wall. Other than that I have a couple acoustic foam panel mounted to the wall. It's not totally dead, and more designed to be neutral from the perspective of the mixing desk rather than neutral for amp mic'ing, but for a small room (10x10) made out of drywall I'm happy with the results.

Corner-bead - do you mean the metal stuff used to protect drywall outside corners? Any tips on construction / assembly?

Just checked out Delta FL - looks really perfect for my application (provides some decoupling benefit without adding much to the height of the pile), but I'm not turning up many sources - where did you buy it? Is the ply installed with a gap to the wall so that it doesn't touch? How is the carpet installed - glued down and/or on top of padding?

Any chance of some pics of your studio? It sounds exactly like what I'm trying to do, and I'd love to see the horizontal frames.

I hope you don't mind all my questions - this is just what I've needed from this thread. Thanks again!