Studio Complete!
Okay, it's done - just waiting for me to move my stuff in. That won't happen until my wife gets her new desk for her library (thus freeing up her old desk for my studio). That should happen on Thursday.
Here's the $0.50 tour:
If you've been following, the new studio is built inside a detached garage. It's an over-sized garage, so I didn't have to use any of the actual parking area for the studio. From inside the garage it looks a little odd because the garage is all exposed framing except for the studio room. One day, I'll probably finish out the wallboard in the rest of the garage. The walls of the studio space itself are 6" thick and use staggered stud construction for better sound isolation from the exterior. And the ceiling is heavily insulated as well. The door is a solid-core unit and sealed so well it could probably hold water. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm thinking the sound proofing of the structure will be very, very good. Certainly much better than my old studio. Here are some photos showing the outside of the studio from inside the garage.
The main studio room is about 17' x 11'. I had one wall painted as a red accent color wall . The mixing desk will be facing this wall. The other walls are plain white. For photography, it would be better to paint everything either white or 18% neutral gray, but I just can't bring myself to do that to any room I'm going to spend a lot of time in. So the accent wall was my compromise. I'll use a backdrop on portable stands to obscure it when I use the studio for photography so that reflected light off a red wall doesn't mess up my colors. You can also see the wall unit air conditioner we installed. It's not as quiet as I'd like, and it will probably be the weak link in terms of sound proofing to the exterior. But I just didn't have the budget to install a detached unit.
The opposite wall from the red wall is the entrance to the closet. This door, like the entry door, is solid-core and the wall is fully insulated for sound isolation. I did this so that the closet could double as a vocal booth/amp room. That will make the loudness of the air conditioner far less of a problem for recording.
We installed built-in shelves in the closet/iso-booth for me to store all my stuff. On one of the walls, we didn't put shelves on the bottom 4 feet so that I could wheel an amplifier in for recording. I should be able to record the amp in the closet with the closet door shut, and have enough sound isolation to monitor from the main room - maybe even without headphones, we'll see.
Along with building the studio, I had my brother construct a work bench and install some old cabinets I had acquired awhile back. So in addition to the studio, I also got a little workshop out of this project! After I'm done moving everything into the studio, I'll tackle re-organizing the garage and this area will help tremendously in that. I'll probably put up some pegboard (or modern equivalent) under the cabinets. When my brother was building out the studio, he used the parking bays as a working/staging area and to store stuff. My goal now is to get everything nicely organized and reclaim some actual parking space in the garage.
Here's the $0.50 tour:
If you've been following, the new studio is built inside a detached garage. It's an over-sized garage, so I didn't have to use any of the actual parking area for the studio. From inside the garage it looks a little odd because the garage is all exposed framing except for the studio room. One day, I'll probably finish out the wallboard in the rest of the garage. The walls of the studio space itself are 6" thick and use staggered stud construction for better sound isolation from the exterior. And the ceiling is heavily insulated as well. The door is a solid-core unit and sealed so well it could probably hold water. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm thinking the sound proofing of the structure will be very, very good. Certainly much better than my old studio. Here are some photos showing the outside of the studio from inside the garage.
The main studio room is about 17' x 11'. I had one wall painted as a red accent color wall . The mixing desk will be facing this wall. The other walls are plain white. For photography, it would be better to paint everything either white or 18% neutral gray, but I just can't bring myself to do that to any room I'm going to spend a lot of time in. So the accent wall was my compromise. I'll use a backdrop on portable stands to obscure it when I use the studio for photography so that reflected light off a red wall doesn't mess up my colors. You can also see the wall unit air conditioner we installed. It's not as quiet as I'd like, and it will probably be the weak link in terms of sound proofing to the exterior. But I just didn't have the budget to install a detached unit.
The opposite wall from the red wall is the entrance to the closet. This door, like the entry door, is solid-core and the wall is fully insulated for sound isolation. I did this so that the closet could double as a vocal booth/amp room. That will make the loudness of the air conditioner far less of a problem for recording.
We installed built-in shelves in the closet/iso-booth for me to store all my stuff. On one of the walls, we didn't put shelves on the bottom 4 feet so that I could wheel an amplifier in for recording. I should be able to record the amp in the closet with the closet door shut, and have enough sound isolation to monitor from the main room - maybe even without headphones, we'll see.
Along with building the studio, I had my brother construct a work bench and install some old cabinets I had acquired awhile back. So in addition to the studio, I also got a little workshop out of this project! After I'm done moving everything into the studio, I'll tackle re-organizing the garage and this area will help tremendously in that. I'll probably put up some pegboard (or modern equivalent) under the cabinets. When my brother was building out the studio, he used the parking bays as a working/staging area and to store stuff. My goal now is to get everything nicely organized and reclaim some actual parking space in the garage.
Very nice. Kudos to your brother's craftsmanship.
ReplyDeleteBut hellohhhh, uhhhhh, you, like, fergot the kegerator dude.
Jeez, there's always some knuckle dragging mancave idiot who has to mention a kegarator. ^^
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ReplyDeleteOh trust me, I've contemplated the kegerator mightily! I just don't think I'll have room. Maybe I'll just put one in the garage...
ReplyDeleteMy bro did a fabulous job. I always figured I'd tackle it myself, but I just haven't had time and that turned out to be a good thing. Clay just knows a world of things that I simply do not when it comes to construction. It came out better than I could have accomplished if I'd done it myself.
What's his rates and how far east would he travel? (only half joking)
DeleteI don't think he really has rates. I think he just sizes the jobs and gives a quote for the whole deal. FWIW, he probably would travel quite a ways just to bike in another part of the country. If you're serious, send me a PM and tell me what the project is. I can pass it along and see if he has any interest...
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