Studio Build
After decades of bedrooms and basements, I decided to take the plunge and build a soundproofed and acoustically-treated studio for recording, mixing and video editing. Since I first glimpsed our ramshackle garage, I formed a mental image of a narrow footpath leading from the house through a food forest, to a magic door and into a functional and inspiring space. The perennial plantings still have a ways to go, but the finished studio is a joy.
I started by replacing rotten siding, scraping, sanding, caulking and painting the exterior. I read a book or two on home studio construction and watched a bunch of videos, looking for a substantial but realistic (ie affordable) level of acoustic design. I wasn’t going to be creating a floating floor or building a bunch of angled walls, but there were plenty of DIY methods I could apply. I decided to divide the garage space into a front area for garden and bike storage, creating pleasant dimensions and vaulted ceilings for the studio portion in the rear.
I carefully wound down the tension on the garage door spring before I removed the whole assembly and replaced it with an exterior wall and a long window. So many useful materials were salvaged from the ReStore, including this window, an opening skylight and a couple of heavy 36” doors. I reinforced the garage structure with diagonal bracing throughout, and inserted MDF board between the studs to build mass and provide more shear strength. I insulated with fiberglass and then moved on to framing out the “room within a room”, creating an air gap between the studio space and the exterior structure. Rubber was placed at any points of contact to absorb vibrations. While it felt a little reckless to then cut a hole in the roof for the skylight (considering it pokes a hole in the soundproofing barrier), it completely transformed the vibe of the space - from a dark cave to an inhabitable room, allowing a bit of airflow in the summer and the patter of raindrops in the winter.
I firred out the roof’s rafters and got some help to spray insulation between. The interior walls were insulated with another layer of fiberglass and then finished with two layers of sheetrock, between which I spread carpet adhesive. Despite the warnings of forum dudes against this untested material, it seemed worth a few hundred dollars, compared with the several thousand for green glue. I will say, the off-gassing of the sandwiched adhesive lasted a few months, but did eventually disperse. On the rear wall, I constructed a free-form patchwork of horizontal wood strips, salvaged from a furniture manufacturer and used in an art installation, before I hauled them home. Ripping, chopping and sanding was a labor of love - despite the dust and muscle soreness, I enjoyed the varying textures of pine, cherry, walnut, oak and cedar. I laid out patterns on a work surface before gluing and nailing them in sections onto the MDF backing. While primarily installed for visual warmth, the wood wall provides additional mass and some degree of sound diffusion, with pieces at a range of depths.
After much scraping and scrubbing of old motor oil and garage grime, the concrete floor was painted with a two-part latex epoxy. With a first coat in white, I realized that a) I needed a lot more epoxy and b) dark gray would be a better choice, especially with a beam of sunlight piercing through the skylight. With the floor finally painted and walls plastered and painted, it was starting to feel like a real space. I then constructed a total of 18 acoustic absorption panels, 6 at a depth of 6”, and 12 at 3”. The fiberboard frames were nailed together, filled with rockwool and covered in cotton canvas. I installed wood cleats on the walls for hanging, allowing the panels to be moved, rearranged or expanded. The cleats also hold the panels about 1.5” from the wall, improving their effectiveness. As with most of this project, I underestimated the amount of work required, but the before-and-after difference is quite dramatic - I’ve been humbly impressed with the quietness and acoustic quality of the room.
I cleared and relocated many wheelbarrow loads of soil away from the foundation where it had been piled up onto the garage. In the process, I discovered a buried railroad tie - those toxic chemicals would not have been good for the garden. I plan to install a rainwater collection system (IBC tote) in the rear corner, next to composting and vermiculture bins. Ferns and perennial berries will fill in the side plot, and a flowering clematis will eventually climb on a lattice structure.
When I first deconstructed the garage, I saved some massive pieces of wood that had been mounted as a work table. After sanding off decades of paint and dirt, I filled the holes with epoxy before staining and coating the characterful surfaces. I built solid table supports and placed them on locking casters. For a long time, I struggled with carpentry - now I have my electronics in handmade cases, on a handmade table in a handmade studio.
