Studio Build

[Sinclair]

MLV going up.

 

[Phantomlimb777]

Have you brought in a cymbal stand every few steps? I would!

 

[Sinclair]

Have you brought in a cymbal stand every few steps? I would!

You mean played a ride cymbal in the room at different stages of the build? I've given zoom lessons in the. Before the MLV went up today it was really dead. Of course once the drywall is up it'll be very live. At that point the room acoustics will need to be adjusted.

 

[Phantomlimb777]

You mean played a ride cymbal in the room at different stages of the build? I've given zoom lessons in the. Before the MLV went up today it was really dead. Of course once the drywall is up it'll be very live. At that point the room acoustics will need to be adjusted.

Exactly what I meant, thanks!

 

[noreastbob]

Well at least you might be considering one of my layman techniques: the heavy wall covering curtain.
Of course you are approaching this build with sound PROOFING as your initial goal followed by adjustable acoustics as the more easily achieved end.
I'm sure your neighbors will have no reason to complain about sound levels.
I can't see my neighbors so...

 

[RockrGrl]

Consider placing the rubber on top of the floor. Maybe less than chic in décor, the rubber matting is an excellent sound damper. My "studio" in the basement is really a home theater/drum room jam center. I hung three layers of moving packing blankets separated by about 3/4" of airspace over the exposed poured concrete foundation. The floor is completely covered with those interlocking rubber mats and my house is built with manufactured I-beams yielding a deeply channeled ceiling. These factors yielded an amazing sounding room to play in. All who have entered and played have remarked as such. No recording activity here so I'm a fringe commenter, but I've been toying with the idea of investing in some good mics and reasonable digital/analog mixing/recording gear with the goal being track swapping/mixing with the old bandmates etc.
Anyway... the rubber floor is incredibly easy on the feet! No ill effect at all with a drum rug over the matting.
I'll let you real studio builders get back to talking shop...

How did you 'hang' the moving blankets?

 

[noreastbob]

How did you 'hang' the moving blankets?

I hung one layer of the felt type blankets from the footer on top of the foundation, just below "ceiling" height to cover the upper exposed concrete. Then I rolled about an inch and zip tied the quilted blankets hanging from 1/2" pipes screwed together for the needed length, suspended by chains from the engineered I beams. There are two layers of the quilted blankets with about 1/2 air space between themselves and the felt upper covering. The suspended quilties are lower and reach the floor, thus all the concrete on that wall is covered. I had a large moveable baffle wall as well but jettisoned that as I thought it was a little too dead for my ears.

 

[Sinclair]

Love to see a picture bob.

 

[Sinclair]

Today we had an actual crew because the MLV is so darn heavy. The ceiling tomorrow. The fun part.

 

[storsav]

A 1lb rubber mat will be on the slab under the vinyl flooring. Seeing as how I need to wheel things around, like a grand piano, I need harder durable flooring. The tuning of the room acoustics will be done with large floor rugs and baffles on the walls etc.
One of my ideas to tune the room quickly is to have a theatre weight curtain that you could draw across the entire 15ft wall floor to ceiling if you wanted to deaden things or leave it in the corners if you wanted to liven it up.

I think I read that creating decoupled mass in the floor is also a good way of deflecting bass sound waves. Any thoughts/research as to filling in the subfloor cavities with brick, cinderblock, or other? In mine I used a similar mat on the floor and built the subfloor over as you have then filling the cavities with MLV scraps and insulation. I didn't really have the space for much of anything else (2x4 framing on end).

 

[Sinclair]

I think I read that creating decoupled mass in the floor is also a good way of deflecting bass sound waves. Any thoughts/research as to filling in the subfloor cavities with brick, cinderblock, or other? In mine I used a similar mat on the floor and built the subfloor over as you have then filling the cavities with MLV scraps and insulation. I didn't really have the space for much of anything else (2x4 framing on end).

Sounds good. I'm on a slab and don't have a subfloor cavity. We decided not to float a floor to save money. Just the 1lb rubber MLV and the vinyl flooring on top of the slab with the interior walls resting on a strip of one inch dense foam rubber to decouple them from the floor.

 

[noreastbob]

Here is my concrete foundation wall treatment. It's not fancy or particularly high tech but it gets that vast expanse of hard surface covered and doesn't even look ALL that bad. The rubber matting on the floor and the deep channels between the engineered I beams really absorb a lot of energy that would otherwise be careening about.

 

[noreastbob]

My jam/theater space is obviously a cheap low tech answer to acoustic control and doesn't really belong on this thread with real isolation systems but I sense there are others like me who may want to quiet down their playing space with inexpensive readily available components.
It's funny: I got drawn into this discussion by the rubber UNDER your floor as compared to the rubber OVER my floor, but grand piano rolling certainly rules that out not to mention that you want your studio to look professional and finished rather than something more resembling a gymnasium wrestling mat.

 

[Sinclair]

not to mention that you want your studio to look professional and finished rather than something more resembling a gymnasium wrestling mat.

Lol. Every space I've ever had since I've been playing has been a DIY attempt at soundproofing whatever room I had, usually in a rented house where I had to tear everything down and return it to normal when I moved. Even though I've owned this place for awhile, this is my first attempt at a real recording space and I have two experienced guys that know what there doing helping me. I'm super excited about using it and already have one album project booked to record here, with a few more in the wings.

 

[Sinclair]

Updates.
The 2lb MLV is up with the iso track being attached. Ceiling too, everywhere there's drywall there'll be the iso rails behind it, which it on MVL which is on a floated and decoupled interior wall. Close neighbors but they'll never hear my 22" bass drum again.
No surprise that as soon as the MLV went up wireless cell and internet service became an issue so it's been hard wired from the house and will end up in the control room.
HVAC in the control room and live room installed. Detail details.

 

[hsosdrum]

Here is my concrete foundation wall treatment. It's not fancy or particularly high tech but it gets that vast expanse of hard surface covered and doesn't even look ALL that bad. The rubber matting on the floor and the deep channels between the engineered I beams really absorb a lot of energy that would otherwise be careening about. View attachment 533243 View attachment 533244 View attachment 533245

@noreastbob: Is that a JBL M2 I see in your third photo?

 

[noreastbob]

@noreastbob: Is that a JBL M2 I see in your third photo?

I wondered if anyone would notice/comment on that little piece of joy. Coupled with a Crown DCI 8/600N, a dbx Driverack 4800, and a Harmon-Hafler G300 there's over 5000 watts driving the M2s, and Infinity subs and surrounds. All bi-amped with crossovers programmed in the Crown or rolled off in the dbx in the case of the subs of course.
I can break lightbulbs with this system if I desire. It's happened.
The system is brutally honest and plays exactly whatever the supplying media sends it. You can really tell who/which producers care about their final product. The dbx helps tame the poorly mastered, mixed and produced recordings but only so much. But my God... when you play stuff that's been played and recorded by experts who care... it's unreal.
Would I prefer a set of B&W 801s or 802s? Probably. No, definitely, but they are $30K+ and $22K+ respectively and I scored this system through a close friend at Harmon International for under $3K for the M2s and Crown and added a few grand for a nice pre-pro and disc player. I had the Infinities, also through the same friend at Harmon from many years ago.
In the first pic you can see both M2s and their LG OLED partner.
Practicing with recordings is not an issue.

 

[hsosdrum]

I wondered if anyone would notice/comment on that little piece of joy. Coupled with a Crown DCI 8/600N, a dbx Driverack 4800, and a Harmon-Hafler G300 there's over 5000 watts driving the M2s, and Infinity subs and surrounds. All bi-amped with crossovers programmed in the Crown or rolled off in the dbx in the case of the subs of course.
I can break lightbulbs with this system if I desire. It's happened.
The system is brutally honest and plays exactly whatever the supplying media sends it. You can really tell who/which producers care about their final product. The dbx helps tame the poorly mastered, mixed and produced recordings but only so much. But my God... when you play stuff that's been played and recorded by experts who care... it's unreal.
Would I prefer a set of B&W 801s or 802s? Probably. No, definitely, but they are $30K+ and $22K+ respectively and I scored this system through a close friend at Harmon International for under $3K for the M2s and Crown and added a few grand for a nice pre-pro and disc player. I had the Infinities, also through the same friend at Harmon from many years ago.
In the first pic you can see both M2s and their LG OLED partner.
Practicing with recordings is not an issue.

Full Discolsure: I worked at JBL during the development of the M2 (2012 – 2013) and was a member of the listening panel that evaluated each version of the DSP software during its development. I spent many hours discussing the speaker's design with its two main engineers, Alan Devantier and Charles Sprinkle. I also wrote and illustrated the owner's manual included in the M2 packaging.

In my (not-so-humble) opinion the M2 is more accurate and revealing of the source material it is playing than any other speaker in existence. I say this as a 40+ year veteran of the consumer and professional audio industry who has critically auditioned literally thousands of different speakers. Which is to say that I don't think that over time you would have preferred a set of 801s or 802s. Those speakers would have masked faults in your recordings revealed by the M2.

A set of M2s and amps for $3k? The bargain gods do smile upon you, yes indeedy!

 

[noreastbob]

Full Discolsure: I worked at JBL during the development of the M2 (2012 – 2013) and was a member of the listening panel that evaluated each version of the DSP software during its development. I spent many hours discussing the speaker's design with its two main engineers, Alan Devantier and Charles Sprinkle. I also wrote and illustrated the owner's manual included in the M2 packaging.

In my (not-so-humble) opinion the M2 is more accurate and revealing of the source material it is playing than any other speaker in existence. I say this as a 40+ year veteran of the consumer and professional audio industry who has critically auditioned literally thousands of different speakers. Which is to say that I don't think that over time you would have preferred a set of 801s or 802s. Those speakers would have masked faults in your recordings revealed by the M2.

A set of M2s and amps for $3k? The bargain gods do smile upon you, yes indeedy!

My guess is you were not in Salt Lake City where my friend Paul was a pretty high level engineering supervisor. You were likely in what, Chicago is it? Somewhere in the midwest I think...
Your point is spot on as far as the Reference Monitor function of the M2s, but as purely listening speakers, which mine are 99.999% of the time, I think I love the crystal clarity of those B&W Diamond Tweeters. Yes it is technically "coloring" but it sounds so amazing.
I bought these through the employee purchase plan with which you must be familiar. ($2600 + change) That has to be below cost thank you Harman Int.!!!
It was a secret at the time but it was years ago, he's retired. and SLC is shut down, thanks to Samsung I guess.
I think it's OK to say now, the M2s and other high end stuff were quietly flying out the employee purchase door as they wound down. I imagine that was company wide...
Paul threw in the Harman-Hafler and dbx parametric equalizer as gifts. He's got a garage wall rack FULL of various Harman equipment, both experimental and consumer stuff.
Now if only I had high level friends in the high end drum industry.........
Please excuse the excessive use of the word, "high" in this post. Did it again!

 

[hsosdrum]

My guess is you were not in Salt Lake City where my friend Paul was a pretty high level engineering supervisor. You were likely in what, Chicago is it? Somewhere in the midwest I think...
Your point is spot on as far as the Reference Monitor function of the M2s, but as purely listening speakers, which mine are 99.999% of the time, I think I love the crystal clarity of those B&W Diamond Tweeters. Yes it is technically "coloring" but it sounds so amazing.
I bought these through the employee purchase plan with which you must be familiar. ($2600 + change) That has to be below cost thank you Harman Int.!!!
It was a secret at the time but it was years ago, he's retired. and SLC is shut down, thanks to Samsung I guess.
I think it's OK to say now, the M2s and other high end stuff were quietly flying out the employee purchase door as they wound down. I imagine that was company wide...
Paul threw in the Harman-Hafler and dbx parametric equalizer as gifts. He's got a garage wall rack FULL of various Harman equipment, both experimental and consumer stuff.
Now if only I had high level friends in the high end drum industry.........
Please excuse the excessive use of the word, "high" in this post. Did it again!

I worked at Harman's JBL HQ in Northridge, CA from 2009 – 2013 (they let my entire department go — 25 people — in a downsizing in '13). This was years before the Samsung buyout, so I missed-out on those great deals.

If I could score a pair of M2s (plus an amp with the right DSP) for that kind of $$ now, they'd replace my 35-year old Klipsch Cornwalls in my studio (colored sounding, but after 35 years I know every coloration so I trust them).

P.S. How are you dealing with the amps' fan noise? The original Crowns with the M2 DSP had fans that were so loud they couldn't be in the same room with the speakers.