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The Snark's Studio Build

The Snark's Studio Build
Click here to see my DJ booth/party room project [coming soon]

The intent of this thread is pretty much to document the progress of my basement studio build in my new home. I have a lot of room in my basement, and the space was mostly unfinished. It was screaming for me to build my studio there.

The Space - The room is actually bigger than it appears from the pictures. If I recall, it's roughly a 15ft. by 15ft. square. When I bought the house, there was a bit of a mold problem in the basement. It was mostly surface stuff, so no big deal. I removed all the problem areas and got a clean bill-of-health from the mold inspector (clear spore tests, etc.). This area was partially finished some years ago, for use as a workshop or something. The framing was mostly in place, but it was covered in ugly wood paneling which I ripped out. The drop ceiling tiles had to come out as well (part of the mold remediation). The generic floor tiles were partially ripped up. The bathroom area was essentially a closet with a toilet in it. The ceilings are a bit short, but nothing unworkable.

The Plan - Basically, I want to drywall in the room, put some nice flooring down (Pergo or something similar), extend the size of the bathroom, install a jacuzzi tub (I got it for free, so why not?), put a new producer's desk in 38% back from the wall, install nicer ceiling tiles, replace the overhead fluorescent lights with something more inspiring, put acoustic treatments on the walls, and have a nice, relaxing, and fairly minimalistic space for me to be creative in. Note that this is an amateur build-- I am by no means a construction professional. Most of this stuff I am learning as I do it. I am simply trying to build myself a nice, inspiring space. I'm not trying to go over-the-top with soundproofing, room-within-a-room, etc. I've been producing in a basic bedroom for years, and I don't feel like it's holding me back significantly... nor do I care to spend the budget required to make this a proper professional studio. I will do a bit of recording of vocals and such in this space, but most things will be digital/ITB.



I'll try and keep this thread updated as I progress!

I apologize for the crappy cell-phone pics... unfortunately, it's all I have to take pics with right now.

Here is one corner of the room. You can see that I've already started hanging drywall. On the right, you can see some of the framing studs. The nice thing about this project is that this particular room was already framed in by a previous owner (it was covered in wood paneling, which I ripped out). So, I had a good head start on this. The beer can on the floor is an important tool that I've been using throughout the project.


Here you can see the main entrance to the room. The hole in the wall leads to a crawlspace which goes under the 2 year-old's bedroom. If you were to walk straight out that doorway, you'd walk into the bathroom. If you were to go to the left after the doorway, you'd go up the stairs. Note that I tried to leave as much of the drop ceiling framing in-tact even though I've removed all the tiles.


This doorway leads out the other side of the studio and into the laundry room. I plan on finishing part of the laundry room and making it a kind of extension on the studio, with a jacuzzi (which was free!) and TV. Just a place to chill with the girlfriend, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have any good pics of that room at the moment.



Here is the aforementioned bathroom. This is AFTER I extended it...this was TINY before! Yes, that's a second toilet you see on the other side of the half-wall. I don't know why it's there, it's not installed.


Finally, here is a shot taken just to the left of the first pic. This area will serve as a sort of utility and wiring closet. You can see that I kinda ghetto'ed together a wiring rack/patch panel, and this is also where the gas meter/water valve are. They will be behind a nice looking door and tucked away. The iPod dock wont stay there. I had to get this part started early because I needed to get an Ethernet port wired up to my XBox360 upstairs, which is what you see plugged in to the router...lol.


I will keep posting pictures as I make progress! My buddy is coming over tonight and we're going to work on it some more, so I'll try and get some more shots.

Wrong forum. I think you wanted http:/www.gearslutz.com -- no one here is advanced enough to care about your studio build.

But there's plenty of us here with enough of a passing interest in personal studios to be interested in his progress. Come on.

I'll be following this, I also have an unused room in my house that I want to convert to a studio, when I get the money for it.

i care, keep posting

At the moment, mainly focusing on sealing up this creepy hole in the laundry room area. It leads out to an old well access which is no longer used. The plan is to put a door here for now, as a temporary solution. I want to be able to close it off, but still keep an eye on it in case water starts building in there or anything. I'm fully aware I'll have to revisit this at some point.

It was kind of a pain, because it was just cut out of the cinder block and was very jagged. So, I just built a frame in the hole and filled the gaps with expanding foam. It should do the trick for the time being (it doesn't have to be pretty, where it's at.)

very cool man, looking forward to the updates

Or because a lot of us don't have the space at the moment but would love to down the road build our own studios. It's cool to see a little into what I'll have to undertake when I get to that.

Gl man! Will be following.

So how much are you going to spend doing it up....

What do you have in mind about what you would like in it.

Good luck with the studio.

Should be kickass when its finished man

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael Meh, ignore... don't feed the troll. He's welcome to reply about how much he hates my track in the thread intended for feedback on that track. It doesn't exactly belong in here.

David - I for one am very thankful for you posting this as it's information, like this that will make this forum a better place.

We discussed once a while back but Let me know if you need any help with the acoustics etc.

Alanzo - I know there have been a few really, terribly stupid threads on here and even a lot of hate but don;t take it out on forum members who have something positive to contribute. Just continually email swamper or bump the mod thread.

Gearslutz has just as many, if not more idiots - the only difference is they are better educated, but that just means they post more waffle.

I hope other people reading this post up things like their studio builds

quote:

Originally posted by Waza So how much are you going to spend doing it up.... What do you have in mind about what you would like in it.

Not planning to invest a whole lot... I don't have a specific budget, I'm just kinda taking it one step at a time. It is going to be a "budget studio" though... I'm essentially just finishing part of the basement so that I have a space to put all my stuff, and the girlfriend can still have her office. I don't want to give any illusions that I'm building something grandiose.. effectively, just a dedicated room with a little treatment. The jacuzzi part I'm putting in because I got it for free, and it won't fit in either of the bathrooms. It's not part of the "studio" since it's actually in an adjacent room...but, I included it because it is part of the project as a whole (same with the bathroom). It's all part of the little "man-cave" I'm building down there.

I've noticed that there is quite a bit of noise transfer between the ceiling and the upstairs floor, being that we have wood floors and my girlfriend has begun to amass quite a collection of giant dogs. So, at some point, I might revisit that and try to at least quiet it down a little bit. Not a HUGE deal because I don't do a lot of live recording, and when I do, I can plan accordingly.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I hope other people reading this post up things like their studio builds

Same here! Someone had made thread earlier about too much bitching and not enough content, so I decided that I would try and make a positive contribution... even though I'm not posting many actual production questions/stories/etc. at the moment.

And, don't worry... I'm already a member at Gearslutz. :P I just lurk a bit, though, heh.

Anyhow, I just learned a few hours ago that my furnace is pumping carbon monoxide into the house. The service guy took a look at it and recommended I replace it, so hopefully that doesn't hold me back too far . We're going to get a second opinion and go from there...

The beer is the most important tool.

Keep us updated.

quote:

Originally posted by barnes17 The beer is the most important tool. Keep us updated.

The beer's the most important, but I'm the biggest one. Cheers.

good luck!

I find putting Ikea stuff together a work out!

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV good luck! I find putting Ikea stuff together a work out!

I feel your pain... a few weeks ago I pieced together our giant new Ikea entertainment center. Can't beat the pricing though, and it does look pretty good.

i cant wait to see it getting built. at the end of the day who cares whether one can make music, at least there intentions is to at least give it ago. That alone in itself is something worth comending not taking the piss out..!

eh,

quote:

Originally posted by Energy_3 i cant wait to see it getting built. at the end of the day who cares whether one can make music, at least there intentions is to at least give it ago. That alone in itself is something worth comending not taking the piss out..! eh,

Heh, thanks, I suppose.

Great thread.

My wife tells me I need to get out of the kids playroom, which means I have to build a cabin outside, so this thread is useful. I'm pondering how I will make it warm and secure, given I will have a low budget.

David - Keep posting the pics mate. I may not post feedback but I'll definitely be following the progress

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael Not planning to invest a whole lot... I don't have a specific budget, I'm just kinda taking it one step at a time. It is going to be a "budget studio" though... I'm essentially just finishing part of the basement so that I have a space to put all my stuff, and the girlfriend can still have her office. I don't want to give any illusions that I'm building something grandiose.. effectively, just a dedicated room with a little treatment. The jacuzzi part I'm putting in because I got it for free, and it won't fit in either of the bathrooms. It's not part of the "studio" since it's actually in an adjacent room...but, I included it because it is part of the project as a whole (same with the bathroom). It's all part of the little "man-cave" I'm building down there. I've noticed that there is quite a bit of noise transfer between the ceiling and the upstairs floor, being that we have wood floors and my girlfriend has begun to amass quite a collection of giant dogs. So, at some point, I might revisit that and try to at least quiet it down a little bit. Not a HUGE deal because I don't do a lot of live recording, and when I do, I can plan accordingly. Same here! Someone had made thread earlier about too much bitching and not enough content, so I decided that I would try and make a positive contribution... even though I'm not posting many actual production questions/stories/etc. at the moment. And, don't worry... I'm already a member at Gearslutz. :P I just lurk a bit, though, heh. Anyhow, I just learned a few hours ago that my furnace is pumping carbon monoxide into the house. The service guy took a look at it and recommended I replace it, so hopefully that doesn't hold me back too far . We're going to get a second opinion and go from there...

I wouldn't worry about budget - there's a lot of things that you can do just by making decisions based around it being a studio and not a loving space as such, that will greatly improve the acoustic performance of the room, without costing really any more money.

As for the ceiling transfer - I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you want to use mics in the room and even then, just get the missus to take the dogs out. There are simple things you can do like inexpensive dropped cielings but honestly I'd wait until you can gague how much you're going to need it.

The main thing to be wary of with basements is reflections from hard (load baring) walls and the confined nature of the spaces they uses have.

As for the furnace - don;t fuck around with that. That shit can kill you really easily. Get a second opinion asap but in the meantime get a $10 Co1 detector from home depot.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN As for the furnace - don;t fuck around with that. That shit can kill you really easily. Get a second opinion asap but in the meantime get a $10 Co1 detector from home depot.

Oh, don't worry. Furnace is off until it's replaced. (It's not leaking/blowing into the house when it's off.) Had a service man out yesterday, getting a second opinion tomorrow... likely looking at replacement.

Thanks for the other advice... will keep it all in mind

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Fuck me dead....WHERE ARE THE FUCKING MODS ALREADY!? This thread shows exactly why we need them. David - Keep posting the pics mate. I may not post feedback but I'll definitely be following the progress

ha yep, my eyes pop with frustration at times.

@david.michael keep at it, im hanging to see it progress

Finally have an update.

Things have been pretty delayed since I ran into some financial snags, amongst other things, but I've really been working hard on the project for the past few weeks.

The drywall is pretty much done now. Just a little sanding to do on some of the corners, and then it's time to prime. It will be so nice to have all the walls one color.

The room isn't as spotty as it appears here. The darker spots are patches for where the screws were, but the lighter/translucent spots are actually the flash from the camera picking up the drywall dust floating around.




The shallow closet thing that you see is where our gas meter, water valve, etc. is. I've also turned into my little wiring closet for a few ethernet drops I've put around the house. Wireless router and cable modem also sit in there. I have a door for this, but I need to trim it down because it's too tall to fit.


This is the view from what is currently the laundry room, just in front of where my free jacuzzi is sitting. The thing you see protruding from the wall is HVAC piping going upstairs. I just boxed it in and drywalled it.


That's the doorway leading to the laundry room. You can see the "closet door" laying on the ground.


Direct view into the laundry room.


This is the main entrance to the room. It's hard to tell, but that actually leads to a hallway going to the left, which is where the stairs are to go to the main floor. The bathroom is on the other side of the hallway.


This weekend, I plan on having primer on all the walls (after I clean up as much of the drywall dust I can... will be spending a lot of time with the Shop-Vac). Then, I will finally be able to move on to... flooring!



Oh, and that creepy hole-in-the-wall tunnel thing in the laundry room that I mentioned earlier in the thread is sealed up, now.

Like I said, I'm fully aware that I'll probably have to revisit this down the road. But, it will do for now. (It doesn't lead to the outside, but it is a bit damp in there. I built a frame, and then sprayed it and the plywood with outdoor wood sealant stuff. After that, I put moisture barrier in. Then, I mounted the plywood to the frame, caulked any cracks, and then painted over the whole thing with Drylock to match the rest of the wall. This makes it good enough for the time being (it doesn't have to be pretty, it will be out of view).







Also, I ran into a few interesting snags. For example, I accidentally knocked one of the light fixtures in the studio room out of the ceiling, and it yanked the electrical wire out and shorted out. Sparks went flying and the breaker tripped. I was so pissed that I walked away from the project for days afterward, lol.



So anyhow, that's the current status. It's still ghetto as hell, but it's at least starting to look a bit like a room!

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