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.

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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.

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Good luck with the studio.

Last edited by DigiNut on May-08-2010 at 02:18

Should be kickass when its finished man

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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