SOUND ON SOUND

[Tonyes335]

More ventilation.....

The gable end of the studio, on which the attenuators are mounted, face the lane around 50-60m away. With the 150mm vent hole the occasional car can be heard as you would expect. As soon as the covers were fixed to the attenuators the sound from outside disappeared completely. Cars now pass in silence. They work amazingly well.

I have decided to mount the fresh air fans outside the building. This is really to make access for maintenance easier and I can be sure this is the quietest option. The gable end has quite a large overhang and the vents are close to the soffit so it should be an easy job to make a weather resistant enclosure.


This is the fan I am using. It is a little noisy at full blast. 44db@1m. 150mm moves around 500m3 per H which is around 10 changes per hour full blast. My duct run is very short so there will be limited static pressure in the system, so these fans are relatively inexpensive and therefor ideal.


Temporary connection of the fresh air inlet. I experimented putting the fan outside and it is virtually silent inside at full blast with a hard connection to the exterior attenuator. Set at the lowest speed it still moves plenty of air, which doesn’t generate any air rush noise at the inlet. I will be able to rely on this for most of my cooling needs this time of year. I now have given myself another unexpected job to make an external enclosure with a flexible connection to the inlet attenuator to eliminate any risk of vibration passing. Overkill, but that is generally the name of the game....

I am also finalising the air conditioning plans and should have an update next week.

To add to an earlier point, although possibly not the place, the business aspect of such a venture relies on so many factors it is not possible to suggest whether it is viable or not. Everything from income expectation, requirement to cover costs and live, to the investment in equipment etc. A few examples are owning the real estate means no rent or debt to repay, or having equipment with no debt to service etc. There is more that can be done in a studio than recording bands or singer song writers or voice overs if you need to. My motivation is to work with as many people as possible to gain more experience, so income is not the driver. Whoever I work with, at whatever level seems to add something that improves what I do. That is enough for me, oh and I love every second of it, from the spine tingling vocal to unexpected bum note!

Cheers,

[Tonyes335]

Building cupboards into the wall of the tracking room. I need to house the consumer unit (fuse board) and some other electrical equipment like lighting control etc and also some audio visual and network equipment. It’s not ideal being in the tracking room so I’ll have to make the cupboard silent. More importantly the cupboard back, sides and top become part of the wall so must have at least the same mass. Therefore they will be covered in at least three layers of plasterboard. This makes good use of the potential wasted space in the large void between my rooms.

Cassette for live room wall Being made.


Cassette in place in the live room wall. Ready to be lined with plasterboard to increase mass.


Back of the cassette viewed from the control room. Cantilevered from the tracking room wall it does not touch anything. It has a layer of plasterboard outside. There’s still around 300mm of air gap between the back of the cupboard and control room studs. Plenty for my isolation needs.

[Tonyes335]

At the moment, making sure everything has the same mass as the walls so plaster boarding cupboards, attenuators and anything that becomes part of the mass of the leaf.


Lots of layers, each one is caulked and screw heads sealed. Remembering to make sure the screws are the right length not to go right through, but long enough to get a secure fix.


More layers. They are different in some cases as I was using up off cuts of material that happened to be the right size.


Tracking room wall.


Replacing consumer unit. All cable entries to be sealed both inside and outside.


Attenuators fully covered in 2/3 layers of plasterboard. I used sections of MDF around the spigots to help keep them securely in place.

You will always underestimate the amount of caulk you need!

[Watchmaker]

>dying for the latest<

I'm terribly excited for you to start tracking here, it's going to be spectacular!

I'm looking to buy a house next year and the main goal is to do something similar. Seeing your work has really gotten me fired up and I have to resist too much pre-planning b/c I have no idea what building I have to work with...

Out of curiosity - I was building contractor for a decade and suspect you've had similar experience in your day. You seem to have a skillset that includes more than sonics - care to share a bit of your background?

Lastly (thanks for your patience) This is no easy job...how many months beyond original schedule are you at this point?

[Tonyes335]

Thanks for the good wishes!

My experience comes from renovating houses I lived in over the years. I started out with the intentions of being a drummer with usual Guildhall School of Music grades and thousands of hours but fell into finance so building was always a weekend hobby. This is my third, biggest but only professionally designed build. My previous rooms were successful but on this larger scale I didn't want to leave anything to chance.
The building inspector and building regs (In the UK) are a good source of information and I always check anything unusual with a structural engineer. I do tend to over research and procrastinate!
As reference material on the studio construction side, I have my studio designer on hand who has been invaluable. I used information from RA The Book and Build It Like The Pros. I have also had generous advice from people who built their studios who I have contacted.

The purpose of this thread is to hopefully entertain and inspire others as I have enjoyed many other's efforts over the years.

As this is DIY, just myself (and my father-in-law for heavy lifting duty) it has taken longer than expected. A few major set backs and changing my mind means I will be well over 2 years late.
All that said, I already have a small single room studio, a picture of which exists somewhere in this thread.

Thanks again.

Following are images of the rear 3rd of the control room. The deck is on top of the joists made up of OSB and layers of 12.5mm plasterboard. The exhaust attenuators will sit on top of this deck. The underside will be cloth faced and form part of the acoustic treatment.





I also Joined the inlet attenuators together and boarded them to maximise the attenuated air path. This is now ready for connection to the acoustic flex duct.



I am still trying to sort out air conditioning with the patience of my HVAC engineer Valdas. The delay is partly making a decision on which way to do it and partly leaving it too late for laying the concrete pads for the compressors to sit on. It is just too cold at the moment for laying concrete.

Wishing everyone all the best for the New Year!
T

[Tonyes335]

A decision has finally been made! After many conversations with my HVAC engineer and HT we decided to go for the following: The control room will have a 3.5kw Fujitsu ducted split system and the live room will have a 4.3kw system. The models for those interested are:
ARYG12LLTB/AOYG12LALL and ARYG14LLTB/AOYG14LALL The decision was based on many factors including consideration for Static pressure, noise levels and size of the air handling units.

A break in the cold weather meant I could make a concrete pad for the condensers and we had the units delivered this week.

I will be mounting the units, running the pipework and cable leaving the testing, final connections and commissioning to Valdas the engineer. As the refridgerant is hazardous to the environment it is important that none escapes and HVAC engineers have the necessary equipment and expertise to ensure this does not happen. It isn't worth the risk to DIY and in addition the advice and feedback from Valdas has been invaluable and it means I get a valid warranty.

I have to increase the number of attenuators and size of duct to ensure there is satisfactory airflow across the inverter coil to prevent any problems! This will be challenging because the baffled type attenuators are very bulky. So I will be making a different type for the live room which will be smaller in cross section as they won't have baffles but will be 2.1m long! The design comes from RA the book, thanks Roger!
Another order of materials required.

I have been doing a few things like boxing in ducting running cables and more layers of plasterboard etc. I'll have a sweep up and post some fresh images a little later.

Aircon condenser pad prep

Aircon condenser concrete pad complete

Delivery of Air-conditioning equipment.

[Forum Admin]

Looks great, Tony. Is the (grey?) external cladding the vinyl-coated type or plain wood?

[Tonyes335]

Hi,
The external cladding is actually a cement fibre board. It has a wood grain effect moulded to the face. I had to have a cladding that was fireproof as it is 2m away from the boundary. (That was UK building regs). It was a product from Marley. It is pretty good as it doesn't rot. It just takes an acrylic exterior paint for decoration.
Cheers,

[Tonyes335]

Air conditioning compressors in place, isolators wired in and refrigerant lines run between units.

Fan coils in place. I suspended these from brackets attached to the outer shell trusses with neoprene washers to limit any vibration, although these fan coils are rated as quiet anyway.

Meanwhile I am getting on with building the final break out attenuators for the live room which are Rockwool lined boxes 2.1m long with offset inlet and outlet. They will be close coupled to the ceiling and covered with plasterboard all round to the same mass as the ceiling and lined with 50mm Rockwool.

Finally I made a start on boxes for the fresh air fans to cut down on noise. Originally I was going to mount the fans externally but having made a prototype box I am happy I can silence them, so they will go inside. Similarly they will be suspended from the shell and I will make a post in future on the detail.
Cheers,
T

[Tonyes335]

Some updates from the past few weeks.

Refrigerant lines and fan coils in place through the loft space.


Connection and commissioning


That's the air-conditioning complete.

[Tonyes335]

FreshAir Fans
I made a box from MDF

I placed the fan in-between the inlet and outlet and used a fabric tape to prevent a hard connection and then lined the box with Rockwool.

The boxes are suspended using neoprene washers so there is no chance of vibration.

The connections to the attenuators are made with acoustic flex duct.


The fans were very quiet although I could hear air movement noise at the fan outlet connection so I covered the duct with more rock wool which has done the trick.

Cheers,

[blinddrew]

This thread should be required reading for everyone who comes on the forum asking how to soundproof their spare room / garage etc. :)
:thumbup:

[Tonyes335]

This thread should be required reading for everyone who comes on the forum asking how to soundproof their spare room / garage etc. :)
:thumbup:

Thanks, not sure if it is friendly advice or a stark warning!
I wanted to put four spot lights in the ceiling. I made 4 boxes from 18mm MDF

I then covered them in MDF and plasterboard layers to match the mass of the ceiling. They end up quite big and heavy.

Excuse the pipes, I'll trim them flush with the ceiling when the final layer goes on.

[blinddrew]

This thread should be required reading for everyone who comes on the forum asking how to soundproof their spare room / garage etc. :)
:thumbup:

Thanks, not sure if it is friendly advice or a stark warning!

Just me being impressed at the work you're doing and thinking of the occasional posters looking for 'cheap soundproofing'. :)

[Watchmaker]

This thread should be required reading for everyone who comes on the forum asking how to soundproof their spare room / garage etc. :)
:thumbup:

Thanks, not sure if it is friendly advice or a stark warning!

Just me being impressed at the work you're doing and thinking of the occasional posters looking for 'cheap soundproofing'. :)

I thought it was both!

[Wonks]

Are you planning to fit diffusers on the supply air ducts? They can make a huge difference to the way the air mixes. You don't want cold air 'dumping' or warm air sticking to the ceiling (depending on the mode of operation of the FCU) rather than mixing in with the room air.

[Tonyes335]

Hi,

The inlets and outlets in the tracking room have been strategically placed so they will be behind the acoustic panels of RW3 mounted to the ceiling. This will help reduce/mask any airflow noise at the outlet and act as a sort of diffuser to mix the air a little on the way in. There wlll be no grilles as I didn’t want any airflow noise.

In the Control room I plan to mount small panels under the outlets made of wrapped RW3 to achieve the same.

I am looking forward to getting to that stage. Have just been told my order of 50mm RW3 won’t be available until 27th March due to a shortage! And MDF has gone up in price again! Nearly 25% increase since September! Hey ho that’s one less mic.
Cheers, T

[Wonks]

I'm just afraid there won't be any mixing going on, as all the air behind the diffuser will be at a higher pressure than the room air, so all the air behind the panel will be supply air and won't mix until it reaches the edges. This air will be travelling horizontally, so in winter, buoyant hot air will be encouraged to stick to the ceiling, where it will either get extracted to outside or recirculated through the FCU, which if operating on a return air sensor (as a lot do), will think the space is warmer than it is, so the space stays cooler than the set temperature.

Expanding the duct area at the grill by a conversion piece to a larger round or square section and a grille would reduce the air velocity over the grill (although it has to be within limits to work) and you shouldn't get any extra noise from having a grille.

I hope you don't have any problems and my fears are unfounded, but if you do have problems controlling the temperature in the space, you might have to move some of your clouds away from the supply ducts and retrofit some grilles.

[dedindi]

fantastic studio you are building!
I built my own ten years ago, also starting from the foundation.
now happy =)

[Tonyes335]

Cheers, Just had the structural stuff signed off by the BCO so can get on with it. It was a bit of a grey area in terms of whether the local authority would need to be consulted because the studio sits inside the existing structure, which isn't yet itself signed off. As I have a good relationship with the the building control team I ran it by them and had the pre-final inspection and everything was to their satisfaction including fire escape etc.

So hopefully will have a few updates soon.

In terms of the air conditioning it is always a compromise using the same ducts for heating and cooling. If I ever have to make or try to squeeze in another attenuator it will be way too soon! I am hoping that once the room is at the required temperature I will only be concerned with cooling. So when heating the room from cold, I'll blast it (takes about 5 mins to heat up the shell) and then just let the insulation and heat load do it's thing.

The only minor change I may make is to create a room side plenum so I can put filters in because it will be a ball ache to get into the loft space to change them. Also I had to tape up all the fan coil plenums as they were in no way air tight.

I should have listened to the designer who said mini-split!

Cheers,
T