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New practice room/home studio


Damonjames
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Hey everyone!!!

So I am about to embark upon a little project now that our extension is almost finished. In the rejig of downstairs, I have managed to carve out a little practice room with the new layout.

So firstly, don't expect much!! It is a TINY space, but it will be enough for my needs, but hopefully I can document some things that might be useful to other basschatters.

There will be three goals here

1. Stopping noise coming out of the room to the rest of the house. Like most of us, I practice mostly at night so need to not wake the kids up!

2. Acoustic treatment of the room to maximise recording quality. This may have some hurdles here as I am also new to the home recording scene!

3. Making the room a cool/funky place to hang out and be creative. As it is wedged in between the garage and lounge, I won't have a window, so I will need to be creative to make it a place I want to spend time rather than a suicide chamber. As I have said, it's kind of a makeshift space so there are some issue I need to work around.

I will put up some pics and drawings over the next few days and would appreciate any input/advice from people who have tried a build like this before!!

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[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1503065006' post='3355468']
How big is the room and how are you intending the ventilate it?

Remember that conventional ventilation is very much at cross-purposes with sound insulation!
[/quote]

Haha, I have tried to consider this, but it is still part of the evolution lol. When I get to up load the drawings, you will see that the entrance to the room will be through the garage, so I'm hoping that I can sacrifice some sound bleed for some fresh air lol

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Studiospares have done some interesting blogs on soundproofing.

http://proaudioblog.co.uk/2017/04/easy-soundproofing-home-studios/

I also read a good piece about soundproofed ventilation, but I can't remember where now. I'll stick up a link if it comes back to me.

Interesting theory about room treatment from Junkie XL here as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdbwKvdX9ik

Might be some food for thought.

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Hi Guys, sorry for the delay, but we have been busy!!

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Ok so excuse the crappy drawing, but I wanted to give some relevance to the strange layout!!

The house has been modified several times from original by previous owners, and that groovy door used to be access from the garage through to the garden. It was being used and a storage cupboard as it is like a little tunnel lol, but had been sheeted off in the dining room side.

I'll get some exact measurements when I get home, but it terms of using it for recording, it's kind of a triple whammy in terms of the don't do's for designing a studio, it's small, it's a rectangular shape AND has a low ceiling. But I will have to see how it goes.

I have some other challenges to negotiate over the coming weeks, but will keep you all posted!!!

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One thing that can help to a certain extent is using solid plasterboard. Most usual board has air bubbles within the plaster. However you can get solid board - which usually has a blue backing iirc, which does help cut down the noise spill. It's not much more expensive than standard board. We used it when we had an extension built. The ground floor is a study/music room and the upper floor is my lad's bedroom, so we wanted to keep the noise down. Putting up two layers of plasterboard will also help - it made a huge difference when we got our lounge ceiling over-boarded and re-plastered

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Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in posting more info but I've been mad busy!! I am hoping by the end of this week to have some proper progress photos for you!
So, I mentioned a few of the challenges in my earlier post and picture regarding the size/shape of the room, but also eluded to a few others. One of which is that because my
Practice room is wedged between the laundry/toilet and the garage, all of the plumbing is run on my side of the wall. This is what I have been busy doing this last week, along with other extension related work.
So I have come up with some ideas. I didn't want to have an 8" thick stud wall to hide the sewer main which runs horizontally along the wall, as well as the water and central heating pipes running vertically in one corner, I am planning to box these in. I haven't had a look yet, but I'm tipping the extractor fans for the laundry/toilet will be dudcted in a similar way at the top of the wall, so again, I'll box these in and create a big recessed section to hang my basses in. This way I can get rid of my guitar rack and create a bit more floor space while dealing with the awkward nature of hiding the services.
As I say, I'll try and get some pictures of this up shortly so it makes some more sense. I will also be tackling some of the sound insulation problems this week if I can get the time!!!

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Mrs itsmedunc would take that off me and give it to our dogs! They already rule the rest of the house anyway!

Looks like it's coming along nicely though. Rehearsals at home are a great idea. We were using an electric kit and a Jamhub for a while. Worked really well with very little noise. Of course, the lead guitarist couldn't get "his sound" and felt like "a fly in a bottle". Apart from that it was a really good experience. Good luck!

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[quote name='Damonjames' timestamp='1504162688' post='3363006']
Cheers dunc,

Mrs damonjames is more than happy to afford me the space. All my bass gear is in the spare room she uses as an office and is sick of looking at it.
Plus, she doesn't have to listen to my "rubbish" music this way 😂
[/quote]

Be careful, you may be unwittingly building yourself a dungeon. Beware of padlocks on the outside!

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[quote name='itsmedunc' timestamp='1504129113' post='3362933']
Mrs itsmedunc would take that off me and give it to our dogs! They already rule the rest of the house anyway!

Looks like it's coming along nicely though. Rehearsals at home are a great idea. We were using an electric kit and a Jamhub for a while. Worked really well with very little noise. Of course, the lead guitarist couldn't get "his sound" and felt like "a fly in a bottle". Apart from that it was a really good experience. Good luck!
[/quote]

Ah bless. It's like he thought someone would actually care...

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