Acoustic Mineral Wool Installed

Today saw the complete installation of the Acoustic Mineral Wool (Knauf Rocksilk RS60).

Acoustic Mineral Wool Arrives

Today saw the delivery of 10 packs (150KG) of RS60 Acoustic Mineral Wool. A small amount was also installed into the end wall and the front of the vocal booth - see photos attached.

Update - insulation and electrics

The walls are all now completed apart from a small section where the new consumer unit is going to be positioned. The first fix electrics for both the sockets in the Utility and the lighting throughout has been completed; supply cables for the sockets in the studio have also been installed ready for the dado trunking once plastering has been done. Insulation in the Utility has almost been completed too. Next step will be to install the 75 deep Acoustic Mineral Wool in the studio and vocal booth and once this has been done it will be on to the new windows and alarm system.

Update - Walls almost completed

Today saw the almost completion of the internal wall structure. ...

Useful article

A useful article was discovered today covering building design for a studio. http://www.qwyatt.com/myths.html

One point that really stands out is related to the sound reduction capabilities of a double stud partition (just like the one I am building between the studio and utility room). It is interesting to note that adding additional layers of plasterboard to the inside walls actually reduces the effectiveness. Two layers on each outer face, together with a cavity between is suggested to be the best method to go for; exactly what I am installing in the garage studio!

Photos

Here are some photos of the vocal booth and OSB board across the old garage door opening. The vocal booth photographs clearly show the non parallel front and back walls.

Acoustic Doors

Originally it was intended to buy off the shelf, standard internal doors for the three doors in the studio. However, it has now been decided to make them. The picture above shows the intended design based around a softwood planed frame with 12 deep MDF on either side (which has a nice finish for painting), and 25 deep AMW sandwiched between. This design will be cheap to make (a pack of 25 AMW sufficient to build all three doors is only £36, and the wood will be low cost too) and will easily out perform a standard hollow internal door. The double door system, with its cavity in between the two, separate studding both isolated from the floor and from each other via the neoprene strips and threshold seals, should create very good isolation. The typical isolation figure for a standard hollow door is a mere 15dB, so this system should be far far better than this.

***ADDENDUM - Due to the weight of 12mm MDF, it has been decided to change to 6mm instead. This has the advantage of being cheaper too. ***

Update...

Photos to follow once batteries for the camera are purchased. Today, the three internal door linings were purchased to create the 686 wide door frames and the one for the vocal booth was installed. Also, the garage door opening was boarded up using 12 deep OSB Board fixed to the inside of the brick frame using 100 long hammer fixings. It is then intended to leave a 50 cavity, the same as for the other brick walls, before building another 75 deep stud wall in front of this OSB.

Plans and update....

Today saw much progress made on the wall structures, including the Vocal Booth. Unfortunately, the batteries on my camera are flat, so pictures won't be available until later! However, here is post of the plans which were drawn a while ago.....

New audio kit to test

Very soon, new HD cameras (Sony Z1), Field Mixers (Sound Devices 302) and Flash Disc recorders (Marantz PMD660) are going to be purchased. Audio tests are going to be carried out and comparisons will be made between this new kit and the poor audio results of the older Sony VX2000 camera. The Sony Z1 has onboard XLR connectors, together with +48VDC Phantom Power, meaning that having to use XLR to 3.5mm mini jack connectors will soon be a thing of the past. As well as testing a microphone directly with the Z1 camera (Sennheiser MKH-416), tests will also be carried out with the Sound Devices 302 mixer used for the front end pre-amplification before the Z1 camera and with the Sound Devices 302 mixer and Marantz PMD-660 recorder. It will be interesting to hear the differences.....

Building of walls commences....

Wednesday 4th October saw the commencement of the internal studwork. The various photographs here show its construction. As can be seen, the 47 x 75 studding is sat on adhesive neoprene strips which effectively decouple the internal walls from the floor. Also, neoprene has been used wherever the header plate meets the extg. garage joists, to again, create isolation between the walls and ceiling construction. The wall between the studio space and new utility room has been doubled up, with a 50mm cavity between, and again sat on neoprene. Once these two walls are filled with Acoustic Mineral Wool, together with two layers of plasterboard, the isolation should hopefully be pretty good!