Good news - as the garage is detached, under 30sqm and built from brick a full Building Regs inspection is not required. Therefore, construction can go ahead (once it is emptied that is). The only part which does require formal inspection is the electrics under Part P.
More info / pictures to follow soon....
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Garage conversion into a Post Production Studio
A new, and large project has just been started to convert a single garage into a post production / voice over studio.
Obviously when considering a project of this nature, the most important asepct is its construction. It is no good just drylining the single skin walls as, not only would this not meet Building Regulations requirements, its sound isolation and acoustic performance would be well below par.
Many types of construction have been researched recently, including the array of different sound proofing products available and finally the construction has been decided upon.
Firstly, the studio is to be a "room within a room", whereby new stud walls (from 47 x 75) will be created and situated 50mm away from the extg. garage wall to create a cavity between inner and outer walls. The side facing the garage wall will be firstly lined with OSB board and then have a builder's paper stapled across (this is same kind of method used when building dormers in houses). On the inner side of the stud walls will be 75 deep Acoustic Mineral Wool, which is much denser than traditional Rockwool insulation, onto this will be a sheet of 12.5 plasterboard, a layer of acoustic matting (which has similar properties to lead) and then a further layer of 12.5 plasterboard reading for skimming. The walls will all be mechanically isolated from the extg. garage floor by sitting them on 10mm x 75mm neoprene strips. The ceiling used will be the extg. garage joists, however, again these will be fully filled with Acoustic Mineral wool, before metal resilient bars, to minimise noise transfer, will be placed at right angles to the joists, before two layers of 12.5 plasterboard, with matting inbetween, are hung from these bars. The plasterboard fixings only penetrate the metal bars, not the wooden joists, so effectively, the whole ceiling becomes isolated from the extg. joists. An air gap of 5mm will be placed around the ceiling between then new walls and then filled with acoustic sealent, again to isolate walls from ceiling. The floor construction will be 100 deep polystryene (sat on a damp proof membrane), which will then have standard flooring grade chipboard on to create a "floating" floor.
When considering the electrical requirements for such a project, one obviously requires minimal penetration of the inner wall construction (sockets, light switches etc.), so it has been decided to have no light fittings at all (plug in lamps will be used) and all of the sockets will be fixed in surface mount dado trunking. All fixings of the trunking, together with any cable access holes, will be filled tightly with mastic to help reduce any noise transmission. Also, a separate consumer unit is going to be installed, fed from a new 4mm2 supply with its own breaker at the house consumer unit in the house.
It is obviously always going to be a trade off between cost and performance when considering a project like this, as standard building procedures cannot apply. Much better performance could be achieved through bricking up the extg. garage windows (instead new uPVC triple glazed units will be installed), but this leads to other complications such as ventilation. There are also more expensive sound proofing products available (check out www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk), but as the studio is only going to be used for single tracking guitar and vocals, it is unlikely that the noise created in the studio will be excessively loud any way.
It will be necessary to obtain Building Regulations approval for such a project in case the house is ever sold, plus with the new Part P Electrical Legislation, this is ever more important. More updates will follow on this project as it progresses, together with detailed photographs of its construction.
Obviously when considering a project of this nature, the most important asepct is its construction. It is no good just drylining the single skin walls as, not only would this not meet Building Regulations requirements, its sound isolation and acoustic performance would be well below par.
Many types of construction have been researched recently, including the array of different sound proofing products available and finally the construction has been decided upon.
Firstly, the studio is to be a "room within a room", whereby new stud walls (from 47 x 75) will be created and situated 50mm away from the extg. garage wall to create a cavity between inner and outer walls. The side facing the garage wall will be firstly lined with OSB board and then have a builder's paper stapled across (this is same kind of method used when building dormers in houses). On the inner side of the stud walls will be 75 deep Acoustic Mineral Wool, which is much denser than traditional Rockwool insulation, onto this will be a sheet of 12.5 plasterboard, a layer of acoustic matting (which has similar properties to lead) and then a further layer of 12.5 plasterboard reading for skimming. The walls will all be mechanically isolated from the extg. garage floor by sitting them on 10mm x 75mm neoprene strips. The ceiling used will be the extg. garage joists, however, again these will be fully filled with Acoustic Mineral wool, before metal resilient bars, to minimise noise transfer, will be placed at right angles to the joists, before two layers of 12.5 plasterboard, with matting inbetween, are hung from these bars. The plasterboard fixings only penetrate the metal bars, not the wooden joists, so effectively, the whole ceiling becomes isolated from the extg. joists. An air gap of 5mm will be placed around the ceiling between then new walls and then filled with acoustic sealent, again to isolate walls from ceiling. The floor construction will be 100 deep polystryene (sat on a damp proof membrane), which will then have standard flooring grade chipboard on to create a "floating" floor.
When considering the electrical requirements for such a project, one obviously requires minimal penetration of the inner wall construction (sockets, light switches etc.), so it has been decided to have no light fittings at all (plug in lamps will be used) and all of the sockets will be fixed in surface mount dado trunking. All fixings of the trunking, together with any cable access holes, will be filled tightly with mastic to help reduce any noise transmission. Also, a separate consumer unit is going to be installed, fed from a new 4mm2 supply with its own breaker at the house consumer unit in the house.
It is obviously always going to be a trade off between cost and performance when considering a project like this, as standard building procedures cannot apply. Much better performance could be achieved through bricking up the extg. garage windows (instead new uPVC triple glazed units will be installed), but this leads to other complications such as ventilation. There are also more expensive sound proofing products available (check out www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk), but as the studio is only going to be used for single tracking guitar and vocals, it is unlikely that the noise created in the studio will be excessively loud any way.
It will be necessary to obtain Building Regulations approval for such a project in case the house is ever sold, plus with the new Part P Electrical Legislation, this is ever more important. More updates will follow on this project as it progresses, together with detailed photographs of its construction.
First impressions of Sennheiser MKH-416
A Sennheiser MKH-416 was recently purchased together with full Rycote kit and used on an outdoor shoot. Immediately it was apparent just how much better, sonically, this microphone is compared to the K6. Bottom end presence is much greater and the tinny sound of the K6 has gone.
More updates on this will follow when the microphone has been used more extensively.
More updates on this will follow when the microphone has been used more extensively.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)