Garage to Studio transformation

Max R. Wilson

Max R. Wilson

Stream Master
Well i have wanted to make a studio for a long time and finaly i decided to convert our garage to a studio...

Here is some photos of the construction of the main wall, i built it on the inside of the garage door so that way we dont need permits and i am also going to put foam on the garage door to make it more of a sound wall.

The main opening you see will have a french door setup.

all that crap you see will go into the storage room.

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Good start, once you begin with the interior what are you planning on using for sound baffling, and backdrops?
Keep us posted, and good luck
 
Im gona put insulating foam panels on the garage door...

On the back wall im gona do a wall to wall curtain system with a green screen.

Ill definatly post updates as i make progress.
 
well my dad is a composer so he wanted space to set his gear back up, and i wanted a place i can edit, have rehersals, shoot if needed on the green screen. we could even build a small set in there.
 
All the sound will leak right out of that wall because of the giant gap at the top. Anywhere air can get thru, sound can get out also.
 
Hey, Dude!

I have a garage that wasalready converted to a guest house when I bought the place... andf my advice is, since you have the chance, DO IT RIGHT!

If you really want sound isolation, close the garage door permanently, forget french doors, build that wall to the ceiling, use at least a double-layer of one of the new sound-isolating sheetrocks. Add floating sound walls to the rest of the walls.Do at least SOMETHING to float the floor a bit. Use a small, well-sealed door (or better yet, a series of 2) somewhere. Keep the ceiling as high as you can, but make sure to isolate that, too... sealed well to the walls.

And... the biggest problem I'm facing here in sunny CA - work out a really good, silent ventilation plan!

Anyway, good luck, and keep us posted!
 
WD, if you're looking for sound isolation, make sure you incorporate drywall isolation channels and clips. You can see up to 25db reduction in STC using inexpensive decouple methods like these. Acoustic sealant and 6mil poly are pretty cheap and are essential to seal things up.

Are you going to frame the interior to seal up the garage door "slot" when it is overhead, or leave the top of the wall open? If you are plannign on leaving the top of the wall open, I'd just omit it altogether and insulate your garage door. If the wall is just there for green screen, consider the aircraft hangar door approach...these can be folded against the wall completely out of the way.

I wish I could give up my garage for a studio ....
 
In my studio I have three rooms. Control room, big room and smaller room. The walls between the rooms are staggered stud construction on a 6" base. What this means is that the studs on one side of the wall are staggered with the other side so the two sides are only connected on the ends and not along the entire length. Another effective technique is two walls with dead space inbetween, but this takes up quite a bit of space. All studio walls should always be insulated as well, as fiberglass is an excellent absorber and performs well over a broad frequency range.

I also recommend double-sheetrocking, as mass is also key to reducing transmission. What I did was use one layer (running the cracks horizontally) over the entire studio, then applied about 10-15 tubes of caulk to seal all the cracks, then applied another layer of 5/8" sheetrock with the cracks going vertically and repeat the caulk. This makes it very difficult for sound to weasel it's way around the wall. Of course the best studio walls would be solid rock, preferably a nice jagged limestone to provide superior diffusion. I actually contemplated doing one wall with rock, but gave up when I realized how hard it was just to get all the sheetrock down the stairs :)

Are you planning on building a new floating ceiling on those walls? That would actually be pretty effective based on my experience. In my studio (which is in a basement) I ran new floor joists BETWEEN the existing joists dropped about an inch and attached the sheetrock to those. The benefit is that the floating ceiling only touches the studio walls, and is mechanically decoupled from the rest of the house. I can make as much noise as possible down there and it can't be heard in the rest of the house, or more importantly outside :)

Doors are very problematic and leaky. I would suggest either double exterior doors or double sliding glass. I went with dual sliding glass doors in my place because I wanted everyone to be able to see each other, and that was more important to me than ultimate sound isolation between rooms. I still get at least 15-20db of isolation between rooms, which is pretty good considering how large the doors are. Normal interior doors are going to suck and should be avoided.
 
if this was my house i would have removed the garage door and built it a solid wall with stagered studs. but its my grandmas house and if we move out the wall will have to come down (thats the only way she let me do this)

the wall is more for privacy then sound profing, so when we are down there us and all our gear isint sitting open to the street.

I had thought about building a new ceiling just below the garage door but i would need to plan it out and have service doors for the garage door motor.
 
i got a studio in my basement, not sound proof or anything, hehe makes me want to build one though. just have spongy carpets and the ceiling of the basment is made of that white sort of,,, foam board that you can move just by pushing it and the walls have alot of cork on them for pictures. almost makes for a perfect room as there is NO resonants or reverb.
 
another reason i built it 24" from the front of the house is if i do ever remove the agrage door i have a nice area to put sound proofing and do a double door setup.
 
Ok well this will probably be my last update untill the place is all done... Tomorrow i paint and get the desk top in.

I ordered a Core 2 Duo CPU and a new motherboard and am building a computer that will go in the cutout on the side...

This weekend i will get everything orgainised and cleaned up then ill post some photos of the finished product.

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Might want to build some sort of rear vent for that PC, it looks like it could overheat in that corner spot.
 
I dont think that will be a problem, im not going to put a door on the opening so it will be pretty open.
MiniMan13 said:
Might want to build some sort of rear vent for that PC, it looks like it could overheat in that corner spot.
Click to expand...
 
pretty cool... How are you going to run power to the computer? Is there another outlet that we cannot see?

Also, not sure of how many accessories (deck, monitor(s), etc..) you will be running, but you can never have enough outlets.

MiniMan brings up a good point.. my machine would heat up like a mofo in that spot..
 
All PC's have the air intake in the bottom front of the computer cover, and exit at the top rear (power supply). As long as you make sure both are clear, and you have a cold air intake, and hot air exit, you'll be fine. If your tower has a separate side intake for CPU clearing, that will have to be clear too.

Keep in mind that MTB ratings, particulary with hard drives, are directly correlated to operating temperature. Cool is good!

I'm in the same boat on the core2 issues. My 2.8 P4 isn't going to cut it with HD.
 
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