BETA Records - Your music matters!

I've begun building a home recording studio. I've always had a room or two in the house dedicated to music but its time to step up and build that sound proof room where I can bang on a drums at 2 am without waking the house. First I'll say I've read a lot online. I wanted to go with a cement block building as I've read it makes for the easiest room to sound proof. I built a new shed and now the old shed is standing where the studio should be. At first I wanted to tear it all down and start over. First to go was the old dry wall, all the junk, and the door. I then ripped up what appeared to be a particle board floor only to find good wood planks in great shape. The wood used to build the frame was in good shape, the roof was ok and the inside dimension are adequate for a full drum set, amps, wall of guitars etc... so I decided to keep the old frame and begin reconstruction.



First I put down 5/8 inch 4x8 sheets on the floor over the wood floor. I used screws as they made the floor lock into the beams below. I made sure the 4x8 sheets were screwed through the planks and into the beams supporting the floor. Now walking on the plywood you can tell the floor is very solid. Maybe overkill but at $20 a sheet who cares.



Next I did insulation. I chose R-25 in plastic bats. They were easy to cut, easy to staple between the wall studs and appeared to be the thickest insulation I could get my hands on. R-25 is normally used for ceilings. Putting these in the walls meant the dry wall would get pushed hard before touching the wood frame. Studs are only 3 inches and R-25 is 8 inches but it does compress.



Then I ripped out the old electric and rigged up some new stuff. I chose to put in two outlets and two ceiling lights with a dimmer. No, I didn't get an electrician. This stuff is really simple. I had three wires running in that I pulled into a box. I ran four romex cables into the box and spiced them all together except for the ceiling light wires as these use the ground of a light switch to connect to the main power.



Hanging 5/8 sheet rock on the ceiling is a pain. First I screwed a 2x4 to the back wall so I would have something to support one end of the 4x8 sheet close to the ceiling. Then I lifted the sheet up above the 2x4 and put a brace under neath the sheet on the other end. One person can do this work but it would have been much easier with two. I have a car jack I used along with a 4x4 to put under the sheet rock and lift/press it against the ceiling. With lines already drawn on the sheet rock matching the beams I screwed the sheet rock into place.



As luck would have it one trip to Lowes ran me face to face with a double glass door on sale for 120 bucks. Normally $550 it wouldn't of been on my list of choices but at 120 it came home with me that day. A pre-hung door is much easier to mount then a custom door. I've done custom doors and you should plan spending a day to get it right. Since the original door was a single door I measured and knocked out an additional two studs on the front to accommodate the double door. The only issue left was to level up the remain studs and put in the header (boards that fill in the top of the door to the ceiling).



By now its starting to take shape. Today I picked up another 5 sheets of sheet rock so I have ten to play with this weekend. These will go on the walls and on the remaining small strip left open on the ceiling.