Build your own soundproof studio in 11 easy steps

Thanks to constant advancements in digital technology, everyone can record at home, and everyone can own a studio. But while many settle for an eggbox-clad bedroom setup (a myth we'll debunk later), there is another way…

Build your own professional-quality recording studio. Yes, it's a Mohammed-style mountain to move and will require a sizeable investment of both time and money (and plasterboard) but the results could be priceless.

So, courtesy of MusicRadar.com here are the 11 most-important factors to consider when building your own studio. From soundproofing to floating floors to, er... breathing.

Step 1: Location, location, location

The first consideration when contemplating building a studio is where to build it. At this stage it's important to consider just how loud you're going to be (especially your drum kit) and how viable soundproofing is for your situation.

For example, converting a garage in your garden will probably leave a decent amount of space inside after soundproofing, with minimal noise escaping. However, a room in a house or flat may be impossible to soundproof completely and leave you unreasonably cramped after doing so.

Comments

[monkeywork]

I've been working on my own studio build, to www.voiceofmonk.blogspot.com to follow along. Roxul60 is the insulation material, great stuff!

[Collie147]

I hung an old carpet and some old carpet underlay on opposing walls.  Did a fantastic job and it looked pretty damned cosy too!  Except people kept throwing themselves against the wall in a Blur "Song 2" fashion, that ended up tearing the underlay off the nails so I had to create a proper mounting for it.

[Jaxxsyn]

Actually, there are alot of old school, "underground" recording studios and jam rooms that just carpet the walls and ceilings as well as the floor

[lucidtones]

Great instructable! I cannot seem to find those door seals. Where did you get them?

[john.wiliams]

Hey thanks Tomporter. I really like your tips about soundproofing i think they are cost effective tips. I would like to implement one by one and definitely give feedback to you. Thanks.

[DallasDeckard]

Be careful using MDF for anything that is going to be in an enclosed space, particularly in the construction of systems delivering breathable air. MDF is constructed using several volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) the most disconcerting being urea-formaldehyde, which is extremely toxic. There are brands of MDF constructed in a "green" manner, without using some of the VOC's normally used. I'm no tree-hugger, but I did build stairs for a living and had to work with MDF all the time. I developed somewhat of an allergy to the stuff and had to find a supplier that could source me MDF without urea. It's one thing to build some speakers with the stuff, but it's quite another to construct air delivery systems with the only inlet being built out of MDF. Just be careful and look out for brands that have a high content of urea-formaldehyde.

[tanner]

I'd developed a similar reaction, but I had no idea there was an alternative. Thanks for the heads up.

[Junke]

Hey Thank You, Nice Tutorial.

[wozlaser]

A good generic guideline is to absorb in all the corners and edges and diffuse your walls. Thicker foam is necessary for lower frequencies, so if you cheap out and get the thinnest rather than thickest hospital mattresses for example (great source) your room will be boomy. You can use a room like that if for vocals if all the bass is eq'd out, but don't be that lazy. Just go thick in the corners, even if you have to cram them with pillowcases full of clothes or Styrofoam peanuts, and break up all your flat surfaces. A treated room sounds kinda like a clothing store anyhow, it should if you think about it.

You know it's working if you clap in a bathroom or kitchen and then walk into your treated room. Your claps will sound smaller, closer to you, and more singular.

Poster board can make great diffusers if it's bent into arches, the shape makes it strong, like a speaker cone. see: http://www.instructables.com/id/Sound-defusingdampening-wall-with-posterboard/

[peterkanton]

Interesting instructions. I like your points. I would like to add a little more to it.
A layer of Sheetblok is not going to provide enough soundproofing, you need more than that. Why not use QuietRock.  It is a soundproofing drywall which works way better than many layers of standard drywall. I am sure if you need to isolate the music from any extraneous sounds, just Sheetblok is not going to be enough.

[eddie1261]

 I just have to ask what purpose the studio is designed for. I have an upstairs studio but I record everything direct through headphones. Room acoustics have no spot in my equation, but of course, that's just me. I have a headphone bus all around the room and 8 people can plug in headphones. Of course you can't run everything direct and when I DO have horns or live drums they are in another room and they mic through a snake that runs through the wall and feeds a mixer in the main room. All good stuff here though.

[Fred82664]

instead of egg cartons I wonder about that foam matting you can get at Wal-Mart that you can put on top of beds to make them more padded. They have the shaped cones like egg cartons give them a shot of black paint mounted to a backing of rock wool or perhaps the spray in poly ear-thine foam . would that work out?  

[caitlinsdad]

A couple of things to consider:

1. You have to find paint that will not react with the foam and eventually flake off.
2. You would have to compare the bed foam to acoustic foam, not sure if it is open celled or closed, may have different sound properties.
3. You should check into the fire hazard thing, there was the Rhode Island nightclub tragedy when the non-approved acoustic foam caught on fire from stage pyrotechnics. Lining the walls with ignitible foam is not a good idea.

I'm all for building a cheap studio but do it safe.  Good luck.

[Fred82664]

well thanks for the thought. 1. I think that all things have a flash point of ignition including acoustic foam. 2 who in there right mind would set up any kind of pyrotechnics in side there home or in there home studio in the first place. 3 the Rhode Island tragedy had many bads to its credit  a) the space of confinement in relation to the charge size  b) the metals used in the charge produced high heat that could not escape thus it fed off what ever could burn in the temperature band. c) foam was not the only thing that caught fire the building was an old wood stricture, the wood was old and vary dry pine that would burn like a match stick. 
bulding a studio would be irtresting but seting off pyrtechnics inside of it would be kind of a like a scam using arson as a means to collett on a home oners policies.            

[caitlinsdad]

I guess any open flame is bad including "flicking your bic" and not to mention overloaded power strips, power strips plugged into power strips...time to untangle that mess of wires under the computer desk... Maybe just a super heavy fabric curtain on the walls would work.

[Fred82664]

I see you are a person that has no reality thinking and probably one of those sloppy wire jockeys that has no business plugging a cowmen house lap in. 1 if you flick your bic your intention is to light up something in the first place wither it being something your smoking or something to burn something including your house.  if you light a candle any where there is always risk of burning that was not intended to be burnt. 2. Any one that is a wire jockey should not wier up any kind of room  a)  they do not know how to do it safley in the first plase b) any one that dose not use fuses in any feed lines should have  there house brunt down just for the insentive of doing things right the first time .

Dude get real and yes for b) I am a bit harsh but but it is justafide !             

[carpe_noctem]

i'd take it a bit more seriously if you spell checked 

[belsey]

 Oh, I don't know if it's really justified...  in a studio it can be easy to overload a circuit unless the electrical work was done expressly for the extra power needed. The average bedroom or garage won't have enough power, unless your studio consists of a single laptop and a 60w lamp. However, to your original question: no, bed foam will not perform the same way acoustical foam will because the density is not the same. It might help just a little but you definitely won't get the same results.

[hairyyy0]

I'm curious. in your box pictured where what are you running? is it your power? or microphones? Just looking for a little clarification.

[danlab]

If you're asking about step 7, the plugs in the picture are for microphones.

[teslafan100]

sick

[museumoftechno]

It's:

"NB: You may want to line the inside of the Rockwool on the intake box to stop particles being dragged in by the fan"

Although to be honest, that sounds like it'd be killing the fun ;)

[georgemorgan]

30 years in the Music Industry, I hosted and produced a DVD called "How to Set Up Your Own Recording Studio". And these instructions are excellent.
Great Job and Thanks for Sharing.

[jvangurp]

 Great intsructable! So many people want a 'jam space' and start down the road to sound insulation but never quite make it. We all know how it goes... you start with Mom yelling TURN IT DOWN (thanks Frank ;-) so you put up some old pieces of carpet. Then someone hauls an old mattress in to put up behind the drums, etc. Eventually you get a good job and a house and build one of these studios... well, some guys do. Most won't. A pal of mine did so but he also 'tuned' the room using bass traps and Helmholtz resonator panels, etc. Easy to build and and very effective!

[dchall8]

Sound proofing rooms will always be a topic of interest.  Thanks for your approach.

For those of us in the US, mineral wool is what we now call insulation.  Usually it is pink and made from spun fiberglass.  There are other materials used and you can get it in different grades and densities. 

I've never heard the word 'eggbox' before.  If anyone tried to deaden a wall with actual egg boxes or egg cartons made from recycled paper or Styrofoam, they were probably experimenting.  If they weren't very particular and were not measuring the damping quality of the room, they were probably very satisfied with it.  We talk about 'egg crate' as a general shape for various foam products.  The egg crate foam is generally shaped with bumps and dips which resemble the shape of egg containers.  One common use for egg crate shaped urethane foam is as a bed topper.  Those are very good at damping sound reflections.  The professionals use actual conical and pyramidal shaped foam of varying length.  I've seen them about a foot deep (although I didn't measure them). 

[f.seanb]

 Mineral wool is insulation, but it is NOT fiberglass. Different stuff!

[brother_maynard]

Mineral wool is a distinct product from fiberglass insulation. You can argue fiberglass is a type of mineral wool but they are not the same.

[dchall8]

I was trying to help people find a product that will work.  I can't remember the last time I saw the stuff you are calling mineral wool.  It might be available at specialty stores but it's not popular.  If you have a source for it, or if you think the pink fiberglass will not work as a substitute, can you please help us find it? 

[jvangurp]

 It's quite common in Canada and comes packaged much like pink, but it's not compressed nearly as much. It comes out in very clearly defined rectangular panels, cuts with a knife and has a much softer feel than fiberglass. It's very popular here.

[greatoak]

Wow!
That is an awesome space. Good job on the Instructable.

[paliaspip]

haha i get it world peace, like peace and quiet, ahem, i like the joke. Yea if you could let us know what the NB part is that would be great. Thanks by the way.

[netgrazer]

I don't want to sound like a negative Nancy, but the diagram in step 5 is pretty hard to read, and enlarging only seems to make it worse. Especially the 'NB!' part, which looks kind of important.

Otherwise, great 'ible! Though I can't use this myself, I know several people who could. You've just contributed to world peace! :)

[juanvi]

nice, just i have eggbox covered walls in my studio and they work really nice

[xana]

nice but corny.

[Countrywings]

You REALLY need to consider what is hapening with the bass frequencies, room nodes, spacing and alignment of components, having / building bass traps, etc. Foam alone will not solve the problems... the entire audio frequency range needs to be considered.

[bishopdante]

Hey... that recording studio is kore studios I can tell it a mile off, they're good friends of mine. I did their logo, and I've produced many records from there.

The studio is *so* not DIY, it was built by WhiteMark associates, same people who built RealWorld Bath, and I just don't think you should have used the photo without asking. It gives a misleading impression.

[iamtoats]

This is awesome.

A more suitable quote would be:
"Be patients! The Great Wall didn't got build in one day!"
-Direct quote from my fortune cookie last week.

[CtrlAltDrew]

Hurry! We must update our English grammatical laws to conform to the new standards. "If you meet the Buddha's spell-checker on the road, kill him."

Just kidding -- that's a fantastic cookie! Totally off-topic to the Instructable, but made me laugh.Thanks for sharing!

[belsey]

This is a nice summary, but for those who are looking for specific information on materials and links to different suppliers you might be interested in this instructable

[RionNipal]

In one of the best sounding rooms I've been in, the walls were covered with egg boxes painted with enamel paint