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Mike's New Studio Build


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Installing a manhole in the ceiling for access to the roof area. I still have to buy a piece of fibre cement sheet to fill the temporary hole.

 

There will be a double ceiling to help control sound bleed through the roof. The existing ceiling will have dense fibreglass insulation on top of it and the second ceiling will be a suspended ceiling about 300mm below the main one made from acoustic ceiling tiles with fibreglass insulation on top. This is what I did in my last carport converted studio and it helped tame bass resonances.

 

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So, questions about the concrete blocks.

 

I see that you filled in the first 2 rows with concrete, will you do the same for the rest of the rows? AFAIK, 8" of filled concrete block must sound insulate the room like nothing else! Might even be more cost efficient than other means of sound proofing, which can get involved.

 

However, if your concrete blocks are 8" thick, and then you add the thickness of drywall (if you use that), plus whatever exterior finish you use, then the total thickness of the walls are closer to 9-9.5", which is about double normal construction. Just saying, for a smallish room, that cuts down on total interior space.

 

Is it code to build with concrete blocks? In general, that would make remodeling, moving a wall, installing wire inside a wall very difficult after it's all built. I've never heard of concrete block construction for houses.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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So, questions about the concrete blocks.

 

I see that you filled in the first 2 rows with concrete, will you do the same for the rest of the rows? AFAIK, 8" of filled concrete block must sound insulate the room like nothing else! Might even be more cost efficient than other means of sound proofing, which can get involved.

 

However, if your concrete blocks are 8" thick, and then you add the thickness of drywall (if you use that), plus whatever exterior finish you use, then the total thickness of the walls are closer to 9-9.5", which is about double normal construction. Just saying, for a smallish room, that cuts down on total interior space.

 

Is it code to build with concrete blocks? In general, that would make remodeling, moving a wall, installing wire inside a wall very difficult after it's all built. I've never heard of concrete block construction for houses.

 

I'm using 8" concrete blocks because that's how the rest of the house is constructed. It's a bonus that this will also give pretty good sound insulation. I'd estimate about 90 percent of houses built in the last 40 years in my area are built from concrete blocks. Houses need to be built very strong here to withstand cyclones, and it's very difficult to make them strong enough from other materials. (Three Little Pigs :) )

 

The reason I filled the first 2 and a half rows with concrete was because the floor slab needed to be strengthened. The code requirements are more stringent now than they were 25 years ago when the house was built. The rest of the walls will only be core-filled where you can see the vertical steel bars. There there will be one row at the top which will be filled with steel and concrete as a bond beam. I know from my last studio that the sound insulation will be good enough for my purposes. The roof and doors will still be the weak spots anyway, but I'll be using the same techniques I used last time to minimise the issues in those areas.

 

As for finish, internally, I'll be using a trick that was taught to me by a tiler friend many years ago. Instead of using drywall I'll render them with a particular type of tile adhesive by plastering it on the blocks. This doesn't add any appreciable thickness and gives a finish nearly as good as drywall, but harder. Externally, I will eventually get the external walls rendered when I get the whole house done. This will be at a later date as I'm going to be pretty broke by the time I'm done with the studio. I hope I don't run out of money before I get it completed.

 

This project is almost identical to what I did in my last house 20 years ago, so I'm not expecting any major surprises, sound wise. The big advantage this time is that when I get to the stage of profiling the sound characteristics I have better tools available to me than I did 20 years ago.

 

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Yesterday I laid 2 more rows of blocks in the studio walls. This took me over 9 hours and caused a lot of pain, which I'm still feeling today, so I'll be taking it easier. My job for today is cutting and bending the vertical steel bars for the studio walls and making the brackets that will be attaching them to the roof support beam.

 

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Wow... house of blocks! AFAIK 4" slabs are the norm in the states, the new slab for the storage area looks closer to 6-8". That's a lot of concrete! Though I see that the majority of it is around the edges, you've only got 2-3" depth otherwise.

 

Yeah, I imagine if you filled all the blocks with concrete you'd use 20 metric shit tonnes of material! And the house would start sinking in the ground in that corner due to the extra weight! Can only imagine the sign offs for new work would be pretty important, once you've got a wall up there's no easy access for re-routing of wires, pipes. But like you said, even without filling all the blocks up, it still has better sound insulation than the doors, which are always difficult areas. At least you don't have any doors that lead directly to the outside. So no windows planned?

 

Hard to tell from the pics, but I'm guessing the studio is 10-11 feet wide by 15 feet deep.

 

I've done my fair share of working with cement, heavy stones, etc., and always thought, boy, this is not a profession I'd want! Uber heavy bags of sand/concrete, silica dust, concrete on your hands trash them, lots of digging, etc. That and roofing!

 

From the pics of your former studio, it looks like there were a lot of hard surfaces, esp the walls.

---> "Instead of using drywall I'll render them with a particular type of tile adhesive by plastering it on the blocks. This doesn't add any appreciable thickness and gives a finish nearly as good as drywall, but harder."

How in the world can you get a good smooth finish plastering anything on? It still blows my mind that before drywall, walls were plastered by hand! Anyone whos worked with plaster knows how hard it is to get even a small area perfectly smooth. But more to the point, you still end up with walls that are perfectly rectangular and hard surfaced, lots of standing waves and echo. Have you ever worked with plaster paint? Basically it's plaster with paint mixed in, have seen it mostly in creative applications to give texture to a wall. But thick slatherings of it with a rough finish full of swirls, would soften up the walls from being perfectly hard and flat.

 

Thanks for all the info!

 

Randy

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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AFAIK 4" slabs are the norm in the states, the new slab for the storage area looks closer to 6-8". That's a lot of concrete!

 

The thinnest part of the slab is the centre area at 100mm. The footing around the edge is at a minimum of 450mm deep by 350mm wide, so yes, a huge amount of concrete. The original carport slab was not that thick which is why I had to strengthen it.

 

 

But like you said, even without filling all the blocks up, it still has better sound insulation than the doors, which are always difficult areas. At least you don't have any doors that lead directly to the outside. So no windows planned?

 

The doors will be solid core and then I'll be adding a sheet of 16mm MDF to the opening side, overlapping the door frame with rubber seals around the edges. This technique worked well last time. there won't be any windows, well, apart from on my computer. :)

 

 

Hard to tell from the pics, but I'm guessing the studio is 10-11 feet wide by 15 feet deep.

 

It's 2.8 metres by 4.8 metres. (9'2" x 15'9"). Small, but workable for my situation.

 

From the pics of your former studio, it looks like there were a lot of hard surfaces, esp the walls.

 

It certainly was a bit live, but it worked reasonably well. Those pictures were from when I first did it. It was modified a couple of times over the years, but I can't find any pictures. The whole back wall was a trap about a foot deep and I improved the sound absorption on the walls. I also moved to near field monitoring and changing the mix position to sideways (where the keyboards are in the photos)

 

How in the world can you get a good smooth finish plastering anything on?

 

With the technique I use that my friend taught me it's quite easy. the thickness of the plaster (tile glue) averages about a millimetre.

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Yesterday I finished the manhole and made the brackets which will tie the vertical steel bars in the walls to the roof beam. These brackets are made from 6mm thick 50mm x 50mm galvanised angle and will be 2/3 embedded in the concrete bond beam at the top of the walls. The bolts are just to give them more grip into the concrete and the larger hole in the centre is where the vertical steel bar will link through.

 

 

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Mike Warren, I would know that little Sony boom box anywhere. It was the first true stereo boom box I bought when I got my first 'real' gig on a Carnival cruise ship ported out of San Juan. That sucker cost me $900 (+ tax!) from the Sears store inside the Plaza Las Americas mall in San Juan, PR back in 1991. I loved that thing almost as much as I've loved some keyboards...

 

...and about this thread...LOVE IT. Please continue.

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ivorycj

 

Main stuff: Yamaha CP88 | Korg Kronos 2 73 | Kurzweil Forte 7 | 1898 Steinway I

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Mike Warren, I would know that little Sony boom box anywhere. It was the first true stereo boom box I bought when I got my first 'real' gig on a Carnival cruise ship ported out of San Juan. That sucker cost me $900 (+ tax!) from the Sears store inside the Plaza Las Americas mall in San Juan, PR back in 1991. I loved that thing almost as much as I've loved some keyboards...

 

...and about this thread...LOVE IT. Please continue.

 

That Sony is long dead now days. It's something I repaired for my own use at the time because the owner didn't want to spend the money on the repair. You can see the story in this picture. A gecko was attracted to the warmth inside and as it snuggled up to the mains transformer it touched the 240V mains connections and fried itself.

 

The mouse must have smelled fried gecko and gone in for a free feed, but also touched the 240V on the other side of the board. At that point the owner brought it into my work because it had stopped working and "smelled funny". :)

 

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Current progress:

 

During the week i installed insulation in the ceiling. This will help the AC work more efficiently, but will also contribute to the sound proofing in conjunction with the second ceiling I'll be building.

 

I also screwed the brackets in place for the vertical steel bars.

 

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A gecko was attracted to the warmth inside and as it snuggled up to the mains transformer it touched the 240V mains connections and fried itself.

 

The mouse must have smelled fried gecko and gone in for a free feed, but also touched the 240V on the other side of the board. At that point the owner brought it into my work because it had stopped working and "smelled funny". :)

]

 

There's one they didn't have in the Frequently Asked Questions.

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Mike Warren, I would know that little Sony boom box anywhere. It was the first true stereo boom box I bought when I got my first 'real' gig on a Carnival cruise ship ported out of San Juan. That sucker cost me $900 (+ tax!) from the Sears store inside the Plaza Las Americas mall in San Juan, PR back in 1991. I loved that thing almost as much as I've loved some keyboards...

 

...and about this thread...LOVE IT. Please continue.

 

That Sony is long dead now days. It's something I repaired for my own use at the time because the owner didn't want to spend the money on the repair. You can see the story in this picture. A gecko was attracted to the warmth inside and as it snuggled up to the mains transformer it touched the 240V mains connections and fried itself.

 

The mouse must have smelled fried gecko and gone in for a free feed, but also touched the 240V on the other side of the board. At that point the owner brought it into my work because it had stopped working and "smelled funny". :)

 

lizard_and_mouse.jpg

 

This is the all-time most awesome electronic repair story ever told!! Your studio is looking great too!!!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Latest update after 4 big days working on the project. The walls of the store room are 3/4 up. Really looking like a prison now. :)

 

I had a friend helping me with laying the blocks so I'm really happy with how much we achieved in a few days.

 

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Cutting blocks for the first bond beam.

 

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lovely pics and story (on the build haha) Mike. Really appreciate you sharing this :)

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

According the the building approval the roof battens and sheeting for the store room need a certificate from a professional roofing contractor. I was having trouble finding an available contractor so I asked the inspector if I could do the work myself and pay for an extra inspection. The inspector said that was fine, so I put the roof on last weekend.

 

This morning i sent the inspector an email asking to book the inspection and attached 6 pictures showing details of the roof.

 

This was his reply:

 

Mike,

 

You have gone 'over and above' â looks great.

 

Feel free to proceed â no inspection required

 

So on to the gutter and ceiling next weekend. :)

 

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Ii

The building inspector came to check that I'd done the reinforcing steel in the walls properly and then I employed a concrete pump to do the bond beam and block core fills yesterday.

 

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OMG for one heart stopping moment I thought you were following up the lizard story with the boa constrictor story..... :duck:

 

Congratulations on your studio!! Amazing work and so interesting to see it electronically grow. :2thu: Have you felt tempted to put in double doors for extra sound insulation?

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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