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Here are some pictures of the building we are working on, after we had cleared it out and removed a false ceiling.

The first thing needed to do was level the concrete floor, as it was very uneven. One side of the floor was about 5cm lower than the other, you can see a black line we drew around the building which is a totally level line from the highest point of the floor. I am referring to the lower line that is right above the floor on the walls, the higher line is a perfectly level line that we measured the floor height we needed down from.







The next step, after thoroughly cleaning the floor of all dust and debris, was to use a self levelling compound to raise the part of the floor up to the height of the highest point so that it was totally level.

This took several applications to build it up, allowing time for each layer to fully set.

Here is the first part being applied:





And after a couple more, it is all set in these photos:





This has now raised the part of the floor enough to make the whole floor level, below is proof!



From the doorway (after removing the block of wood we had in there to stop the levelling compound just flowing out of the doorway!) you can see how much this part of the floor had to be raised. All the grey concrete is the raised section:

The next stage was replacing the door of the building with a metal soundproof door. Below is the outside of the building with the old door removed:



New door installed:

Next we had to cut a lot of 2x4 to length from the 5m pieces....





Also, we got the building hooked up to the mains via armoured cable buried underground from the house:

Basically, what we are doing is building a room within a room. This room is modular, made of rectangular modules that bolt together so that we can move the room elsewhere and expand it if we wish. Each module is a timber frame, which will have 2 layers of acoustic plasterboard, a layer of soundblock, and internally it will have acoustic foam. This should provide a large decibel reduction. We will give more detailed explanations as the build progresses...

We have started to build the timber frames:







Each corner has a metal bracket screwed in on the inside and is screwed with long screws from the outside edge, with expanding Gorilla Glue filling in any gaps between the two pieces of 2x4. The timber is Latvian C24. They are very strong!

More frames... We nearly have all the wall module frames done now:





We also have lots of acoustic plasterboard to cut to the size of the frames. Each frame will have two layers:



Starting to measure and cut to size with a knife:

Thought I'd give a quick overview of the general construction plan for the studio.

As Dave said, we're building a room within a room which will be completely free standing. The outside room is a garden room at the end of our garden which has a concrete floor, breeze blocks for half the height of the room, single glazed windows and a plywood and vinyl roof.

This exterior room is not very soundproof at all and when we started the build the door was a very thin and badly fitting exterior door. The first thing that we had to do was get the exterior room ready to have the studio room built inside it. The concrete floor was not at all level so we had to use self levelling compound (16 bags!!) to get the floor ready for the studio.

Then we replaced the door with a high security steel door with good seals all the way round. We also cut some plywood sheets to blocks up the windows from the inside. We'll also use some of the plasterboard cut-offs from later in the build to further block up the windows.

The exterior room does not need to be very soundproof. Our main concerns are having the floor level, making the room secure and making sure the roof is watertight. We've now completed this.

The actual studio will be built out of roughly 1 metre by 2 meter modules which will be bolted together. Each module is made using 2x4 structural timber frame, corner brackets, loads of screws and wood glue. Then on one side of the frame there will be in 1 layer of acoustic plasterboard followed by 1 layer of TEC 50 sound barrier sheet and finally 1 more layer of acoustic plasterboard.

The TEC 50 Sound Barrier will be sandwiched between the layers of plasterboard and will wrap round the sides of the frame so that where one module meets another, the sound barrier is pressed together to create a seal. This will be shown in later pictures.

http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/aco ... mbrane.htm

The ceiling is constructed in the same way as the wall modules but each ceiling module is 3 x 1 meters instead of 2 x 1.

We have a heavy duty steel door for the studio room with an acoustic grade seal. We'll also cover the door with 1 layer of TEC 50. The door will bolt into the module in the same way as each module bolts to the other modules.

The general concept is to build a very well soundproofed room which can be taken apart, transported and bolted back together in a different location. We will also have the ability to increase the size of the studio at a later date if we choose.

On the inside of the room we will have acoustic grade foam filling the inside of each module. This foam will be 10 cm deep and will give the room a very dead acoustic. This is very important since the room is very symmetrical and therefore susceptible to standing waves. This will be shown in later pictures.

We will end up with a room which has around 50 decibels of sound reduction from the interior room alone and a further 30 from the exterior room. This means that making a lot of noise will not be a problem. The TEC 50 works to decouple each layer of plasterboard from one another. The module will also be decoupled from the surrounding modules. As well as this the TEC 50 is designing to have a curve of frequency reduction that covers the weak points in the plasterboard.

More details to follow as we progress with the build.

The Tec 50 material ( that Thomas mentioned above) has arrived... We have 8 rolls of it.



Now we have finished cutting all the plasterboard to size for the walls (2 sheets per wall module):



We have now started to seal the edges of the plasterboard with paper & PVA so that the cut edges of the boards will not disintegrate:





We will next start using the Tec 50 sandwiched between two layers of this acoustic plasterboard mounted onto each timber frame to build the wall modules.

We have now built five of the modules, below are step by step photos with annotations:

First the two sheets of acoustic plasterboard are smoothed flush to the frame with a plane:



Then, after sealing the plasterboard as shown in the previous post, one of the boards is put back on the frame & the Tec 50 rolled over and cut to size:





Then the second layer of plasterboard is lined up on top:



Next screws are put through all three layers at once and into the wooden frame:





Then the corners are marked out and cut to allow the tec 50 to wrap around the frame:







For the next stage the whole thing has to be flipped over, they are now very heavy..





The Tec 50 is now glued with spray contact adhesive & stapled along the frame with a staple gun:







Below is a close-up of a corner section, and four complete modules:





These now need sealing on the inside with acoustic sealant where the frame meets the plasterboard, then they are complete... We have five finished to this stage now, many more to go....

More module building....