After the long wait, it is here – the first part of “How to build a home studio”. It was one mega-project of epic proportions. But we made it, and we made it well!
The motivation we had to make this video was because both my partner Shay Ofer and I felt that there are not enough good video sources online that clearly demonstrate the building process of a home studio. There are many guides, from blog posts and articles to professional books, on how to build studios, but we didn’t find any videos that show the complete process, from the beginning to the end, especially for people who look for affordable home or project studio solutions. Obviously, every studio is different, because every room is different and every musician has his or her own individual needs, and we do not pretend to present a complete guide or to cover all of them. Nevertheless, my hope is that this documentary will give you a clearer idea of the process and just how much you can do within reasonable means and some basic building skills, if that is what you aim for.
Unfortunately, the tragic consequences of the death Shay during the time when we were working on the project (more about it in this episode), have left me alone in this challenge for some time, but I was fortunate enough to be able to finish the project with the help of some kind people who are also highly skilled and very talented in what they do.
This series of tutorials, and the studio itself, are therefore dedicated in memory of Shay Ofer, a colleague, a friend and a great loss to the music community.
So what’s in Episode 1? We are covering the most essential element, the foundation over which everything else will be built – the floating floor. It’s called like that, because as we will also see in the coming episodes, the idea is to minimize any direct surface contact with the actual floor, or the external walls. This is essential for soundproofing the room-within-a-room from the floor’s end – and that is why we isolate the wooden floor frame from the actual floor with layers or rubber / neoprene, which are relatively hard yet provide a good degree of isolation at the same time. Inside the frame, we are placing rather thick pieces of rockwool (10cm in this case), and we then cover the frame with supporting metal bars and plywood plates. We then get a firm, solid and sound-proof base on which we can later construct the walls frame, the ceiling and the room’s panels.
P.S, this is the first time I talk to a camera. Admittedly I am not a natural at that, so I experimented a lot until I got a result I can be more or less satisfied with. I still have some way to go, also with DSLR camera operating, but I did my best here to explain as clearly as possible so I hope it will come across.. 🙂
I hope you will find this tutorial useful for your own project. If you have any questions feel free to leave comments or contact me here or on Facebook / Twitter. The best questions will also be quoted in the next episode. Please remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel and to the mailing list to be notified as soon as the next episodes are coming.
Yuval
