Garage studio conversion

jesone

Has anyone here converted a garage into a sound proofed studio space?
looking for opinions on viability & rough order of magnitude for costs.

mrkb

A lot depends on what you mean by ‘soundproofed’ how much reduction do you need to keep the neighbours happy? My garden room drops the level from inside about 30db, and distance does the rest. Bass frequencies get through more, but aren’t an issue over traffic noise, but I don’t play after 9pm.

If it’s a brick built garage and you’re paying a builder, suspect it’s going to cost £20k ish.

sweepy

I converted mine, relatively straightforward tbh, especially if you do the work yourself ,. Mine has a semi isolated floor with battened walls, 2x double glazed windows and 2x double glazed doors. I also have it its own ring main and deliberately went overboard on the sockets. If I had the chance to do it again I’d have budgeted £2k for an acoustical a/c unit as it gets a lil hot in the summer 

Musicwolf

mrkb said:

A lot depends on what you mean by ‘soundproofed’ how much reduction do you need to keep the neighbours happy?

This.

There's no such thing as 'Soundproofed', it's all about how much attenuation and over what frequency range.  The amount of reduction required will depend upon how much noise you are generating inside the room and how far away are your neighbours.  If you are hoping to record an acoustic drum kit, and you are less than say 10m away from your neighbour, then the only real solution is a room within a room (and that needs to be constructed in such a way that the inner and outer rooms are not in contact with one another).  If it's just plug-ins and studio monitors then you may have a chance .

My own space is a converted single garage.  It's integral to the house but the walls are brick / breese block, the garage door was removed and bricked up (double skin) with a domestic double glazed window.  It's a detached house but gap to the neighbours is onle a couple of m.  I'm working with plug-in drum modules (Superior Drummer) and guitars are recorded via Kemper or Helix.  No complaints from the neighbours.

My biggest problem is noise spill into the rest of the house but, being a garage, it already had a heavy fire door, which is fine - so long as I can be bothered to close it.  Actually I don't need to close it as, if I'm making noise, someone else in the house will come along and close it for me.

Musicwolf

Build it like the Pros by Rod Gervais is essential reading if you don't want to waste time and money creating something that isn't fit for purpose.

Kebabkid

sweepy said:

I converted mine, relatively straightforward tbh, especially if you do the work yourself ,. Mine has a semi isolated floor with battened walls, 2x double glazed windows and 2x double glazed doors. I also have it its own ring main and deliberately went overboard on the sockets. If I had the chance to do it again I’d have budgeted £2k for an acoustical a/c unit as it gets a lil hot in the summer 

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We had a similar thing done to this ^^ in terms of construction with suspended floor and ceiling but had a domestic Soundproofing company carry out the work, but they weren't acoustic specialists. They were great but as put in another post, even with bass traps, we had some reflective surfaces like a large mirror (now covered) that caused me all sorts off issues and so it's not ideal as a rehearsal room for multiple instruments/band but fine for singular instrument practise (acoustic drum, bass or guitar).
You can see some pics here from my post -
 https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/252326/speaker-monitor-recommendations-for-a-studio/p1

Danny1969

It's relatively easy to attenuate noise down to around 120 Hz ish. Frequencies below that are quite difficult to stop but you can get to the point where although they escape the building they lose so much energy that they aren't a problem to your neighbours. 

I’ve done a couple of garage conversions . My own one and one for a friend. My one was very good at not letting sound escape as I built a concrete wall behind the garage doors, built a double door system at the other end and built a quad glazed window to let light in. 

To help soundproof the roof I built a false ceiling 200 mmm below it .. which was supported on posts to the floor because the joists weren’t strong enough to support the mass of 18mm MDF, 100mm of rockwool slab and 25mm of plasterboard I used. There’s no point putting effort into the walls , doors and windows if you dont do the ceiling right. But you need to think about the weight on the joists. Most garages will have Joists designed to support a simple garage roof and not much more weight than that. 

Mains wise I put in a ring from the consumer unit into the garage with master switch and double sockets every meter or so. 

Audio wise I installed XLR inputs every 2 metres or so with headphone sockets for monitoring. All cables were ran under the false floor I built once trunked down the wall. Nothing was cut into the plasterboard. 









I used to record guitars in here at ear splitting volume. Sometimes at 2 in the morning. Never had a problem. Bass was DI'ed so that wasn't an issue. For drums I tended to track with my mobile rig in all kinds of places or sometimes used V-drums. 

Cost wise materials are now 4 times the price they were were when I did this. You could spend 5K quite easy now not including labour. 

Attention to detail is essential. As I mentioned I built a concrete wall behind the garage doors. Concrete, not breeze block or  thermalite wall. Mass stops sound so mass is essential. I fitted the outside UVPC door and window myself because I measured it to a 5mm gap. That gap was then completely filled all the way through with cement and then acoustic caulk. The sills of the window and door were filled with sand. The inner door was solid wood vandal proof fire door which was then clad in 18mm MDF and covered in carpet. All gaps were as small as possible and then completely filled with acoustic fire retardant caulk. Nothing was cut into the plasterboard, all the wiring was surface mounted. 

Most builders won't do any of this. They work fast and efficient but to larger totorances and will use materials like expanding foam, thermalites, mastic etc. If air can escape then sound can escape. If you do the job right you won't see any insects on the inside unless you leave the door open. There will be no gaps.  

Lestratcaster

Yes I did 5 years ago but didn't plan it properly and it ended up being a poor rushed job. I'm spending money rectifying some of the mistakes and its not too bad at the moment but I wish I followed the advice of some people on here and did it right from the start with insulation and soundproofing. Luckily my garage is right at the back of my garden away from any houses so if there was any noise you can't hear anything anyway.

Make sure you read up on u values and stuff esp with Rockwool/Celotex insulation. Rockwool is better acoustically, and I have 100mm thickness in one of my partition walls in timber frames. Does a nice job of isolating sound. As mentioned already mass stops sound so make sure there's no air gaps.