At the start of 2021 I decided to fill my free time with music, so I created a room in the house and created a home studio.
This room was a bit small, and very noisy for the neighbours.
As I live on the ground floor with a big back yard, I thought of creating a whole new studio in that backyard.
This backyard is 5 meters long and 10 meters wide. So creating a 4×4 studio would be a great fit.
So on July 3th 2021 we started to break down the old shed that was taking up the space needed to build the new studio.
I had 2 friends helping me with breaking down the shed and building the new studio.
As I wanted to re-use the wood from the old shed to create 2 benches and a table for in the yard, we did this without breaking all the boards.
I was quite a job but we managed to get it all done.
2 days after breaking down the shed, it was time to level the floor.
The current floor was not as flat as I would like, and was not covering the whole yard.
So we took it all out, added some extra sand. levelled the whole space and replaced the tiles.
The underfloor took quite some time (also waiting on extra tiles and sand)
But on July the 9th we could start building the frames and putting them all together.
We used 4x7cm thick beams with waterproof OBS Plating on the outside.
We created the 4 walls laying flat on the ground, and then picked them up and put them together.
after 2 days we had 3 complete walls and the framing of the front wall, all put together.
We could then start with the roof.
Not the smartest start but all was ok at the end,
We created the same frame as we did for the walls, and placed this on the 4 walls.
Then we added the roof OBS plates, and placed some studs to keep it all up.
After that we placed 3 thick (30x7x=cm) big beams to give it strength.
We should have started with these 3 and then added the smaller beams, to make it all a bit easier to work with.
The roof was finished and strong. (we could walk on it with 2 people (70 and 120kg) at once.
12 July, we started building the floor frame. We also got a ground cable running from the fusebox inside the house to the studio.
This cable goes underneath the whole house and enters the studio in the front left corner.
Not only the power cable, but also midi, and audio cables are all under the studio floor and connected to wall outlets
After installing all the power, midi, audio and ethernet cables. I could start expanding all the power cables trough the walls, and ceiling to create power outlets and lights.
The ceiling got nine GU10 spots, and in the wall I created 6 double power outlets. 2 on the left side, 2 on the right, one behind the desk and one on the opposite wall next to the drums.
On the wall next to the drums there is also a CLR out connector for a vocal mic, and 2 jacks to plug in instruments, like the drums, guitar, bass etc.
Above that there is a headphone connection, for 4 headphones. This is a separate audio out channel from the desk, so a singer can get another output from the engineer.
Once all of the cables were connected, and the floorboards were placed. We could start with the finishing.
So all the walls and ceiling got closed up with drywall. in between there is a layer of acoustic isolation.
After all drywall was placed I could drill the holes for the lights place the wall sockets, and could fill up all the gaps.
After the gaps were filled I sanded it all down. A process that was long and hard. After sanding we did another round of filling tiny gaps.
This needed to dry for a bit, and then the whole sanding process started again. This was the hardest part of building this studio, sanding sanding and sanding.
But we managed, and it all looked good after a few days.
Sanding was a real dusty business so I gave it some time to let the dust settle.
In the mean time we could start on the outside. This needed to be painted with some water resisting paint.
And next to the studio I left a space to park my MP3 motor bike. So we built a door for that part. (sadly I now have a motor license and my new bike BMW K1200LT does not fit, so I rent a garage in front of my house)
Well what can I say, we started to paint. Plain white and this photo shows the first layer done.
In the end we did 3 layers of white. and then ……….
Yes then we could add some color to the place. I choose a greenish grey. The 2 side walls remain white, while to back and front wall got this lovely greenish color.
This took 2 layers. You can see the cables hanging from the wall. As I described a few steps back.
We then placed a laminate floor.
And I started building a desk. I wanted to have a custom build desk that could provide space for 2 people to sit on.
So the desk surface is an Ikea kitchen counter 250cm wide. I bought 2 of these and cut one over the full length at 30cm to create the raiser. This raiser was connected with 4 diagonal Ikea legs leaning a bit further back.
The 2 cabinets also came from Ikea. In the back behind the cabinets and in the center of the desk there are extra legs to help support the desk so it can’t tip over backwards.
As I mentioned, I saved all the wood from the old shed. And used this to create a sitting area outside.
I created 2 benches, a cornerbox and a table. The table is not in the picture. this still needs to be painted, but that’s for an other day
On the desk raiser I placed 2 microphones, 2 dual curved screens, the studio monitors, a google speaker and headphone stand.
On the desk itself I put the Beheringer X-Touch controler. M-Audio interface, launchpad mini and keyboard/mouse.
On the side put an M-Audio Axiom 49 keyboard.
When making music, you need to keep yourself hydrated so I place a small fridge and coffee maker.
You can also see the 3rd microphone next to it on a stand. Nowadays it has an acoustic filter around it.
Next to that microphone I place my Yamaha Drum kit, and semi-acoustic bass.
The Yamaha kit was fun, but I upgraded to this Millennium Electronic drum kit. It looks like an acoustic kit, plays like an acoustic kit and sounds super.
The last change I made was to the main desk.
I removed the 2 curved screens and replaced these with an ultra wide screen. Below that on the desk there is a 27″ Raven mti2 touchscreen. To the left of this Raven I placed the launchpad mini. And to the right the M-Audio interface with an iPad running OSC.
OSC is used to control Cubase so its basically a screen with buttons that perform various functions in Cubase.
In front of it all is a Korg B2 Digital Piano. This piano has real weighted keys, and plays like a charm