Basement Space - help needed

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choke3d
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Basement Space - help needed

Post by choke3d » Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:44 am

So, the wife and I are closing on a house with a bunch of finished and semi-finished rooms in the basement. There is a room that is about 12x14, concrete floors, dry wall over concrete on all walls, drop ceiling. It has been designated as "my room". It is raw enough that I can do a lot with it, and it is FULLY underground, so the neighbors won't be able to hear anything.
One problem: the room adjoins to another small concrete room that houses the furnace and air conditioner. When they're on, you can for sure hear them running - no way you could track. The existing door between the rooms is a swing-type wooden door. With the correct door situation it might be possible to cancel out a lot of the noise, as the concrete walls seem to be enough to block out the "whoosh".
Does anyone know if the furnace/air conditioner need the ventilation from surrounding areas to run? Anyone else dealing with this problem?
If I can't remedy it, it'll just be a practice room and the recording equipment will get scattered through the other downstairs rooms, but it would be nice to have a dedicated space.
Thanks!

pulse_divider
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Post by pulse_divider » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:18 am

I don't know the answer to your questions, but I use my basement for tracking despite the fact that the AC and furnace are down there. I just turn them off via the thermostat while tracking quiet stuff. I don't even bother when recording stuff like guitar amps.

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trodden
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Post by trodden » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:37 am

pulse_divider wrote:I don't know the answer to your questions, but I use my basement for tracking despite the fact that the AC and furnace are down there. I just turn them off via the thermostat while tracking quiet stuff. I don't even bother when recording stuff like guitar amps.
word. You really can get away with a lot when tracking loud schtuff. Like the roommate who always decides to run the bath water exactly the moment set up is done and tracking begins. as long as its loud rock and not vox overdubs, the rest of the house carries on like normal.

choke3d
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Post by choke3d » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:54 am

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I've done plenty of sweat-or-freeze while tracking scenarios, might be the way to go short-term. Since I'll be here for a while, I'd love to get a semi-permanent solution going. Plus, I'm excited about dedicated space that I won't have to break down/set-up a lot.
You raise good points though, if I wanted to track anything quiet, I'd probably use a different space anyway with higher ceilings, etc.

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Post by drumsound » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:01 pm

If there's space around the HVAC and it's not just a little closet you should be fine. My landlord is an HVAC guy I'll ask him.

You might want to use it like a reverb chamber....

choke3d
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Post by choke3d » Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:21 pm

thanks for the help - Looking last night, i realized that the drop ceiling has tons of space above it, and the room the units are in is pretty big. Unless I put some serious thought into the space above the drop ceiling, it is kind secondary to worry about the door too much because the space above the ceiling might as well be the same room.
There are a ton of crazy, mostly dry wall-finished cinder block spaces in this basement area. I think I'll be experimenting for quite a while, I'm just trying to find the ideal "control room" right now, and this less than ideal room noise-wise just happens to be the absolute best space-wise and isolation-from-neighbors wise.

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jmoose
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Post by jmoose » Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:29 pm

First off, yah...you need to leave a vented door on the furnace room. It needs the intake and closing it off is not only a bad idea...but you'd probably fail inspection.

Is there a chance that you could rip down the drop ceiling put in a standard drywall ceiling with fiberglass above it? It'll sound better and increase the isolation between the basement and the rest of the house. Rather then thinking about the studio area as a retrofit, think about it as raw construction, especially since it's going to be a permanent thing. Unless your neighbors are right on top of you and sharing a foundation (like a brownstone) you should be more concerned with transmission to the rest of the house.
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