Moving into warehouse studio space.... advice? (pics!)

[statictrash]

Hey everyone! I've been visiting other studio build forums but came across this site recently and it seems a bit more fitting for my needs... more DIY and low cost..

Anyways, here's the deal. About 5 buddies of mine and myself are getting this warehouse studio space. The focus of this unit is to double as a video and audio production facility. Largely to shoot video with a green screen and enough room to build props, etc. Then, a smaller area (but still large enough) for my recording studio.

We already have the place locked down and are gearing up to move in next week. It was advertised as a 2100sq. ft. space (although I believe it's larger) for $750 a month. I live in Milwaukee. It's a month to month lease but that shouldn't effect us much. We have other friends who rent spaces who have had shows and bands practicing without any trouble. The building manager said, "anything goes" when we were checking it out to begin with.

So, a few thoughts from you all please. What would you do with the area I am going to occupy? Here are two bad examples of the room. The room is about 30' x 20'





Ideally, I'd love to have a drum/live room setup and a small control room. There will video shoots going on whenever so my plans are to build a room for isolation from the drums.

The ceilings are 12 ft and 9ft to where the upper floor joists begin.

As you can see from the pics, the unit has overhead fire extinguishing squirters! This concerns me a bit.

The whole warehouse building is square with a huge courtyard, so there are no neighbors connecting to the unit, except upper and lower tenants.

Mr. Manager said any buildout is possible and noted any walls can be built up as long as their free standing, so, wouldn't a floating room be considered free standing!?!?!!!

Here's the whole photo album of the entire unit.

http://picasaweb.google.com/statictrash ... tressSuite


And here's my current equipment list (small but works well):

PC equipped DAW

Interface:
M-Audio FastTrack 8R

Preamps/Comps:
FRM Really Nice Preamp
FRM Really Nice Compressor
ART MPA Gold 2 Preamp
(w/ Telefunken Smooth-Plates)
PreSonus TubePre

Distribution:
Powerplay PRO-XL 4-ch. Headphone Amp
(4) Audio Technica M40FS Headphones

Monitors:
M-Audio BX8a Monitors

Microphones:
(2) Cascade Fatheads
(5) Shure SM57s
(1) Shure Beta 52
(1) Sennheiser e609a

[Bedfordstop]

2100sq. ft. space (although I believe it's larger) for $750 a month. I live in Milwaukee.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can someone please remind me once again why the F*%# i live in New York???

(sigh)

Anyways that looks AMAZING! how good are you w/ carpentry? Whats your budget?

Having done this sort of thing several times, the primary concern usually starts with something like landlord / neighbors / lease - before you even start recording, you have to KNOW (not strongly suspect) that your upstairs / downstairs neighbors aren't going to freak out when you have an 8 hour session of drums and bass that goes all day saturday

also **for the love of god** get as long a lease as you possibly can if you are going to do a proper buildout. I had a 5 year lease a few years ago, now i am on an 8 year lease , and god willing next time i do this kind of project i am going to bite the building and just buy the damn building.

Trust me a long lease will benefit you. If you don't want to keep your place anymore in a year, just break the lease. its unlikely anything will happen to you. trust me , i am a landlord and i never even think about suing anyone who cuts out on a lease. lawyers ain't cheap

if it were me , and i had 600 sq ft , i would think about an 220 sqft control room and an 380 sqft live room , with slightly irregular walls , at least one or two iso booths or little amp cabinets.

Also - don't worry about the sprinklers - provided they are being maintained properly, they will only go off if you physically hit them with something like a ladder or piece of drywall (there should be a sprinkler shutoff somewhere in the building) or theres a fire , in which case youre probably f*cked anyway. you can check , but most sprinkler heads blow one at a time, not all at the same time.

check for water damage on the ceiling or floor !! its easiest to fix before you start renovating

get a good electrician too - you don't want no crazy weird hums , or your tube amp to lose volume when someone next door turns on a table saw

theres so much more - send me a message if you wanna chat some.

OH! and buy/borrow/steal enough money to upgrade you d/a converters - that has been by far the biggest leap for me in terms of the quality of my productions. I got the black lion sig series mod for a 002 - about 1200 bucks but dear lord, the first time i tested it out i almost wept. it the aural equivalent of taking off foggy glasses that i had been wearing for 12 years.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

what he said. word for word.

[statictrash]

First off, I have no idea why you live in New York. I would not be able to do that.

Thanks, it is pretty amazing!

I am great with construction and own many tools. My budget is basically what I can afford to put into this every month, piece by piece.

First thing I'll do is find out about neighbors and their hours. I know there is a photographer above us and some sewing school below us.

A lease may be a good idea after we test the waters out a bit and see what we can get away with but for now, a month to month lease may be what we need. Later we may convince the landlord to extend it for some years if we feel uncomfortable about the month to month thing.


As for the sprinklers, it still sucks they are there, however, if I build two rooms, they will be underneath the sprinklers and should keep most water out of my rooms... maybe I'll consider building the roofs on a bit of an angle and connect some drainage system

I have a friend who is an electrician.





OH! Yes, I am searching for the right AI or D/A for myself. I don't know if an 002/3 would be a wise choice for me. Basically, I'd like to have 18 tracks at most to work with eventually. Right now I get by fine with 8 but like I said, eventually. Something that has some decent preamps for guitars and something I can connect better preamps to for drums, vocals, etc.

Thanks for the input.

[statictrash]

Alright! Got the keys yesterday and went and cleaned up the place and did some measurements for room I will occupy.

What can I do with this space? I want a good sounding live room and a small control room, plus a small vocal booth if possible.

Here are the plans. On the top wall where the star is... there is another room on the other side I may be able to use as well, otherwise I can move that wall to make my room larger. Keep in mind, I need to keep the window to the fire escape open.

[JGriffin]

What can I do with this space? I want a good sounding live room and a small control room, plus a small vocal booth if possible.

Agh. This is exactly the kind of space I wish I could find in Chicago (Marshall's space is pretty badass of course). I'd say live room, control room, possibly some iso space, and then use the live room for video shoots as well as recording/rehearsal/events. In lean times rent it out to yoga classes and dance rehearsals. Seriously, dance troupes are always looking for large spaces in which to rehearse. You might have to buy a roll of marley if you decide to do that though.

But I'm thinking business applications, and you're still building. Cart->horse.

[statictrash]

Oh, no need to share the live room with the video shoots. Not sure if you noticed the link to the entire unit photo album, but there is plenty of space for that.

I just need to figure out the best way/size to build my live room and control room.

[roscoenyc]

You think you could use it as is? (plus treatment of course)

Do you have to build walls?

[statictrash]

I may not need to but I at least want to build a solid tracking room. The control room can be less sounds proof and more acoustically sound. I have new plans now after talking with the group tonight. I'll post them soon to get any feedback but I'm ready to start building next weekend.

[rhythm ranch]

It's a very cool space. Congratulations! Not to piss on your parade, but I do have a caveat regarding your room within a room idea. It's extremely doubtful that any fire marshall is going to be OK with ceilings between you and the sprinklers. Anything that blocks the flow of water from sprinkler to floor is a no-no. You'd have to run extensions on the sprinklers down through your new ceiling to keep it legal.

Of course, you can try to avoid inspections by the fire marshall, but if the place ever does catch on fire and you've blocked the sprinklers the liability issues might get real ugly.

You may want to get more info on your local codes before you begin construction. It's a serious drag to have to tear shit down after you've spent a lot of money and time putting it up.

Check with the Milwaukee Fire Dept:
Bureau of Construction and Maintenance
118 W. Virginia Street
Milwaukee WI, 53204
414-286-8976

And also check out: http://www.milwaukee.gov/Sprinkler4114.htm

As far as how to lay out the space, I'd put the control room at the "big" end of the room (the top of your diagram) and tracking in the smaller space. Unless you're planning on bringing in larger groups that will all be playing at once, I'd keep the majority of the space for where you'll be working the most - the control room.

[r0ck1r0ck2]

HA!

welcome to the fortress!

tell kent cory to suck my di*&.

what floor are you on?

hmm.

here's a few things,

the windows in the fortress are old and getting older.
even in the photos i notice some water damage.
you're going to have to repair them as best you can.
if you're lucky this means buckets of caulk.

it looks like you're on the south side of the building, that's great, as there are no condos or other buttheads to annoy.

the fire escape is very easy to get on.
i've broken in many a time when i was loaded and didn't want to take the stairs.
think about securing that.
i've no idea if there have been breakin's recently, you should ask your new neighbors.

the walls dividing you from your next door neighbors and the hallway are shit drywall.
you'll have to fix/insulate that.

the floors/ceiling are pretty solid wood. they would be the last thing i worried about.

if your heating is forced air, it's shared between the other rooms on that wing.
they'll hear everything you do.



but still.

i dearly miss living in the fortress, and wish you complete success.

[roscoenyc]

that ^^ is a great post!

[statictrash]

Wow! We're on the south side, 3rd floor.

It appears we have our own furnace and the only ducts are coming into our unit.

Is Kent really a bad guy? What did you use your space for?

Kent told us we can build anything that is freestanding and remains 2-3 feet away from any sprinkler systems. From the sound of it, it seems that he really doesn't give a shit what we do and that inspection is rare there.

The east side wing on the 3rd floor is completely empty and inhabitable.

The wooden floors are solid but still pretty thin. 5-6" at most. I can hear people walking around upstairs when they're there. I doubt anyone above or below is going to enjoy the sound of someone pounding on drums.

We heard another band practicing the other night somewhere in the building.


............last thing>>>>>>> where is the huge piano wing I heard about?

[r0ck1r0ck2]

i'm afraid this will be on the long side.

1. make sure about your furnace. if there are no heating/ventilation pipes entering or leaving you're good to go.
and that's a real plus.
that said, when they blow, they'll get pretty loud.

2. kent...
kent is in charge of several (god knows how many) apartment buildings in the marquette neighborhood. i'll let that fact speak for itself.
on top of that, he is in charge of this massive warehouse with about 100 rooms, all filled with wingnuts.
i'ld say he's about as nice as it's possible to be under those circumstances.

he's like any dangerous animal... if you don't cause him any trouble, he won't cause you any.

i used my space to get girls. more information than that, and i'll need a deposit.


3. try to bust into the east side wing.. god knows what's in there.
besides, where will you hide when the shit goes down?
my suggestion would be the tower. you'll have to figure out how to get in there.
it's really scary.

4. when you say 5-6", you mean five sixths of an inch? that sounds about right.
personally i would guess them to be thicker.
that doesn't mean that sound/vibrations won't pass threw, that only means they're 3 times as massive as the stupid drywall walls.

here comes the long winded portion.


5. how to sound proof your place. this is where the going gets tough. and my advice is going to be really ghetto.

i assume you're broke, and don't want to blow thousands of dollars on this.

do you want to build a separate control room?

5a.
i'm not afraid of the sprinklers. with careful construction technique and lots of drywall paste/caulk/rubber? you can get right around those fuckers..
but you've got to be careful and check if what you're doing is really illegal.

it's true that inspections are rare, but that neighborhood has changed quite a lot.
you don't want to do a build and find out you've got to tear the whole thing down.

5b.
you'll want to build a room within a room within a room if you can.
you'll want to float the floor if you can.
you'll want to suspend a false ceiling if you can.

all that's fine, and you should be able to find much 2nd hand/surplus material in milwaukee.
oh, hobo in west allis comes to mind..
but i'm sure you can find other sources if you're tenacious like the bunny and scrappy like the hound.
perhaps scroungy like the fox in the henhouse.
check for unguarded construction sites.

5c. the floor materials. a lot of 2x4"s plywood and maybe some concrete.
neoprene hockey pucks below the upright 2x4" stands.

if you want, you could only build a drum riser. but try to keep it solid and as isolated from the floor as possible.

5c-1. the walls. two sheets of drywall on one side with roofing material between the sheets. those rubbery, asphalty 1/8" rolls.
then the studs

then another sheet of drywall..

stuff insulation in between the studs.

stagger the cross beams for more strength.

i would personally use sheet metal studs, because they're lighter and less likely to have bends., also much easier to run your cabling threw, as they usually have holes in them. hopefully they're cheaper as well.

5d.
the ceiling
some of your upright studs can touch the ceiling, others can be attached to the last horizontal crossbeam with hangers.. better yet, hangers with rubber isolation washers.

they make these sheets of rubber with insulation on one side.
you could cover the ceiling with that. make the seals tight, and you'll reduce sound transmission quite a bit.

i'm not going to lie. hanging a drop ceiling above the sprinklers and below the ceiling will be a bitch. but it can be done.
you've just got to layout the frame for the ceiling panels well, then be really careful installing the rest of it.

all this seems overbuilt, but it will make for an isolated room.
and again, if you look, you should be able to find second hand/surplus building materials.





the piano room?

that's a different story.

[r0ck1r0ck2]

ok.

i've taken a second look at your photos and am confounded.

the sprinklers are very different from the ones i had in my space.

they are much closer to the ceiling that i thought.

this is to extinguish fires on both the ceiling above and the floor below.

this complicates matters.

you could hide the sprinklers with a drop ceiling, but you would then cut off your fire protection to the floor.

oof.

this is tricky and i can only offer illegal advice.
more worrisome than robbing construction sites.

ugh.

the easiest thing will be talking to your neighbors and working out a schedule.

dunno.
i hope someone else chimes in here.