Attic Room Studio Build

[Luke W]

Excellent pictures Luke, and a lovely job all round. I had, sort of, planned to take more pics of my studio refurb but just got impatient to be getting on with the job

Thanks very much. I try to get as many as I can with most projects, I do tend to end up with some gaps where I got carried away and forgot to take some though.

Following with interest as I'll be doing something similar soon myself. The photos of the construction are really good to see

Glad it helps

[Luke W]

The next stage was some panels above the corner traps that came out at an angle to meet the window frame, although it's not much of an angle it meant I could get an extra 50mm of Rockwool in at the deepest end.

The start of a frame:


Test fit:


Rockwool in and frame fixed :


Shorter version for underneath:


Sides finished:

[Hugh Robjohns]

Nice work, and I'm sure a lot of people will find the constructional images very helpful.

H

[Luke W]

Cheers, Hugh. I hope so, I've found the forums very useful over the years so it'd be nice if some help could go back the other way for a change!

Onto the next stage, finishing the sloped ceiling panels. I wanted the edge of the panel to sit completely flush with the ceiling rather than be bordered by a timber frame, and the angle of the pitch roof made the cuts rather interesting. I started out by marking out where the panel should sit, and taking some measurements along where I wanted the braces to sit. I like just cracking on with a saw as much as the next person, but some planning and paper definitely helped here.

Marked out:


The simple half of the frame:


I then clamped that half in place, and double checked measurements for the braces.

Angles on the edge of the braces:


Because of the odd angles, I cut the braces slightly longer than necessary and then trimmed down the straight end once the angles were fitting nicely. This allowed a bit of room for error, and cutting off the other end at 90 degrees is a far simpler task than trying to shave a few mm off of the angle you've just got to sit nicely...

Another test fit with the braces attached, the longer one does fit, but gravity is doing its bit. Honest:


You can never have too many clamps:


A couple of shots with the rockwool in:



Final test fit:


These came back down as they were getting fixed together and placed up as one panel once I'd got the fabric on. I also got another few slabs of rockwool behind them before fixing them in, so at the deepest end theres around 250mm.

[Folderol]

That's some serious carpentry there - those angles would drive me off screaming

[Watchmaker]

You can never have too many clamps:

Secret sauce 101.

[Dennis J Wilkins]

Hi Luke,

Looks very nice and I expect it sounds fine. You've set up significant treatment symmetrically left to right, and the odd room/ceiling angles should help disperse standing waves. If you get a chance you should try Room EQ Wizard to view frequency and time domain performance. Really helps to see just what is going on at the primary listening position and a few feet around it. You might get some rear reflections from the windows which was an issue I had until I added the hanging panels I showed in the Studio SOS article in April (2019). It does cut out the nice view and natural light, but in my case I wanted the room light-tight for photo work, so I didn't mind! In your room, heavy drapes might do the trick if you find any comb filtering issues from rear reflections, and you could open it when you're noodling around with your guitars and don't need mix/mastering level room response.

I hope you really enjoy it!

[Luke W]

Thanks, Dennis. I'm planning on giving REW a go out of interest, I'd like to have measured the room first as well to get a comparison but my lack of patience got the better of me. The window has got some curtains now, but any good that's done has probably been reversed by the two screens! I've made sure they're back behind the monitors as much as possible to minimise any issues, and it seems to be a good compromise. There's still two skylights in the rear wall/ceiling so natural light is still available.

[Luke W]

That's some serious carpentry there - those angles would drive me off screaming

Thanks, I find that things like this always look more daunting than they are though. Measure twice and all that...

[Luke W]

Fabric time... Based on recommendations on here some general searching, I went for some Camira Cara fabric. It costs a little more than some of the alternatives, but it's really easy to work with and I think the finish makes it more than worth it. It also comes in a decent width so I ended up with very little waste.

A few of the panels and the traps didn't get any pictures taken as I got a bit carried away once I'd started the first one, but theres enough of the others to see what was going on.

Using an off-cut for one of the smaller panels (missing some Rockwool in this picture):


Front side:


One of the square panels:


Front of both square panels (the fold in the left one has since worked its way out):


Side panels all done:


Before the final fixing I gave the backs of the panels a spray with a mix of PVA/water to make sure no loose fibres went floating around.

[OneWorld]

That looks very neat. It certainly puts my DIY / woodworking skills to shame

Same here, no matter what I try all the wiring looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory

[Sam Spoons]

Good colour choice there Luke.

[Luke W]

Good colour choice there Luke.

Does it look a bit familiar?!

[Luke W]

Onto the ceiling panel fabric...

To get a nice edge on the outside of the ceiling panels I attached some thin moulding to the edge of the frames, held in place with some panel pins and glue. Once it had dried I cut the edges flush and sanded them over, making sure everything was nice and smooth so there wasn't any chance of tearing the fabric at the edges.

Glued up, waiting to dry:


Fabric stapled roughly into place:


Front side:


Once all three ceiling panels were covered I lined them up together and clamped the back edges, and fixed them together by screwing through the frames from the inside of the panel outwards, directly into the next frame. A few screws going either way made sure to clamp the panels tightly together, and left a neat join between them.

All three up, with a test fit for the cover plate that finishes up the edge of the panels:


You can also see the cable for a light fitting making its way through behind the panel. To mount a light fitting, I used a bit of 12mm MDF, and covered it with an off-cut of Cara.

Light fitting mount:


With everything fixed back up, the next job was to start framing up and working on some little finishing off bits for around the edges and ends of the various panels. I'll have another sort through some photos and hopefully get some of the next stage up tomorrow.

[Luke W]

This stage seems to have a few less pictures, but I've got some some showing how I got the finish on the wood, and a few various stages of the framing going up.

All of the wood I used was just standard softwood timber, a lot cheaper than using anything fancy. Once pieces were cut to length and fitting nicely I gave all the visible faces and edges a sand over (a fine grit paper was enough as planed timber is usually already fairly smooth), and then set about burning them with a blowtorch. This takes a bit of getting used to, once the flame is close enough the wood can go from "exaggerated grain" to simply just on fire rather quickly, I had a go on a few offcuts first to try and avoid having to make things again.

Half way:


Ready:


Two coats of dye rubbed in:


Fitted, after a coat of wax polish:


I also made an end panel to sit above this cover plate, and meet board the light is mounted on. It was another bit of spare MDF cut into shape with an offcut of Cara stapled around it, sized so that the cover plate being screwed in clamps it firmly into place.

[Folderol]

Now that is positively sneaky

[Luke W]

Things were really starting to take shape by this point, I did this while I had a bit of time off so I was keen to get it in working state before I got too busy again, and the arrival of a shiny new keyboard and a copy of Komplete Ultimate was encouraging me even more.

I decided to build a stand to get my screen mounted back behind the front faces of the monitors to minimise reflections as much as possible, and to save on desk space. I also thought that if something was going to sit there at the back wall, it may as well be full of Rockwool.

The start of a frame, using some spare bits of MDF and ply:


Using up all of my Rockwool offcuts:


Front view, with a top made from a leftover bit of a previous build:


Trimming up the bottom with more offcuts:


My speaker stands also arrived around this time from Custom Design, another recommendation from here. Here is one assembled and ready:

[Luke W]

Next up, side panel framing. I also decided to make some front faces for the panels at the back to break things up a bit visually as it was all looking very blue.

I cut a load of slats from two different width timbers, and glued them between two strips cut to the length of the rear panels. These then got the same blowtorch/dye/wax finish to match the rest of the framework.

One in progress:


Test fit (upside down ):


Various stages of frame finishing:


A finished face plate:


One side complete, the frame around the edges is screwed straight to the frame around the rockwool, and the face plates were cut in very tightly and have some panel pins doing the rest:


I then got my desk and kit set up and actually had a listen to some music. I'd been working almost entirely on headphones with the desk facing a different way, so I'd had a listen to some tracks with my old Tannoys on the desk just before I cleared the room to give me an idea of how the space sounded untreated (no surprise endings there). Listening to the same material again with the panels up really was surprising, I had expected a difference, just not quite as much considering the limited space.

I paused on the build here and used the setup as it was for a few months. Half finished, it looked like this:

[Watchmaker]

nice shop! I'm surprised you used mapp gas for the burn, I would have used a lower temperature gas, but the results are stunning. I can never tell if I like woodwork more than music. I seem to more time with saws and chisels as I do recording or playing these days. Well done Luke. More pics please.

[Luke W]

Thanks, really appreciate it

I really enjoy woodwork, it's definitely up there with audio/music for me. You're right about the choice of gas, something a little cooler would have made my life a lot easier but I had a bottle to hand and it got the result I was after, I just had to be a little careful!

I've got a few more pictures of panels and some other little bits and pieces and then a silly amount of the desk build, so I'll get some up here once I've sorted through them.