your studio is honestly one of the coolest diy projects i've seen, you and your dad should be super proud of it. congratulations man, your hard work has really paid off. i'd be so stoked to have a recording space like that. also, you can get some color changing led strips p cheap from ikea
Thank you very much. I am proud of us, it was a lot of hardwork but I can work in there knowing that I built it with my own two hands. I already have the LED strips tho, we just need to find time to put them in.
When life gives you shipping containers, you make recording studios out of them because... I don’t know, why not?
This is what it looked like when we started (feat. myself). The walls were really reverberant, but they made a dope sound when you hit them with something. I actually sampled the container before we started building but I haven’t touched them since.
Here’s what the walls looked like. Lot’s of 2x4s in this. You’ll see.
We had to use a forklift to transport the walls over to the container. Those things were heavy. One of the walls actually broke on the way there. That was fun.
Here’s the side walls, back wall and ceiling. We just screwed everything to the floor. For the ceiling, we cut 2x4s to length and screwed them to the top of the walls. We used shims in various places to make everything fit tight.
Here’s a shot of the dividing wall for the control room and vocal booth/hallway.
Door installation. We were a tad off, so we had to shim the sides. The gaps were filled in with spray foam I believe. A lot of the small gaps were filled in with foam.
There’s the doors from the other side. In case you were wondering.
Here’s just an absolutely terrible shot of wiring. There was enough of a gap behind the framing to fit the wire though. We did have to drill though in some spots. This picture sucks, so lets move on
So I skipped a few parts, but the wire is all run to each outlet and you can barely see towards the top that the wall dividing the vocal booth and hallway is up. I think the outside wall is up too. The breaker box next to Dad is installed inside because it rains where I’m from a lot. Like seriously, like 9 months out of the year.
So here’s a shot from the outside (feat. 3rd door). We used Azek PVC boards as our outside walls.
Here’s a shot of the vocal booth. We had a glass shelf that we turned into a window. Don’t ask how we curved the PVC. It’s a secret.
So once everything was framed up and wires were run, We tried spray foam insulation...which was underwhelming to say the least. So we used everyone favorite insulation sound absorbing material:
Roxul. Lots of it. It’s good stuff.
It’s not itchy.
So we got a deal on this material called Homasote which was kinda a new thing to use instead of sheetrock. It was advertised to me as sound absorbing material. So I was like “Dope, let’s do it.” As we put it up I realized it’s not really sound absorbing.
Great.
I went with carpet tile because people kept telling me that’s what I should do. Looks more pro and hides dirt and stuff better, or so I’m told.
This is the color I chose after some thought. It was at this point were the color scheme of the room completely changed from what I originally had planned.
We texturized the walls. I’m glad we did it in the end because it looks a lot nicer. It would’ve looked weird on the Homasote. Then I primed the walls for paint. Took two full gallons to do the whole thing.
Here’s the first coat of paints. I originally wanted to have like beach colors for the walls ceiling and floors.
Kinda like this. Beaches just make me happy and calm for some reason, so I wanted to go with that. It just didn’t work out though. So I went for a purple, blue and black scheme.
This is the second coat with the carpet tiles installed. I dig it.
More 2x4s for...
Sound panels (feat. my stupid face).
Here’s some of the different sizes I made.
Here’s what they look like done. I used more Roxul and wrapped them in fabric. I also wanted to do a darkish red color along with the black, but the fabric place didn’t have enough of what I wanted and I didn’t want to wait two weeks for it to come it. So all black it is.
And then we finally got electricity!
Not pictured: The frustration it took to get to this point and all the troubleshooting we had to do to get it right afterwards.
My humble lava lamp was one of the first things that had to go in the studio. I’ve had this thing since my first studio, which was just an untreated one room shed. It’s kinda like my signature and until I own another studio, it stays here.
And then I started throwing other stuff in. We hung the panels with Monkey Hooks. Notice the custom base board. Also, this picture sucks. I’m sorry.
Vibe mode. (note: my phone camera doesn’t like the lighting in here)
Vocal booth has vibe as well.
Then I threw my rig in there.
The other side. 5150 for good measure. I’ll eventually get treatment for those doors.
Vibe mode with everything else in there. This picture kinda sucks as well.
That’s about it. I’m not very good at documenting this type of stuff and a few mistakes were made along the way. but I love it. I left some the stuff out that I feel didn’t need mention, like our totally custom air conditioning set up and some electricity stuff.
This is also still a work in progress. I eventually want to replace the Christmas lights with LEDs that change color and some other small things. And I’m sure as I get different gear, things will change as well, but for right now it’s pretty dope.
Special thanks to my father who made this thing happen. I’d really have no idea what to do if it weren’t for him.
Until I get around to making real posts about stuff. Feel free to ask about anything. Engineering, mixing, mastering, what I think of mixes, gear, you name it!
How'd you like MI and was it worth it? Could you have just went out and did an internship/shadowing and learned just as much? (can u tell im your biggest fan)
I get this question often and it’s always difficult to answer. I feel wishy-washy about the whole thing. I feel like it was good for me to go and experience a new place and college, but by the end of my time there I felt like I was still missing something. Yes I knew how to record decently, but I wasn’t quite sure on everything. I liked learning on the different boards and the teachers. However, I felt like the whole thing was just a jumping off point.
That being said, I didn’t learn to mix or master there and that’s what I found most upsetting. I wanted to learn how mix as well as record and I felt it was more focused on recording and Protools. I had to learn most of what I know mixing-wise by myself.
I feel like there are better ways currently to learn the trade. Private lessons, Internships (like you said) and the tons of resources out there online nowadays. It’ll take hard work and a ton of practice with any route you chose.
Overall, I feel like if you’re in the right location and have the budget, go give it a shot. If you have to move and get massive loans that you’ll have to pay off, maybe reconsider.
have you ever recorded live drums? if you did how did you go about doing it?
I did a few times while I was at MI.. I don’t have the space or mic selection to do it at my place though. MI provided everything we needed to do almost everything.
