Recording Studio Build #1 – Renovating A Barn

On: February 15, 2023

I have had this dream for years (decades?): building a rehearsal & recording studio next to my house to be able to play and record music anytime with friends without disturbing neighbors or the family. This time has finally arrived!

Here is the full story, starting with the very beginning: the renovation of the barn in the garden before doing anything inside to transform it into a music studio.

The Barn Before

As you can see, the old barn (probably built in the early days of the 20th century, maybe earlier) is in a pretty bad condition (except for the roof).

The whole building has to be consolidated before doing anything inside.

Renovation

The plan to fix the barn is simple: remove all cladding, consolidate existing beams and create a wood structure to support the whole building, then close the barn with wooden cladding and windows (let there be light!).

To minimize scaffolding work and avoid that the whole structure collapses, the destruction/reconstruction is done wall after wall.

1. Destruction

It’s time to open up the barn! Let’s get rid of walls and floor…

As you can see that’s pretty heavy work, but it’s necessary to make it a safe place.

2. Reconstuction

In addition to the brand new wood structure to consolidate the buiilding, an extra beam was added at the center of the barn to support the studio floor (it will be much heavier than the current attic).

The new cladding is tainted to look similar to the old one. In order to maximize studio space, the stairs are located outside the building.

About windows and doors: openings are usually the weak point in any studio. I have made sure to choose the heaviest windows and door I could find, with the largest acoustic attenuation. And there is no ventilation on these because you don’t want air (and sound) to flow freely thru such openings.

I plan to have a separate (passive) system for ventilation that can be closed manually anytime if necessary.

The new beam should hopefully be strong enough

Note: unfortunately, at this stage of the project I had not thought much about vibrations and sound propagation in the structure. I would have otherwise added extra sylomer pads between the beams to avoid the propagation of sound coming from the studio thru the wood structure.

The Studio

Here is what the future studio looks like after re-building the whole structure inside and before adding the windows! Already quite an improvement, isn’t it?