Building my teaching/recording studio

After graduating school and moving back to LA, I didn't have much planned out for the summer except taking a bit of time to contemplate my life and figure out my next step. I ended up doing a lot more then sitting around twiddling my thumbs and had a completed studio by the end of the summer.

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My teaching/recording Studio

This all started when my grandma suggested to my dad that we should remodel his old work shed into my teaching studio. I needed a place to teach and my dad wasn't using it for anything except for storing a bunch of a junk so we decided to remodel it.

How the shed looked like before we started. We tore away a bunch of rotting wood so that's why its missing half a wall.

Started putting in a new frame for the wall we took down

My dad built this work shed back in the 2000s from a bunch of scrap wood from a piano shipping box and a garage door. None of the walls are actually parallel with each other because he didn't have wood of the same length to work with. This actually turns out to be a really great thing after the initial pain it caused because everything needed to be measured and cut exactly to fit.

putting in the ceiling with insulation, I should've chosen a insulation more specific to sound isolation but we were going the cheap but effective route.

finished the new wall with some of the inner wall put up already.

So at this point most of the major work was done for the studio and I went about making small adjustments and improvements to the overall studio. I took all the scrape wood left over from the ceiling and walling to make a skyline diffuser.

I had to cut every random scape piece of wood into a uniformed block, this took way too much time and I hurt my finger from a piece of wood flying out of the table saw after a solid 6 hours of nonstop cutting.

Gluing the blocks together, this took quite a while and the better part of two days as I needed everything to dry before I can glue on the next set.

Finished diffuser, I used a dark walnut finish at the end

So around this point of the project by dad also wanted to put in a deck outside the studio and a new bathroom for the students.

My bamboo planter made from random pieces of scrape wood

With bamboo

and finalllyyyy after over three months of work we finished the studio. It took a lot longer than any of us expected but we also didn't expect it to look this good.

Walk in

Finished deck with view of the new bathroom

inside of the completed studio

View from the other side

Bonus, little planters I put in from more scrape wood for my brother's cactus/succulent gardens

This was a really taxing project but it was really satisfying to finish in the end and it sounds fantastic in there. I didn't need that many absorbers because the natural resonance from the off angle walls work really well with acoustic instruments. Looking forward to sharing things recorded in the studio from here on out!