TSRB Podcast 135 - Automatic Episode Transcript — Please excuse any errors, not reviewed for accuracy

Wilson: education is always more valuable as an investment than trying to like just muscle through something and, and making mistakes. So I think we all agree on that.

Whether it's for soundproofing or recording your band. Right. It's like learn how to do it right. The first time. 

Benedikt: hello and welcome to the self recording band podcast. I am your host Benedictine, and I'm here as always with my friend and co-host Malcolm Owen flood. But today we're not alone. Hello. Welcome. We are joined by Wilson Harwood. He is running a website called soundproof, your studio.com. And this is why on this episode, we're gonna talk all about soundproofing. You're a studio and, uh, I wanna welcome, welcome Wilson. So cool that you took the time to do this with us. I have a ton of questions on this topic, and, uh, you might be able to explain to us way better than I could, what it is that you actually do and what soundproofing your studio actually means. And, uh, what that involves. Hello, welcome.

Wilson: Yeah. Having me guys, I'm super excited to be on the podcast 

Malcom: Sweet. 

Wilson: Malcolm and I actually knew each other before, which is crazy. So it's good to see you again, Malcolm

Malcom: Yeah. Yeah. And now question for you, Wilson, when you, uh, reached out to the podcast, were you aware that I was part of it? Cause like 

Wilson: no, not at 

Malcom: and stuff like that. Yeah. Small world. Like what are the chances of all the podcasts

Wilson: I know. Right. It's just a small world and we are joking about that. And so it's pretty 

amazing, 

Malcom: Really all three of us have the same backstory. We all went through the same nerdy business boot camp. Um, not at Wilson and I did at the same time Benedict a little before then. Um, but yeah, it's funny. We all, we all did that. And now here we are. We're all thriving. It's great.

Wilson: Yeah. We're all podcasting now.

Malcom: yeah.

Benedikt: exactly. Exactly. Oh yeah, that's right. Uh, you could tell us more about that on the second too. You not just only run the, the website, but there's a YouTube channel in the podcast and the 

blog

Wilson: yeah. 

Benedikt: A ton of helpful content on that whole topic. I was reading through this. I was listening to a couple of things you put out and, um, I find it very interesting. And partly also, because, I'm building a studio, I'm gonna be building another studio. I'd like to say soon, but I don't really know when exactly it's gonna happen because like we're about to build a house, but like prices went through the roof. And so this whole thing is like paused for now, but it, we will do it eventually. And part of that will be a new studio. and so I'm curious about this whole topic too. And, the, the first thing that came to mind when, when we first got in touch was. That I thought it, it was cool to talk about this because a lot of people, I think, confuse soundproofing with room acoustics. So when we start a studio, when we build our home studio, we typically think about like, some people think about the sound and the room more than anything, like what you're listening to, like, uh, the room acoustics and what the recording sound like, that you record in this room. And then other people are more concerned about a noisy environment or neighbors, um, and like how to prevent sound from going in and out of your studio, which would be soundproofing to my understanding. so maybe you can, you can describe the, the difference real quick for us or tell us if there is a difference, because I know that a lot of people don't really know that and they think like putting a bunch of foam on the walls inside will prevent sound from going out and stuff like that. So maybe you can help us clarify this and 

Wilson: Yeah. egg cartons is. the joke. 

Benedikt: Yeah. 

Wilson: Yeah. no, that's, that's a great starting place. And I think, you know, it's the, one of the most common misconceptions that I've run into with students that I teach. And I think, you know, As a basic understanding, soundproofing is about, like you said, keeping sound in your room or keeping outside sound out of your room, that's it like, it's so simple. And then a room acoustics or acoustic treatment is all about reducing the reflections in your room. So when you have a drywalled room, that's, you know, a rectangle, let's say a bedroom in your house and you walk into it, everything on all the walls have nothing on 'em and the sound is just gonna be bouncing around. If you clap, you're gonna hear that pings. and all those things are not desirable for record. So, what we wanna do is with room treatment, remember this is not soundproofing is to put up acoustic panels. and sometimes, uh, foam does work for this occasionally and, and curtains can work for this. but ideally, you know, room acoustic panels and base traps will reduce all those reflections in your room and help have a B easier listening environment. Um, so that's acoustic treatment and that 

gets confused all the time. Especially if you go on Amazon, for example, and you search soundproofing curtains, they actually market them as soundproofing curtains. When what they should say is these are acoustic treatment curtains, and 

they're not even that good at acoustically 

treating You know, it's kind 

of a last resort. So I think it's a, it's a world of mess on the internet. So I've been trying to help people out with that and figure out the difference and how to do both.

Benedikt: Awesome. So, okay. That's interesting. You said how to do both. So you also, um, let, let let's first clarify what it means when you say you work with your students. So you have a website, you have, a blog, a podcast, the YouTube channel, but you also offer courses. And as far as I know coaching, so you're teaching people how to do this properly. And, uh, when you say you do both or you, you, you teach them how to do both. Do you also talk about room acoustics or is it really just soundproofing that you do 

Wilson: that's a good question. And I mean, so I call it soundproof, your studio, which is right on the nose. It's kind of, uh, I don't know why I chose that name, but it, it gets the point across, but early on, I was like, you know, I wanted to help people from the very beginning, like yourself Benedict, but obviously you're, you know, a lot more cuz you are an engineer and you've thought about this a lot. Taking you from the very beginning, let's say, you know, nothing to building a beautiful studio in your backyard or in your basement. Uh, and part of that is room acoustics. You know, I did feel like adding that on after you build the soundproof studio is, Hey, let's talk about room acoustics. And, and so far I'm kind of stopping there. It's like, okay, if you wanna learn how to mix, if you wanna learn how to 

record, there's millions of courses out there, um, to help you to do that. So as, as of right now, it's really just focusing on getting an amazing room to record in, and then you take it from there.

Benedikt: Awesome. So you're offering 

the the whole package of building a studio, which makes sense. I mean, if somebody wants to build a studio, they want the whole thing and not just the outside shell, basically. Yeah. 

Malcom: Yeah. That makes sense. You, you mentioned something curious, you said soundproofing really boils down to either keeping sound in or keeping sound out, um, at its like core principles. 

Do you, is, is one of those more common for what people are looking for? Do you find that people are having, uh, is the main issue usually that, Hey, we're really loud and we need to keep a sound in, or is this you the opposite?

Wilson: I don't know. I think that's a good question too, because you know, it, the, the funny thing is it accomplishes both by 

soundproofing. You're gonna obviously keep the same amount of sound out as you are gonna keep the same amount of sound in because the level of your soundproofing will do both. So like, if you're a rock band and you're rehearsing in a soundproof room, your neighbors won't hear you, but you also won't hear the neighbor's dog barking outside. Um, and you probably won't hear airplanes flying over the house as long as they're, you know, not really low, but 

like, you know, a hundred, 200 feet, 300 feet up in the air. You probably won't really hear 'em as much. You won't hear thunder the same way. So it, it works in both situations, but I think a lot of people, that's a good question. I think there's a lot of people, musicians who want to keep sound. So like if you're a producer or something, I think the subwoofer is probably one of the biggest issues that people run across with is like, Hey, I I'm listening to music. I got this big sub and my neighbors or my wife hates that it's always on. Or like I have a kid and I wanna be able to produce at night while they're sleeping. Like that would be amazing to have it full blast and not have to worry about waking them up. Whereas I think the average person is way more interested about keeping sound out of their room. So like, you know, you'll, there's a lot of people that aren't musicians that wanna soundproof 

and it's cuz they have noisy neighbors so 

I think that that's kind 

of what I've come across and those people usually are pissed when they find out what it takes to sound proof. 

They're they're like, wait, I'm not spending that much money. I don't, I, I thought 

I could just put up the, the egg cartons , 

you 

Benedikt: yeah. Ex 

Wilson: and keep the noisy neighbors out.

Benedikt: exactly. Like when I built the studio. I, I asked them acquisition how to go about this because I have a, like, this was a big room and I divided it and built, um, a live room into the big room. So I divided it into the live room at the control room. And I had a, to two shop next to me, which, which is not there anymore, but I had neighbors when I moved in here and I wanted to be able to record bands here without like driving the, to two artists crazy next to next to my, my studio. And, um, I thought about a couple of different solutions and I talked to an acoustician and he explained it, like, he also told me like, that is the hardest part, like acoustics and all of that is easier, but like keeping, making sure that a loud band complain here without the sound going out is really difficult to do. And, um, the analogy, what that he used was. Because I thought, like I could just treat one wall or one wall and the roof or whatever. And he was like, that's like building a fish tank and leaving one of the sides open, you know, like the water will still run out and it like doesn't really work like that. And, and then I learned what, what it actually takes to to build, um, something like that. And it's, it's really not so easy to do. I mean, we pulled it off, but it's not it's it's far from being a hundred percent, um, you know, um, soundproof it's way better than it was, but it's still not perfect. And I'm wondering, uh, Wilson, when somebody let's say somebody has a home with a spare room that they wanna use for the studio, but maybe they also have some space in the backyard or something, or they even have a, a shed or a cabin or something there, would it be easier to treat an existing or to, to like, yeah. To, to soundproof an existing room inside or outside the house, whatever. Uh, or would it be easier to just build something from scratch? If you have the space, like a, a little thing in the backyard or something, what would be better to do or easier.

Wilson: Yeah. Well, I think it all comes down to the foundation. Cause one of the hardest things to soundproof is the floor. And one of the best ways to soundproof is to use a concrete foundation. 

Uh, if you don't have a concrete foundation, you just have to do a lot of work reinforcing underneath your floor. Which is just a pain in the butt. You gotta rip up the, the ceiling below you to put what basically what you do is you put, um, mass underneath the floor. And the best way to do that is to use five, 8 cents drywall, which is really heavy. And it's a lot of work, so it's not ideal. so if you can start on a concrete slab, say in a basement, or if you have a garage that was built on a concrete slab, then you're light years ahead of the person that doesn't have that 

in my situation for all you listening. I built my studio in my backyard. I kind of knew that's what I wanted to do. When I bought my house, I was like bought my house. And probably like, you will be Benedict when you buy your house, he'll be like, all right. This is like mapping out where the studio be was flags in the backyard and kind of imagining. 

Um, 

Benedikt: that. Like, the plan is already there. We just have to 

Wilson: Yeah. 

yeah. But you know, you'll save a ton of money by building within an existing structure. So if I had built. In my, if I had a basement, which I didn't, or if I had a garage, I would've saved a lot of money by building on a concrete slab. Ironically, in my house, there is a concrete slab portion of the house. So I could have built the studio there and saved a ton of money, but I knew that I wanted it to be separate from the house and all this 

stuff like that. So that, that's sort of the most important thing to think about, um, when you're starting out and, and not, not to say that you can't build it on top of a, a regular floor, what we call a wood deck and the wood deck is, um, how most houses are built, where you just have beams going across, and then you put plywood on top of that. And then you put your floor on top of the plywood 

and, and that, that has no mass really. I mean, it's like, you can knock on that and it'll resonate down into the space.

Benedikt: That that's an interesting topic though, because, I think. Totally like also totally dependent on where you live. Because as far as I know, American houses are a lot, like what you just described, but also here in Germany, a lot of the houses here are really like massive built up from stone or like bricks and stone. And we real, like, not, we, these days more and more, but like a lot of houses don't have this wood construction, but they're actually really, really massive here we built, which is kind of crazy because we don't really have like tornadoes or any bad weather for that. You know, we don't have anything that could like for the most part, sometimes we do, but for the most part, it's pretty safe here, but still we built these massive houses that will probably last, I don't know how many hundred years. So, um, so, so in this case, it's, it's probably a little different. Um, so it, as you said, it depends on the, what the house is built of. How, how massive that is. 

Wilson: And, and, you know, so just so your listeners understand the, the basics of soundproofing is really simple. There's three things. So you have mass, which we already talked about, which is just weight mass, as you learn in physics classes is just weight in, on earth. 

Malcom: which, which makes concrete a great choice. Right. 

Wilson: concrete. Yeah. Yeah. And, and like what Benedict said, if your house is made of stone, then you know, let's say you're in a basement with concrete and I've seen houses like this. There's plenty of 'em out there. And then they have like a stone foundation. And so your walls in the basement are like a foot or two feet thick of stone is like, whoa, you have an amazing studio ready to go. And then, you know, it's just a matter of like, is the ceiling height high enough? Which a lot of times it's like a seven foot basement. So that's an, a not ideal. But, um, the second thing is air, which you mentioned the fish. So when you have one small leak in your room and, and you mentioned a whole wall that wasn't soundproof, but let's say you have like a three inch hole in your room that just leads to the outside. And it's small hole, but your entire room will not be soundproof. If you could have spent $50,000 soundproofing room. But if you have a three inch hole, it's all for nothing. So that that's kind of scary. You gotta think about that. And then the last thing is what are known as flanking paths, which is that sound can travel through materials. So if you have two pieces of wood that are touching, so if you're outside, wood is touching your inside wood frame, then the sound will travel through the structure itself and then into your room. So not through the air, but actually through the materials. 

Benedikt: Same with like pipes heating, stuff like that, right? 

Wilson: exactly pipes heating, things like that. So mass air flanking paths,

Benedikt: Yeah. So I think we didn't mention it even. Um, what, what we all are talking about all the time means that you basically have to build a room inside a room. If you wanna really soundproof a room. Right. So that is what we're talking about. So it's not just slapping something onto the existing wall, but you actually build a new wall, inside of the actual wall. And you do that for all walls of ceiling at the floor, basically. And the, but the two shouldn't touch, right. That's that would be sort of the proper way to do it.

Wilson: Yeah, there's a little bit of confusion with the room within the room though. Um, because you don't ha you, yes, you. So I did that. I, my walls are actually, there's a one inch air gap and I built another frame. So I built a whole nother wall and, and, then left a one inch air gap between the outside wall and the inside wall, which is the best way you can soundproof. But you can also use what's called a, a hat channel system where you have these special acoustic clips that go on your wall. Studs. And then you use these metal firing channels, which they basically just like long metal channels. And then you drill the drywall into the metal channel and the acoustic clip decouples. So remember it makes it so that the sound has less ability to travel from the studs to your drywall and thus into your room. So that's still kind of a room within a room, but I think it's important for people to understand that you don't have to like build an actual room within a room. Um, so like my ceiling is using the firing channel system, so we didn't build like a separate roof. We actually just used acoustic clips and this firing channel to decouple the drywall from the actual roof studs. And my, my ceiling is peaked. So, you know, we don't have an attic or anything like that. And then for the floor, I don't have a floating floor. There's a big misnomer with this idea of floating a floor. And a lot of times floating a floor is a bad idea. Because you're gonna create a reverberant chamber underneath it. So let's say like, you go online and you'll see people being like, oh, I use hockey pucks to float my floor. And it's like, okay, that, that will help a little bit with like, maybe like if you're jumping on the floor, maybe less of that jumping noise, we'll go down to your neighbors below. Um, so like dance studios and things like that, that might be a good idea. Bowling alleys. They might float a floor. but for like below base frequencies and sound, you need mass and that floating a floor doesn't create any mass. So the best thing to do is think about your floor as having a lot of mass first. And then if you get really technical, like, you know, some really professional soundproofing guys, they might actually float, uh, a concrete floor in like a building, like in New York city. You might have a, but that's like kind of crazy. I mean, you're getting into extreme engineering. You need to hire an engineer. um, so for us DIY sound, proofers just think of the concrete slab, or we can talk about the other way of doing it as well. If you guys want

Malcom: Right. Yeah, So I've got a train of thought here. I want to explore. Um, so our listeners are self recording bands, obviously. Um, so I think a lot of them are concerned about probably their amps and drums annoying their neighbors or, or maybe their partners even, you know, like, um, their roommates who knows. and, and I think we can use your studio as an example to kind of discuss this because you're the studio you built, you decided, like you said, to build it separate from your, your house, um, rather than attached to your house, it's its own building. so that kind of brings up the idea of using. Air and space to your advantage, cuz you, you mentioned that air, if there's like a hole in your studio, it's bad, but to a certain point, it's also good to have a lot of air. Cause obviously you're far from your house. So, what is like the benefit of like, if we're, we're building trying to sound proof of space to make loud rock music in, for example, do you think it's better to build away from the house and, and just have like, you know, there's, you're, you're gaining no coupled walls or anything. So there's that whole, uh, vibration kind of thing that we're obviously you're completely eliminating, but then you're also, you've got enough space that you're, you're kind of taking advantage of air to, to, not be, as loud. Does that make sense? Is there a question in there somewhere?

Wilson: Yeah, there is for sure. Um, I think that common sense makes a lot of sense here. You like you're right. I think you're on the right path of saying like, Hey, if it's not attached to your house at all, the chances of sound traveling from your studio to other parts of the house is, is not gonna happen at all. You know, my house, my studio is about, uh, 20 feet from the back of the house. and you know, we've had, I've recorded drums in here several times and you know, you can't hear it at the house. Like there's no way you would know what I was doing. Even with, as, as loud as a drummer, which is about as loud as it gets in the studio. Like, I don't crank my speakers as loud as a drum drummer plays in here. so, and I think for me too, like my door is the weakest point. I'd made like a 300 pound door and like, it's so hardcore . But if I had put, if I put another door with it, so if I had two doors. Rather than just the one. I think you wouldn't hear the drums at all whatsoever, as soon as you close the door, like as, so I think that it's incredible how soundproof you can get, like you could play drums, you could play with a full rock band in the middle of the night at 4:00 AM and you would not bother your neighbors in my studio. Like I guarantee that 

Malcom: Yeah. 

Wilson: would, if it was in a basement. could be a little trickier,

Malcom: Yeah. So yeah. That's my next question is, is, could you do the same thing? Could you accomplish that? Being able to practice at four in the morning, uh, if it was attached to a house that somebody lived in, can you soundproof something that is inside of a, a building with other people living in it to that extent? Or does it have to be a separate structure?

Wilson: I think you can, I haven't done it, but I think that the principles are the same. And so like, If you literally are, you know, you have to be really careful cuz like one mistake could short circuit the whole system. And I'm not saying that I probably didn't make some mistakes along the way too, but, but like for the most part it works, like I said, and I think that in a basement, especially, uh, you could definitely get those results and it would be, I think it's doable. I really do. And um, you know, and, and when you're dealing with like really loud noise, like a full rock band, full tilt, uh, it's really loud. So you wanna make sure that when you're making choices, you like you have the double wall system. Cause that's the best, like every single thing you do soundproof wise needs to be like the best for it to function maybe at that level. But another thing that I think people need to remember with soundproofing is there's, it's, it's a, a marketing trick to say something is soundproof because there's no such thing as soundproof, like even some of the most. Soundproof rooms in the world have maybe some sound that's getting through. So a lot of people say it's sound isolation and sound reduction is really a better term. 

Malcom: Right. 

Wilson: but it's not as sexy as soundproofing. So like we, no one uses it. Um, so really what you're doing is sound reduction. When you're putting up these thick walls in the mass, what you're doing is you're reducing the decibel, the amount of decibels that can travel through that, that wall. So let's say you had a regular wall in your house and you were getting like 40 decibels coming through or 50 decibels coming through. Once you soundproof it, it might get down to like 20 or 15 decibels. so where it's just so much softer that it doesn't ruin recordings. So that's something too to think about.

Benedikt: And it's also frequency dependent. So, and if you, even if you measure it, if you have a measuring device, like the way that the rating, um, plays a role in that you can measure it like unrated or like a rating or something, and then you get rid of the low end and all of a sudden you get a much lower decibel reading and stuff like that. So it's frequency dependent too, as you said, like low it's harder to get low frequencies, um, from, to prevent low frequencies from going through through, um, walls and stuff like that. So, yeah, I, I, I agree that that actually soundproofing is not a, a good word in most cases to describe what, what you're doing. um, the thing is it can't yeah, it's misleading. And by the way, people, if you wanna. Here, what Wilson just described, where like with the drummer in the room and all of that, I think you, on your website or somewhere, you have a video where you actually have a drummer in the room and then you walk outside, close the door, walk away from the room and then a couple of feet away from the door. You can't hear the drums anymore in that video. So I saw that, which was pretty impressive. So, um, would you, would you tell us where that is? If people wanna, wanna see that for themselves?

Wilson: Yeah, just go to soundproof your studio.com.

Benedikt: Okay. Boys was on the website. I wasn't sure if it was on social media or the website or somewhere. Oh yeah. 

Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's on both, but the, yeah, I definitely made a little teaser reel to show people like what's capable of with what you can do and, and it is incredible. Trust me, like, and then another thing that's absolutely incredible is I turn up my speakers louder than I would ever listen when mixing or even producing. And I close the door and you can't hear anything, like nothing. like it just completely shuts it out. And that's incredible cuz I mean, for the most part, people have no idea what I'm doing in here. Like they, they just have no 

idea whatsoever, so 

Benedikt: and the other way around. Yeah, totally. And the other way around too, I think there was another video where somebody was, I don't know what they were doing, mowing the lawn or something loud outside, or I don't know what, and yeah. And you showed the opposite too, where inside of the studio, you couldn't hear any of that and you could absolutely work on, uh, on like mixes and hear all the details because like the noise would stay outside, which is also, um, just as

Malcom: Yeah. It very handy. I remember back when I was playing music with my band all the time, it, it was hard for us to find a place we could play as much as we wanted to. We started out in like a, a subdivision and that was fine. We knew it was loud, but eventually our neighbors who were police officers showed up

Wilson: yeah. 

Malcom: showed up in uniform, I think to send a message, it wasn't coincidence.

Benedikt: yeah.

Malcom: and they were like, our glassware is literally shaking. Like 

this is you gotta dial this back a little bit. Um, and then at that point, like we, we literally moved out to warehouse, country and stuff like in, into like industrial. Send then eventually a saw mill. Like we were just like going far and wide where there were no neighbors. Um, and it would've been way better for us if we didn't have to do that. Cause you know, that added this big commute, warehouses generally sound awful pro tip there. It's big echo chamber. Um, if we could have made that room work, that would've been so cool. the original, original, subdivision place is, uh, yeah, that would've been very convenient. So with that in mind, is there, uh, like a, best bang for buck kind of priority system that you, that you tell people to aim for? Or is it you have to do everything.

Wilson: Yeah. It's this is the tricky question. And especially in the DIY world, uh, I was skeptical of this. I was like, you know, it's kind of expensive to soundproof and, um, there is a something out, a resource that you guys can check out at soundproof, your studio.com/calculator. So soundproof your studio.com/calculator that, is a soundproofing budget calculator. And this will give you like a sandbox where you can play around and input your square footage. And see how much it might cost you. And I'm using all of everything I did to build this calculator was based on my own experiences with costs. So I included everything from, you know, the foundation cost to the labor cost in there and trim and paint and things like that. so that can give you an idea right off the bat. If you're like, whoa, no way, man. Like I'm not spending that type of money versus, oh, I think I could do this. And what I've found is that, you know, there's a lot of people like myself who are getting older, buying a house and ready to invest, you know, a significant amount of money into a, a legitimate studio, but you know, still saving maybe $50,000 from hiring a professional to do it for you. So there's, there's this kind of middle ground. if you are a di DIY band though, I have kind of formulated something that I think would get you results, but I don't want to say that it's like. The best option, cuz it's a really slippery slope. If you start spending thousands of dollars versus tens of thousands of dollars, but not getting results. So, you know, if you spent, you know, let's say $3,000 on like a basic soundproofing job and you weren't happy with it, you're gonna be like, shoot, we just wasted $3,000. So that's the sort of my disclaimer. But what you can do is is you, you wanna focus on probably the door first, the door is always the weakest point and getting a solid core door. So what that means is that at most big home improvement stores, you can buy a solid core door, which is just solid wood. If you knock on it, it won't be hollow and hollow corridors are cheaper and that's what most builders would put as your indoors, your doors for your house on your, probably on the inside doors, but maybe even on the outside door. And you know, you don't want any glass on the door, any, anything fancy, just like solid slab of wood, just like very, very. Basic, and then hang that and you can use weather stripping around the entire door and the type of weather stripping could be the cheap stuff. You know, we even use kind of cheaper weather stripping on my door, but you can also buy, uh, weather stripping from a company called zero industries that actually make soundproof. I call 'em weather stripping, but it's a little bit more intense. The door would sit up against something that seals it and you wanna make sure you get a bottom seal on your door too, where no air can come underneath. And zero industries has a great acoustic bottom seal as well. So you could start with that. And if you don't have any windows, if you just have a door, see what that does, you know, and that could cost you, I don't know, $125 for the door. And then maybe another, depending on how much acoustic weather stripping you get, it could be anywhere from like 50 bucks to, a couple hundred bucks. If you get the zero industry stuff, So that's a pretty cheap option. you also can get magnetic weather stripping, which I recommend, which you could buy on Amazon, like magnetic weather stripping. It has a magnetic strip, and then it will suction against the door. But if you have a wood door, you just need to make sure you put a little piece of metal flashing around the corner of the door. So any piece of metal, whatever it is, thin piece of metal around the edge of the door, the, the magnetic weather stripping will suction into it and make it super airtight. And actually I've found that for like little bird noises and high frequencies, that actually helps a lot. So that's a quick and easy thing. If you have windows in your room, there are a few options. There's a company called Indo that has basically acrylic or plexiglass windows, which I don't technically recommend, although they are cheaper and they say they can keep, they build a custom insert. So you can actually push the, the. The window insert in and take it out when you're not using it. So you could still open the window, which is really nice. Uh, but it only sound proofs down to 250 Hertz. So low base frequencies 

and 250 Hertz is in my opinion, kind of high in the base 

frequency spectrum. Uh, those will probably still come through. You can also potentially build your own window inserts by getting plexiglass and then creating some sort of rubber seal around the plexiglass and fitting it into your window. 

And that's 

probably what I 

would do for the DIYs. Yeah.

Malcom: it, it seems like what the, what you're, you're saying though, is important to you is that it's tight. Like it seals when you 

put it in, it's not, it's not just like sticking like some pillow or like, you know, a rough kind of thing that 

Wilson: Yeah, 

Malcom: the window sill 

Benedikt: Yeah. 

Malcom: it's like

Wilson: yeah. 

Benedikt: Yeah. And, and that is, that is the important concept that I, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that again, Malcolm, because a lot of people, when they think about doing something to improve that, or to some quote, improve their room, they start looking at like putting a mattress in front of the door or like using foam and put it somewhere or like these things. But it's interesting to hear that just a better door that's sealed properly, or even like a thin thing, like a plexiglass thing. That's just airtight that's sealed, that this is actually more important than just putting, you know, some sort of, you know, I don't know, mattress foam or whatever 

Malcom: Yeah. Yeah. A big mattress you'd think like a big soft master, which is gonna absorb a lot. But if you think about like Wilson said at the beginning, it's like those basic things were, uh, were density, Yeah. So density so thick door or the plexi glass is pretty darn dense. Um, and then, and then like air, right? So if it's tight, there's no air getting through. 

Wilson: yeah, yeah. 

Malcom: those first couple things you said,

Wilson: Yeah. And plexiglass is the worst type of glass you could use for sound proving. But the reason I mention it for this DIY method is cuz it's the cheapest. Um, and so if you can get the thickest plexiglass, you can possibly find that's always gonna be better. Cuz again, mass. Uh, so the heaviest plexiglass, you can get the better if you don't like the window, you know, you could also create a really heavy insert that covers up the window and you have no light coming in and that will be better than plexiglass. So you could get, something that's really heavy. Like, you know, sheet led is what I used on my door. Um, there's also something called MLV, uh, which is mass loaded vinyl. So you could, uh, layer some mass loaded vinyl on top sandwich it in between two layers of like three quarter inch plywood. And, and I'm just riffing off the top of my head, but that would create some mass. And then you could get some sort of seal around the plywood and put it in your window. Granted, you lose the light, but that might be better than using the plexiglass. And there is a, I might make a YouTube video. I found a guy, uh, I think he's in Europe actually, who made his own window inserts. And he said he used like baby bumpers or something around the plexiglass. Cuz he had our kid recently. I don't even know what baby bumpers are, but I think it's like you wrap 'em around little railing, so babies don't bump their head or something. 

Benedikt: yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Around the edges of tables and stuff like, that. Yeah. Yeah. 

Wilson: Yeah. He's like this works really well around the side of the, the, um, acrylic plexiglass. And I was like, okay, so there is a DIY method for this, you know, it's pretty 

Benedikt: Yeah. That's 

Wilson: Yeah. Cuz in Indo is expensive.

Benedikt: Yeah, but, but if you're completely honest and you kind of said it already, how far does it make sense to go with like the DIY method until it becomes like, not really worth it? Because I feel like there is this danger that you already, um, talked about where people would spend a little bit of money because they don't wanna do it properly. But even that little bit of money might be wasted because there's not much of a result. So how far do you think you can go? where it still gives you results and, and, and where's that point of like diminishing returns where it makes no sense to spend more, unless you do it properly, 

Wilson: Yeah, that's a great question to you. So the, the number one thing you can think about is when you're soundproofing your goal with windows and doors and walls and ceilings and floors is to have all of them have the equal same amount of soundproofing. So with a traditional house, let's say, you know, with traditional walls, um, especially if they walls have no insulation in them like whatsoever, that's gonna be even worse. So depending on how soundproof your walls are, what we're trying to do is make the door as soundproof is the existing wall and make the window as soundproof as the existing wall or the existing floor or the existing ceiling. So the reason I mentioned the system is that, if without doing anything else, that's like the fishbowl analogy. Uh, if you have a big vent going into your bedroom, that you're trying to soundproof, and a lot of sound is coming through the vent, into your room, then adding stuff to the windows might help reduce the windows and the doors, but it's not gonna reduce the sound that's coming through your vent. So as soon as you realize that, so I would say like doing the door and the window thing is a great starting place, cuz it might cost you less than a thousand dollars or even maybe less than $500. And you can just see where you stand. If you're like, oh, I'm happy with this, this like improved my listening experience and my recording experience, then that's awesome. Like you just save yourself thousands of dollars, not doing a massive construction project. But if you do it and you're like, oh, this is not good enough, then you're gonna have to look at doing it properly and, and actually ripping out the walls and, and ceiling and 

Benedikt: Yeah. 

Wilson: stuff.

Benedikt: Yeah.

so can you, yeah. Is it possible to give us a, like a quick, not the whole thing, obviously that's too much for this podcast and you obviously have courses and stuff on that, but like, Can you give us a quick, overview or like walkthrough of what you would do when, when you, when you soundproof a room, like in general, like what's the process. What actually happens there? We kind of talked about it, but like step by step overview of what the steps are that are involved in soundproofing, an existing room, or building a new one, like yours, whatever is better way 

Wilson: Yeah. Well, I think the first thing in my mind is like, are you building in a room with a concrete floor or not? So let's say you're building one in a basement, just for the sake of lots of people have basements. So, if you're building in a basement, you have this concrete floor, your floor is taken care of, which is great. And then depending, uh, your walls, if you had like, you know, some sort of stone construction or concrete construction, that's also great. Cause it's gonna add mass. What I probably would do is do the double wall system and I would build a frame that goes into the concrete floor and it's one inch air gap all the way around my room for the sake of simplicity. Let's just say it's a rectangular room. We're not building like multiroom studio. Let's just say it's just one room. so let's say it's taking a half of your, um, basement and you walk down the stairs and then you would turn to the right and walk into your studio room. And so I would frame out that for the ceiling. What I would do is you're gonna have the floor above you where sound is gonna come down into your studio. So what you do is you add two layers of five, eight inch drywall. At least you can even add three, if you want. Uh, between the bracing of the floor above the ceiling, but it's the floor above you. and you put that in between and you might even have to, there's usually these cross braces in, in the, that hold between the rafters and you might have to remove those put in the two layers of five, eight since drywall, screw it into the floor above you, and then replace the cross bracing braces. So it's, it's kind of a big deal, but what that's doing is it's ensuring that you have mass under the floor. So that's gonna help reduce the amount of sound that comes up and down into your studio. And then from there, what I would do after I added those two or three layers of drywall, I would then put in a hat channel system on my ceiling. So I would get these IB one acoustic clips, which are special acoustic clips that fit this special seven, eight inch fir channel. And I would clip those into the ceiling and then I would. Run all my electrical put in. You can put in insulation, the insulation can be regular insulation. Doesn't have to be rock wall insulation, um, into my walls and into my ceiling. and then I would put five, eight inch drywall, two layers of five, eight inch drywall with this special thing called green glue in the middle. And a lot of people like to use MLV, which is mass loaded vinyl. I personally used green glue and, um, it's been shown to reduce the amount of sound that can come through your wall. It's, it's, what's known as a dampening agent without getting to in the, in the weeds with this is that it just increases the soundproofing of the wall even more. So it's just an extra layer of protection. And I would put the green glue over top of the first layer drywall, and then put the second layer drywall on, on the ceiling and the, all the walls. And, you know, I probably wouldn't put a window in there cuz it's a basement and just try to keep it soundproof. And then what I would do. Is, I'd probably build a double door system with a communicating door. So that'd be two, two solid core doors leading into the studio. and they would have that air gap naturally because there's a double wall system. So you would open one door, open the other door and then close both doors and it would be super soundproof. And then I would put, probably a mini split in there for air conditioning. I use the Mr. Cool mini split behind me here. And it's extremely quiet if you could, you could also talk to an HVAC specialist about routing your existing heating and cooling into the room. And then lastly, I would use an RV, which is an energy recovery ventilator, either routing it directly into my room, through a baffle box to send fresh air in and out of the room. And the air would be coming from the outside, run through the energy recovery ventilator to heat, or make sure it's not too hot or too cold. Not too humid or, or, uh, or dry, and it would send it into your studio room and then suck all the stale air air out. So you have fresh air circulation in your airtight room. Um, you could also route that RV directly into your existing HVAC system in your house. And you would supply both the studio and the entire house with fresh air, which is a good thing. Um, so tho that's sort of the nitty gritty, like a lot to think about, but that would be how I would do it 

Benedikt: That just goes to show what, what, like what you have to actually do if you wanna do it properly. I'm glad you mentioned this thing too, about the, about the air conditioning and the, the, also you mentioned the dampening agent, you used it for something different, but that's, that made me think of what about like moisture and like, you don't want to have like mold in your studio and stuff like that, which, you know, shit can go wrong if you don't do it properly. I think so. Um, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's also something you really need to think about. You're sealing the room, so there needs to be a way for it to dry out and like, not be too humid, not be too dry, fresh air in there and all that kind of stuff. And then also in the winter, I guess when it's cold outside and you have that room in the room, uh, you don't want the, like any moisture in between the two walls, you know, when it's killed outside and warm on the inside, and then you have like, that sort of stuff, which can like, how do you like. Where do you like start with, or like, how do you calculate this? Or how did you know about all of this? Or, or what do you do to get that part? Right. Because the Sonics like, or like sound is one thing, but that whole construction part and making sure that do it right. Like how did you learn that and what, what should people do when they, uh, to make sure they they're not messing this up?

Wilson: Yeah, it's a lot of research. I, i, I highly recommend getting the, um, and this is why I made the chorus, cuz I was like, oh, I want to help people, you know, sort of figure this out faster than I did and have more confidence when doing it be like, oh, he did it, it works like I can do this too. and I'm continuing to learn. I'm getting better all the time and I'm fascinated by this whole process. And um, the moisture thing is, is an issue. but it's not a super huge issue. Like the mini split behind me has a dry mode. And uh, especially now in Nashville in the summertime, um, I've been actually using it on dry mode, a fair amount just to keep the humidity levels down. And so that, that works really well. If you're in a house, you, you know, you can talk to your HVAC specialist and be like, Hey, I wanna make sure that it's not too humid. A lot of this. I wouldn't put on yourself, like talking to specialists when you need to. it's important to go from DIY to do it together with something that is this big, you know, talk to your contractor. If you are using HVAC beyond the Mr. Cool mini split, which you can install yourself, but most mini splits and HVAC systems, you need a degree to, to know how to run, like install a system like that. So you need to know what you're doing. So you that's where it has to go beyond DIY. so, but the important things to know are like the soundproofing side. So you can communicate that to the specialist, be like, hey, it's really important that it's installed this way so that it doesn't screw up my studio. And they're like, oh, I've never learned about that. And then you guys can work together and fill in the gaps, you know? And that's kinda the way I teach it, but, um, I'm going on a tangent there, but essentially,

Malcom: no, that's great.

There there's so many silent 

Benedikt: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that is actually not so easy to do, to find people who understand what you're trying to do there. I had a hard time when we were planning this house. Like starting from the architect that we worked with and like talking to different companies, like who built the house and like, nobody knows about this sort of stuff. So the house was not a problem. But the studio part, when I tried to explain to them what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, like everyone was like, well, I guess you need to tell us like how to do this. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that I know what to do. So, you know, um, you need to make sure that you get somebody who, who understands what you wanna do and then knows how to actually, uh, do it. Basically. It can be, it can be tricky if both, if you don't really know 

Malcom: totally. 

Wilson: is. Yeah. And so I remembered now where my train of thought was going, which is your question of how did I learn all this? So I read a book called, uh, home recording studio. Do it, build it like the pros by Roger vice. And, you know, I tell everyone, all of my students like get this book regardless. And a lot of 'em are like, well, if I read the book, why do I need your course? And I'm like, trust me, once you read the book, you'll, you'll understand that it's not as easy as just reading a book. I've read that book so many times. Like I come back to it constantly and reread it and I learn something new or I, um, try to understand a concept. I didn't understand previously. And you know, it's written by an engineer and, and like an actual structural engineer, not a, uh, acoustic engineer. Like we call ourselves engineers, but I'm like, oh, we didn't go to school for four years and take calculus four or whatever. Uh, so, you know, it was above my head on a lot of levels, but I also hired a, contractor, but it was, you know, I hired a contractor who was just kind of starting out and I reached out to my network and I said, Hey, you know, who do you recommend? And someone, this guy had just built like a small, um, tiny house in the backyard of someone. And I was like, oh, he built a tiny house. Like. He could probably do this. And I met him and I really liked him. We got along really well. He had never built anything. This big, he had never built a studio before, but I knew personally that I knew what to do. I just needed someone who knew how to run power tools and build a structure, which I didn't know how to like frame a wall. I didn't know how to hang drywall. I didn't know how to run electrical. I didn't know anything. All I knew was like, I read a book on soundproofing and I wanted to do this. And so he was game and he also was like, yeah, you can build it with me. Like you can work alongside me. And so that was a really unique experience where I actually spent a year of my life. Like maybe it was one day a week for a while. And then eventually during the pandemic, it turned into three days a week. I was actually out there building my studio with him. , you know, learning how to do all this stuff. So I got to be like, Hey, like very much hands on. Like, let's do it this way. Um, and I think that's important whether you build it or not, you have to go to the construction site and say like, Hey. How, how was it today? You know, I might even check in, especially when you're starting to do the inside walls, especially when you're doing the drywall, you wanna make sure that they're not connecting things that they shouldn't be connecting, you know? So it, it's important. That's a tricky part of this whole business is when you hire a contractor, you gotta still be right there with them. Whereas like with a traditional house, you don't care. You're like, do whatever you want. that said in nashville, we do have contractors who build studios, like . They're out there and you could probably trust them. like, they've done 

this many times. 

Malcom: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Look around. I, I eventually did, uh, find, an electrician who had Bill's studio, like has wired multiple studios has his own studio. And like that person, you know, is going to know things that are very important for building a studio. Like, like dimmer lights can be pretty bad to have in the studio. And not all the people know that. I didn't know that because my first put them in and I was like, my guitars sound different as I slide my lights around what's happening.

Wilson: Yeah. 

Malcom: So like, there's all these little things that you just wouldn't think about until you you've done it. And, um, yeah, getting ahead of it is gonna save you a lot of time and money and, and, frustration. Um, so I can see why reading that book is, is wise, regardless to, if you're taking your course Wilson or hiring somebody to do all this building, you just need to like prepare yourself to catch these.

Wilson: Yeah. And I think, you know, the course is there to educate you first and foremost, like, and the book is there to educate you. So even if you're not gonna build a studio in the next year, it's like, if you learned about the process, you would have a much better idea than having no idea how it works and trying to just hire someone and be like hey, I just trust you. And I think a lot of people are trying to skip that step and I don't really recommend that. I'm like, even if you're hiring someone to build your studio from scratch, like learn about it, learn how it works so you know what they're talking about, know what they're doing. You're investing a lot of money in this and you might as well know how it works if not actually doing it yourself.

Malcom: yeah. At multiple times through this conversation, I've thought of school of rock, the Jack Black movie, and they're like sticking like rolls of blankets, like up against doors to like, so they can jam out and the teachers won't hear them

Wilson: yeah, totally. 

Benedikt: exactly. Yeah. 

Malcom: I feel like that wouldn't work.

Benedikt: Yeah. A

Wilson: yeah. I don't know you, they got the air gap side of it, not the mass

Benedikt: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, And then, and then, uh, also knowing what actually goes on and then how it's built also probably helps later on when there is like maintenance to do or when I don't know all, so the things you're running cables inside the walls, you need to know where stuff is, you know? And like, so if you, if you weren't there and you have no idea how they actually built it, it's gonna be, um, difficult every single time. You wanna change something also, I guess, and there's so many got, there's so many rabbit holes that you, we could go down. Like, we didn't even talk about like cable cables and power and all of that sort of Um, so, and, and if you do it without a course, like yours or without the book, and just try to figure it out yourself, like I did, when I built this one here, you have all these things that you discover along the way that, that go wrong. And then you are like, oh, That's actually obvious, but I didn't think about it until it happened. So, you know, like the wall between my control room and the live room, it was all good. It worked, it's like a massive, there's two walls with an air gap in between them that I built there and it's all good. But then I had to drill holes into it to get like the connection, like thel hours between the live room and my room, and then the video connection for, because we, we didn't build a, um, a glass window. Uh, I went for two monitors and cameras instead because there's, I wouldn't have to put the huge hole in the. But even these tiny holes, as you mentioned in the beginning, turned out to be big problems. So I had to learn how to do it properly and how to actually run the cables through the walls, but still keeping its soundproof, which was not very easy because even the tiniest air gap, you know, is a tiniest hole is a huge problem and all these things. And then, you know, and then small, very stupid mistakes where that you don't need a course for. But like, I remember putting a, a multicore, cable through the wall and not labeling the ends before I did that. And then I connected my wall box on one side with my patch play. On the other side, I tried to do that and I didn't know which was which like, which cable was, which, because I, you know, I just didn't think about it. So I had to test every single line to know which is which, and like stupid stuff like that, just because I didn't have a checklist or I didn't think about it ly I just, you know, threw the cables through the wall and then, uh, forgot this and stupid things like that. You

Wilson: Yeah. Well, you know, I, I like to say this too, cuz I think we, it gets really intense when you're talking about soundproofing and like, I think it's really fun to know that like we all make mistakes. Even I made some mistakes that I was like, oh, next time I build a studio, I would do it differently. And like in a perfect world, I hope you build a couple studios in your lifetime. You know, I think like all of us will learn, uh, from these mistakes and, and you might be surprised that like, okay, you move ho uh, to a new house again. And you're like, well maybe I'll try this a different way. and you know, so there's lots of ways to learn about that stuff. One thing I'll also say too, that's we didn't mention is there's something called acoustic putty pad. Which are really great. You put 'em on the box of all of your outlets. So any sort of box that you put in the wall, um, you can wrap it in acoustic putty, which is literally just this putty that you mold to the back of the outlet box, and you can do it also for your light boxes. We there's something called a J box that we used for all the lights in my studio, and we put acoustic putty pads around and then sealed up any air gaps with acoustic caulk. And, um, that does wonders, you know, you can put, like, we put a hole in the wall for like outlet switches that were like this big, you know, four inches by four inches or something. And it's fine with the acoustic putty pad behind it, you know? So there's ways that you can do all this stuff. You don't have to get overwhelmed. Like, oh my God, I can't put a single hole in my wall. , you know, it's, it's definitely doable. and and you know, it'll, it'll work in the end. You'll make some mistakes, but hopefully you, you avoid the big mistakes as the goal so that, you know, it still works as a soundproof studio, but 

Benedikt: yeah, 

Wilson: yeah, it, and in the end, you'll have this beautiful room. Like you have Benedict where you're like, this is awesome, you know,

Benedikt: Yeah, totally. And if I look at yours and the background there, like that looks amazing. And if people wanna, and if people wanna see your journey, sort of, I think I, I just went to your Instagram where there's like the whole process, I think of like, or where you took pictures of like different phases of, of building your studio. I don't know if that's yours, but there's. 

Wilson: it is. Although I haven't kept it 

up lately, I kind of stopped it,

Benedikt: Okay, but it's still interesting to look at it because you can see it. Yeah. You can see, like, from the beginning, you see where you put the, the concrete on, on the, on the floor and like on the ground. And then you see the, wood construction and like all, basically all the steps. It's very fascinating and interesting to, to see, and also read the captions because you, you mentioned it in this, in this conversation also, but there's one picture where you said, uh, that roofing took all day and you worked into the night and then you said like that that's probably something I would hire out if, if I were building a studio. So you did something yourself, where in the end you were like, this is probably not something you should do yourself. Yeah.

Wilson: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, and, hiring a contractor who was just starting out too. Like that was a lot of family. He like hired out his family to help, uh, work on it. He didn't really have a team yet. Now he's actually got a team of guys that would work with him. but yeah, you know, like the roofing, I would've hired out drywall, like the, the, drywall's tricky, cuz it's like, it's so specific for soundproofing. So you want to like teach them how to do it, but maybe just the taping and the mudding of the drywall, like the final. that stuff sucks. Like it's terrible to do so, like, I would've hired that out for sure. Um, the hanging the drywall you could do yourself, um, even though it's really like manual labor intensive, or you could just oversee someone who's doing it so they know how to do the green glue and all that stuff. but yeah, those are the two. Just so your listeners know roofing 

drywall, like drywall, for sure.

Benedikt: perfect. 

Wilson: not fun. 

Benedikt: One final thing I have in mind, Wilson, is let's say you have a room and you built like the, you sound proofy to do it properly. Like you new your example with the basement. Now you have a bunch of like insulation material behind the drywall or could be rock wall could be something similar. still means you have to, then when it's all done, treat the room acoustics. So just having the Rockwell inside the wall does not mean you have like absorbers all around you, right. Because if, if there is drywall in front of it, and as you've said, a couple of times, it's, no air that you go through it. That means that it will be reflective and you still have to do room acoustics. that it's not that you're building a giant base trap or something. So maybe it does something, but it's like, uh, you still have to treat your room after that. That's not one thing that does both basically, 

Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. It actually does nothing for room acoustics, um, to soundproof. Um, and, and also I'll just say too, like, uh, rock wall is kind of a waste of money when you're doing this because the rock wall won't add any soundproofing. So getting the cheapest insulation you can, that still satisfies, um, the amount of heat heating and cooling that you need for the room. You know, like insulation is actually not for sound it's for heating and cooling. So, I, we used what was in the us called pink insulation. Um, so it's the cheapest stuff you can get and don't waste your money on Rockwell. The rock wall is, is really for you could really, for people that are not soundproof, but just have a regular wall. And they're gonna try to add a little bit of soundproofing to it by adding Rockwell insulation. And it's like, just that 10% more, but it's not great. So don't waste your money on that. But, to 

Benedikt: uh, don't, don't get this. So, sorry. I have to add though, because people will get it wrong. Rockwell is amazing though. And absolutely what we recommend if you build absorbers. So Rockwell is generally not a waste of money, but when, when you talk about soundproofing and what's the stuff inside the wall, you don't have to go to Rockwell there, but just so people, uh, please don't misunderstand that because we always tell them to BA build absorbers and out of

Wilson: oh yeah, yeah. That's totally, Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Don't get, Don't get, uh, yeah, our Corning 7 0 3 is good too. Um, but yeah, so, yeah, sorry. That is good to clarify, but yeah. So once you have your shell, I like to think of it as like a shell. The shell is soundproof and now you need to acoustically treat the inside of the shell. So from there, that's where you start figuring out, to put your base traps in and your acoustic panels. And, that's like a whole nother conversation of how 

Malcom: Yeah, totally. 

Wilson: but, uh but yeah, 

there're 

Malcom: is important to clarify that it's different, you know, sound like building the walls to be soundproof, like you said, does nothing for, for acoustic treatment. It's a, just an entirely different thing. So that's important. Um, the only vote I'll give for rock wall inside the walls is if you live in Canada and it's cold, it's pretty good. Cuz your studio's gonna be very well insulated

Wilson: Yeah, that's a good point too. yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's, like I said, the, our value is really what matters with insulation is like, how warm is it gonna be?

Malcom: yeah. 

it's actually great insulation for heat. It's it's good 

Wilson: yeah, totally. Yeah. It's good stuff. It's just kind of more like money.

Malcom: So we we've kind of touched on it. I think of, of like, you know, finding that line where. Is this worth it and it's, it can be daunting to spend money being like, okay, what if I spend a couple grand and it doesn't really do anything, but you've put a wonderful solution for that, which could help Wilson, which is that people can go to your website and book a, like a consultation with you. Um, and, and you could, you know, be shown their space online and, and kind of like get from you, like, you know, this, this, is like the best advice I can give you, knowing what I know, being able to see your room and stuff like that. So people out there that are unsure, like this seem, this, I think it's really reasonable price you've got on there. Looking at your, your website for your, like getting you one on one to, to do that. It's, uh, it seems totally reasonable and that's probably a really effective way for, for people that are, you know, our average listeners that are just trying to make a room in their house a little more soundproof or, or their, their jam space, more soundproof or something like that. I think that'd be a really great thing to do.

Benedikt: I agree. I was about to say that actually. Thank you, Malcolm that's that's absolutely true. And in the grand scheme of things, think about it. If you're really planning to soundproof a room or even like build a studio from scratch like that $97 is what's on the website there for 60 minutes of Wilson's time, is really nothing in, in the grand scheme of things. So this is absolutely a no brainer to do that and at least get input and, and, and start on the right foot, I think. And then even if you go, and then if you go a step further and you book like, and you buy one of the courses, it's also like if you're gonna spend that much money and put that much time and effort into building studio and soundproofing your room a couple of hundred dollars, for course like that, or even starting with that one session is really, really worth it. I think. And, uh, so that, that is really a great, a great offer and, and a lot of value that you have there because not doing it properly will definitely cost you more, I think.

Malcom: Absolutely.

Wilson: definitely. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys saying that and, uh, I will say that those prices might go up in the near 

Benedikt: But yeah,

Wilson: definitely jump on that 

Benedikt: they they they should, and they would, it would still be, I mean, it would still be a steal, right? Like, I mean, this is, you know, so

Wilson: as you were saying that I was like, oh shoot. I was actually about to raise those. But if you jump on it soon, you know, you might get in on a deal. And if you guys are listening, you know, just email me, I'll probably hook you up. But I think, uh, yeah, that's kind of, my whole thing is like, you know, education is always more valuable as an investment than trying to like just muscle through something and, and making mistakes. So I think we all agree on that. Whether it's for soundproofing or recording your band. Right. It's like learn how to do it right. The first time.

Benedikt: totally. 

Malcom: Running your studio as we all went through that same course to learn

Wilson: that was helpful. 

Malcom: but like it's, it's so true. Like the return on that investment for me anyways, was like the, the craziest thing ever that has changed my life taking that one course. And, uh, I don't know if it was the same for you guys, but, uh, it's, it's pretty wild. How investing in, in your skillset and knowledge pays dividends down the road as you go through this journey of, you know, music and acoustics and 

Benedikt: Yep. 

Malcom: yeah. The art.

Wilson: Yeah, 

Benedikt: In fact, the, yeah, the, the PPC, like the course that we did together, um, or that all of us did was the first online course I ever bought. And since then, this was like five years ago. And since then, , I've not only done things on the business or audio in the business or audio world, but I've bought courses for all kinds of things. Like even personal things where I was like, I just learned the value of like education and courses and mentors and coaching. Like I've spent a ridiculous amount of money if you think about it, like the last couple of years on education, but the, the return was way bigger, bigger than that. And, uh, I, I didn't know that for the longest part, like of my life before that, like I had to turn 29, um, 30 years old until I realized how, how good it is to invest in yourself like that. 

Wilson: So true.

yeah. I invested in a course yesterday, uh, on marketing your music. And in a way I kind of loved that. The course told me, like, I don't think I wanna do this this way. So there's also 

this thing where like, you, it is valuable. Yeah. It's really valuable. I was like, oh, I just spent a little bit of money to know. I don't wanna do this.

Benedikt: Yeah. 

Yeah. You could have wasted years of your time doing something that you actually don't wanna do.

Wilson: yeah. There's so there's a flip side to that too. And I think it's, I said that, cuz it's kind of applicable to soundproofing. Like if you can learn how to do it and you can decide like weigh your options more better. Like, do I really wanna do this? Maybe I wanna do this later in the future. Maybe I'm like, oh, this is perfect. I wanna do this right now. So, but I think the, the hard part is in, you don't know enough about it. And then you start going down this path and doing things the wrong way.

Benedikt: Yeah, for sure. So did we, did we miss anything, uh, Wilson, anything we haven't touched on, anything important that you wanna add to this conversation? Like, um, yeah. Anything you can think about?

Wilson: Yeah, well there's we could talk about this for hours. So I think we touched on some of the major points, which is good. Um, like I said, if, if you guys wanna learn more, you can always just go to soundproof your studio.com, where there's a 40 minute workshop, which goes more in depth into what we talked about today and kind of plans out your entire studio build, uh, with you. So it's kind of this cool way that you can come away with an actual plan how to build your soundproof studio.

Benedikt: That one's free.

Wilson: That's free. Totally 

free. 

Malcom: wow. Awesome. Very cool. And, uh, and you got like a, a YouTube channel as well and, and a podcast. Uh, we, we heard earlier, 

Wilson: yeah. 

Malcom: send people on how to find that?

Wilson: Yeah. So the YouTube channel is just soundproof your studio, on YouTube. And you can just type that in and that'll pull up the channel. And then the podcast is also the soundproof, your studio podcast. and that comes out once a week, you know, and it really, the podcast is the YouTube video in audio form so people can, can listen or watch depending on what you wanna do.

Malcom: Awesome. 

Benedikt: Awesome. And basically you find all of that. If you go to soundproof your studio.com, I think if you scroll down, there's the links to YouTube, Instagram, everything we mentioned, the only exception would be that calculator. You mentioned. I will put all of that in the show notes anyways, but like there's the free workshop. There's the courses. If you go to, to Wilson's store, there's the social links, it's all on, on, on his website. Um, the only thing is the calculator. I put a separate link. um, yeah, but this is, this is a ton of like resources and a lot of value for free that you get there already, like that calculator plus the free workshop. And then just looking at all the, the pictures and in videos and stuff that's just available on your sites like that will get you at least I think, a better understanding it will get you far, right?

Wilson: Mm-hmm yeah, the youTube channel is like such good bang for the buck, but that's the way I wanna do it. I wanna just give away, um, as much knowledge as you can, and then the courses there, if you want it like super structured hand fed to you, you know, you're, it's gonna be way more efficient, obviously, as we all know how courses are, but there's a 

Benedikt: of course. Awesome. Yeah, you'll find all of that in the show notes. And of course, if you go to soundproof your studio.com. All right. So Wilson, thank you again for your time. It was a pleasure. I learned a lot and, uh, I will dive deeper in your, to your resources too. I think, um, I. 

Malcom: absolutely. Same 

Benedikt: As soon as I, as soon as I'm gonna start building the new room, um, that's

Wilson: Yeah, let me know. I I'd love to hear how, how that comes across. I love seeing people's projects, like come to life. It's just super cool.

Malcom: totally. Yeah, you've got the, what is the best soundproof door? YouTube video staring at me right now. I'm gonna be watching 

that Right, after this. 

Benedikt: yeah. 

Wilson: Yeah. Don't get pulled in. 

Benedikt: there was a, like, I got, I got a funny story actually, before we, like, we wrap this up. When I built the studio, I ordered two crazy, um, soundproof, like quote, unquote soundproof doors. They were, uh, massive, but not only wood, but with a metal, um, core, uh, in them, like, I don't know which kind, but like super massive. Yeah. And they had exactly. And they have, uh, when you close them, the, the lower. What do you call that? Um, it, it goes down to the floor automatically. And when you open it, it goes up again. So it seals it when you close it. Basically those doors are really great and they were super expensive. So it's not the, the $150 thing that you mentioned in the beginning. They're great. But the thing was, I ordered them, they delivered them, put them outside the building here. I was alone here and then they left and they were like, yeah. Um, the doors are there. And then goodbye, basically. And then I was there and I, I thought I could just grab the doors and move them into the studio.

Malcom: They're 

so 

heavy. 

Benedikt: grabbing one of those doors and like, I, it doesn't go anywhere. Like, you know, like I, no I'm stuck. Like I have to call somebody like, there's no chance getting these doors inside the studio by myself, which is kind of crazy. So that just goes through how important mass is. But I didn't, I completely underestimated that. I thought it's like a door. It's not that big. I can probably move it 

Wilson: no, no, you shouldn't be able to move it if it's done well.

Malcom: yeah. totally. 

Benedikt: Yeah. 

Malcom: Okay. Wilson, thanks again, man. It's great seeing you as well. It's uh, yeah, I'm really happy to hear and see that things are going well for you. Um, and, uh, yeah, you're, you're outside of Nashville right

Wilson: in Nashville.

Malcom: in Nashville. Okay. 

Wilson: Yeah, yeah. right. in the heart of it. 

Yeah. 

Malcom: of time before I wind up down there. So I'll, I'll hit you

Wilson: Yeah. Let me know. I would love to catch up.

Malcom: Definitely. 

Benedikt: Very cool. Thank you for your time, Wilson. Goodbye. And you listeners. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next week. Bye Bye 

Malcom: Bye.