How I Built a Home Podcast Studio and You Can Too

To me sound is the MOST important thing to having a podcast. As you can see in my previous post, video is something I ventured into recently and really nailed it. Now, I’ve built a new space to record from that’s going to change the backend video setup just a bit.

We moved recently and I have to say I’m super happy with our new house. One of the things that I really wanted was a dedicated place to do interviews. Previously, I had set everything up in the home office which made the office not really useful for anything except interviews.

I picked a spot in the house that would be the least useful for anything else, other than storing ski boats: under the stairs in the basement. I also regret not taking a photo of the spot before I started working on it; I didn’t plan on writing a blog post about it.

As with all projects, this project started with my father-in-law and I going to Home Depot.

This is the space when we started, I had just started removing the built-in shelves.

What I Thought I Needed

– 1 Box of Construction Screws
– 2 Cans of Gorilla Glue Spray
– 10, 2″ x 3″, 8 Ft. Beams
– 4, 8 Ft. Sections of MDF Style Plywood
– 50 Ft. Extension Chord
– 50, 1 Ft. x 1 Ft. pieces of soundproof foam
– 2 Cans of Black, Chalkboard Paint

My father-in-law is obviously quite excited about the project!

What I Actually Needed

– 3 Boxes of Construction Screws
– 5 Cans of Gorilla Glue Spray
– 25, 2″ x 3″, 8 Ft. Beams
– 6, 8 Ft. Sections of MDF Style Plywood
– 50 Ft. Extension Chord
– 150, 1 Ft. x 1 Ft. pieces of soundproof foam
– 2 Cans of Black, Chalkboard Paint

The first thing I had to do was remove the shelving and frame out the box. Given the space and the water softener being close, I was not able to use the measurements I wanted. I wanted 6’x8′ so I could use the video setup I created in my previous post, but that was just not going to work.

I ended up creating a space that was 6’x6′, given that, I’m still working out the lighting and how exactly I want the backdrop (the backdrop isnt as easy to switch out as I wanted).

There had previously been a clothesline in the basement, so when I removed that, I used the wood the clothes line was attached to in order to anchor my booth to the roof beams above. The mounting to the rood made the structure incredible strong. Since the space was so small, I ended up needing to build it around the table. I was most likely not getting the table into the structure once it was built.

The door was originally on the left side of the structure, but since I went with a bigger table (not the small gray one above) I had to move it to the right side. I had originally decided to build a door (I still might), but I went with a sound deadening curtain like is used in stage shows.

Before I could start putting up the wall panels I had some important things to think about:
Where would power come from?
How would I get a strong internet signal?
Would I use insulation and panels on both sides.

For power, I ended up running an extension chord across the ceiling from the other side of the room, since there was not outlet on this side. As for internet, I ran a gigabit ethernet cable, cleanly from the upstairs office into the booth.

As for the wall panels, since I use the HD sound filter, I wasn’t worried about outside noise, just deaden the sound coming out of me and into the mic. Therefore, I only used panels on the inside and didn’t use any insulation in the walls.

I ended up paneling it with MDF-type plywood, mainly because I wasn’t sure it would fit on top of the car. Were I to do it again, I may use standard plywood. We ended up buying floor carpeting tiles for the space, which I used Loctite to fasten to the floor, in order to add more sound deadening material.

I used Gorilla glue spray adhesive to attach the soundproof panels to the wall there were two issues with this; one, the basement is moist so they didn’t stick well and two, they just didn’t stick well.

I added a dehumidifier to keep humidity below 50%. I hooked a hose up to it and ran it into the basement drain so I didn’t have to keep dumping it. For the stubborn panels that wouldn’t stay up, even when dry, I just used the staple gun; me 1, panels 0.