While browsing through Facebook one evening, I came across a very inspiring story on my feed. It was about a Handyman by the name of Manny who was working for Evolve housing in Stockwell, London, that houses young adults and teenagers who otherwise wouldn’t have a place to stay.
Manny had noticed an old busted up piano in the social room that had been collecting dust and was unused for a number of years. Coming from a musical family, Manny decided to fix the piano up himself and play some music on his lunch break.
The sound of Manny singing and playing the piano in a normally unused quiet space started to attract the attention of some of the residents in the building who would come to listen and eventually join in.
This gave Manny the idea to start donating more of his time and start giving out music lessons as a way to bring everyone together. Manny soon realised that the building was full of talent and had a number of students all with different skills – DJs, Drummers, Guitarists and Vocalists to name a few.
Manny had put out a request for donations of musical equipment and planned on converting a room into a music studio.
I decided to email and see if SoundproofingUK could help provide and install some soundproofing materials in the space they had.
We decided on a date and I came to see what we could do, The space I was shown was a very small storage room that could barely fit a drum kit in.
I mentioned that while we could install some of our slim soundproofing solutions to the walls, floor and ceilings the space wasn’t very practical for the intended use.
I did discover that the front partition wall was not load bearing and could be removed and we could build out much further into the social room creating a more functioning music studio and actually have space for a dividing wall, creating two separate rooms with soundproofed glass fitted between the rooms.
I promised Manny that if he gets permission for us to build out further, we would take the project on and deliver a fully functional Soundproofed music studio with a recording room free of charge for the amazing work he is doing.
A few days later we got the go-ahead and could start on designing a music studio for them.
We did have many other soundproofing projects going on so this was going to be weekend volunteering for us and I hadn’t even asked our staff if anyone would volunteer some weekend work.
Luckily when I did tell our fitters about the music studio, they all put their hands up and volunteered to install for a few Saturdays. I also decided to get in touch with our suppliers at Soundstop https://www.soundstop.co.uk/ to see if they would like to get involved. They kindly donated some high-quality soundproofing material that would give a great result for a professional music studio, and we started designing a functional space for Manny and all his students.
We came up with a concept that would not only provide excellent soundproofing, but also designed in a way that would give great acoustic quality within the room, using a variety of products like M20, Rockwool, Resilient Bars, Tecsound 50, MLV, SBX boards and Absorbalay to name a few. We also built two new Soundproofed doors with acoustic drop seals.
The job took a number of weekends to complete and was made extra special by getting to know everyone who would eventually be using the music studio. Everyone showed interest in the project and were particularly interested in all the different soundproofing materials and construction that was used behind the design of the studio.
We thoroughly enjoyed all the live music in the background during this music studio installation and knew we were creating a space that was going to be well used by some talented and creative individuals.
Once the music studio was complete, I emailed our decorators to see if they would perhaps plaster the studio for us explaining the project and good cause. They also got involved without hesitation and plastered the two different studios on a Sunday for us.
We decide to paint everything white and give the tenants free reign to decorate the space to make it their own. We donated some acoustic absorption panels and asked them to decorate them however they please that would not only function as artwork but give a heightened acoustic value to the sound quality in the room.
SoundproofingUK has built countless Music Studios since we started specialising in the soundproofing industry in 2003 but nothing as special as this.
A few weeks later the Music Studio, Manny and his students appeared on BBC Breakfast to tell the story of how this all came together.
We are extremely proud to be involved in this project and can’t wait to see the artists discovered in this space.
Raymond Kruger
Director
Recent Comments