The Shipping Container Studio

Before...

Can an old container really be turned into a viable music production space?

Many SOS readers will be well aware of the pros and cons of having their studio set up at home, with the main positives being the convenience of having your gear close at hand and not having the financial burden of renting an external space. The negatives are noise considerations, having to work around other members of your household, and hosting clients, if you’re working in a professional capacity. The dream scenario for many, then, is to have a dedicated space detached from their house, and this ideal has seen people turning to garden studios as an alternative option for music production and instrument practice.

Outside of our world of music, the popularity of increasingly impressive‑looking self‑contained garden rooms has exploded, helped in part by the Covid lockdowns and people working from home. Yet, although they cost eyewatering sums of money here in the UK, an ‘off the shelf’ garden studio is not going to cut it from a soundproofing perspective, in terms of both not disturbing your neighbours and keeping external noise away from your music‑making. There are some excellent companies who will offer more ‘pro audio’ levels of soundproofing, but this can come at a substantial price for even a modestly sized space. If done right, this expense can, of course, be justified as adding value to a property you own, or balanced against the long‑term savings made from not renting another space. However, for producers or musicians on tighter budgets, who might rent or are not generally tied to a location long‑term, it would be hard to justify the financial outlay of having a semi‑serious space in your garden.

...and after.

Contain Yourself

As the owner of an independent recording studio for the last 16 years, I’m no stranger to the raised eyebrows of my friends and family as I discuss my latest DIY project — but converting a run‑down shipping container into a workable studio space was perhaps the toughest one to explain yet! Bear with me, though, as I explain why I thought this had some potential. The biggest plus point of shipping containers is that they are designed to be moved around. Of course, you need expertise and specialised equipment to move them, but with suitable access and enough space, you could potentially have a studio that can be taken with you if you need to relocate. The other big selling point is simply the relative cost when compared to a garden studio. Here in the UK, you can pick up a used 20‑foot long container for around £1500‑2000, which often includes delivery. You need to factor in the conversion — which we will look at shortly — but you could potentially have a workable studio space for a fraction of the cost of a commercial offering, and which could (with careful thought and planning) be taken with you to another location if needed, or even sold on to another musician or producer.

The biggest drawback is the typical dimensions of a shipping container, especially when considered in the context of soundproofing and acoustics. There’s enough length to play with — my typical medium‑sized container is six metres long — but it’s the width that can become an issue when it comes to getting enough mass into the wall space to stop sound entering or leaving your studio. A standard shipping container is only around 2.4 metres wide, and my main concern when approaching my project was that I was going to end up with a well soundproofed corridor at the end of it! Another practical consideration is the potential thermal effects of having a space that, once converted, is warm internally, but which still has a cold metal exterior. I’ll touch on how I allowed for this with my build, but I would encourage you to get some expert advice on this aspect, especially if your climate is more extreme than that of the UK. There’s also the issue of creating adequate ventilation and fresh air flow whilst also keeping your space soundproofed, which although not unique to the idea of a container studio, is made more challenging by the limited internal dimensions.

Lastly, if you’re considering this idea for a domestic garden or yard space, you would need to factor in the fact that many neighbours are not going to be thrilled by the sight of a shipping container turning up on a low loader. This could hopefully be managed with clear communication, and some inexpensive paint or wooden cladding to soften the external appearance. You would, of course, also need to clarify the planning situation with your local authorities, depending on where you are in the world!

Approaching The Build

As I’ve alluded to already, there was an experimental nature to this project, and I was keen to feel my way into the build without too much initial investment. The container in its original state was used for storage, so my worst‑case scenario was that even if I couldn’t turn it into a workable studio space, I would end up with a more comfortable storage/workshop area. With this in mind, I decided against attempting to cut any kind of window into the container, and stuck to a basic soundproofing scheme I have used before: framing the container out to create a Rockwool‑filled cavity, finished off with two layers of dense ‘sound block’ plasterboard.

With lack of width being my main concern, I deliberated about how much space my new internal walls could eat up before it became unworkable. Ideally, from a soundproofing perspective, I would have had a 100mm space and air gap from the external walls of the container, but I decided the most I could ‘lose’ was 150‑200 mm of the total width, or it really would have been a corridor! With the bonus of it being cheaper materials‑wise, I decided on a 50mm cavity for the insulation — we will find out later on how effective this would be from a soundproofing aspect.

The other major decision to make was around the door, which is always a crucial aspect of any studio space. I was keen to have at least a little daylight in the new studio (so it didn’t feel like being shut in a metal box!) so I had a plan to have a decent‑sized external window space in my entrance door. As I explain later, this was the one part of the project I outsourced to a tradesperson. I also suspected that this door would be the weak spot soundproofing‑wise, so I made sure in my initial design that there was space to build another door at a later stage.

The floor, decked out with 100mm Celotex insulation boards.

From The Ground Up

My container in its original state had a pretty grotty plywood floor with no insulation underneath, so sorting the floor out was my first step. As well as being soundproof, it was important that the new space was warm and comfortable, so there was little point in me insulating the walls and ceiling without also addressing the floor. I decided to rip out the existing plywood and to use 100mm Celotex blocks for the floor cavity — both for its insulating quality and because it’s typically a more robust product than Rockwool, which is important for a floor space that could be exposed to damp. Once the Celotex was in place I spent time sealing any small visible gaps with sealant and insulating tape in as thorough a manner as I could manage!

Next step was to prepare a base for my new flooring to sit on, and as I had a couple of rolls of neoprene tape left over from a previous project, I thought I would lay strips of it on the container’s metal floor beams, in the hope that it might provide a little isolation and damping to the new internal structure. As another inexpensive and relatively easy additional step, I also placed a thick plastic membrane over my insulation, to hopefully address any concerns about damp and condensation coming up from the floor. Then it was just a question of screwing down the first layer of flooring, and I chose to use cost‑effective 18mm OSB (oriented strand board) here, with the idea that I would then add a final layer of plywood towards the end of the build. Screwing down the OSB into the metal floor supports proved to be one of the more time‑consuming parts of the project but I got there in the end!

Framing Out

The ‘framing out’ aspect of a build can be one of the more simple and enjoyable aspects of these projects if, like me, you like to get your hands dirty with some very basic carpentry. I used 50mm studwork here and, after a few mistakes, remembered the correct spacing between the uprights to make it as easy and efficient as possible when it came time to board the new walls. A frustrating aspect of this part of my build, though, was dealing with some large dents in the side of my container that made it difficult to keep my walls nice and straight without losing precious width. Once that was negated, the studwork was fairly quick to put together, and I took a little time to also put leftover strips of the neoprene I had used on the floor wherever my stud work was in contact with the exterior of the container.

OSB on the floor, and wall studwork completed, ready to be filled with insulation.

Battling Doubts

There were several moments during this project where I questioned the sanity of what I was doing, with the most memorable occasion being when I was placing Rockwool into my framed‑out room on my own on a boiling hot day in July. Wearing a mask and boiler suit, it was one of those ‘digging in and just getting it done’ jobs that still had to be done in a thorough way. As anyone who has done this work will know, dealing with larger slabs of insulation isn’t too bad, but this project seemed to require a lot of cutting and stuffing little pieces into gaps and corners.

As I mentioned earlier, I made the decision early on to get a builder friend to build me a bespoke door, which did take up a decent chunk of my modest budget. What I did manage to do, however, was use a leftover solid‑core door I had from a previous project. My more skilled friend was then able to add an additional layer of thick MDF to in order to get more mass into what was initially planned to be just a single door. He also cut and fitted a triple‑glazed window in my new door and gave me clear instructions for the size gap I should leave in my new studwork to support the door. I can’t tell you how many times I checked my measurements when building this part of the frame, but let’s just say it was more than a couple and was well worth taking care over!

Boarding School

Plasterboard is commonly used in studio builds as it’s a readily available building material that provides a cost‑effective way of finishing walls. In the past, I’ve typically used two to three layers when building new rooms in my main studio, with the final layer then being plastered to create a nice‑looking finish that is ready for painting. However, I decided against having a plastered finish in my container, for a few reasons. First, if this studio was ever moved at some point in the future, it was hard to see how that wouldn’t crack the plaster! The other reasons were mostly around budget and generally being cautious about how this was all going to work out.

The walls and ceiling were boarded with a combination of plywood and OSB.

My solution was to have an initial layer of 12mm ‘sound block’ plasterboard‑finished plywood at the two ends of the container, and 12mm OSB on the walls, which I could paint straight onto. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but I like the textured finish of the OSB, and the advice I was given was that it is more resistant to moisture than plasterboard or ply. Doing the boarding was time‑consuming but straightforward, and I should also mention that I took the precaution of pinning a layer of thin plastic membrane to my filled stud walls to act as a further barrier against condensation. This was following advice that I was given, but I would encourage you to do your own research into possible condensation issues caused by having a cold external building with a warm interior.

It’s Alive!

Most of the next stage of the build involved final finishings like skirting and door surrounds, and generally making the room look like a nice space. One thing I haven’t discussed yet is how I got power to my container, and I was very fortunate with this project in that one of my fellow engineers at the studio is also a fully qualified electrician. My container is situated around 12 feet from my main studio building, so we considered the option of running an armoured cable from the main building to the container. In a garden setting you would almost certainly bury the cable under the ground, but in my case the best option proved to be suspending the cable in the air whilst being careful to follow all the required safety regulations here in the UK. We also weighed up the options for how to do the fixings for the power points in the new room, and decided that we would run all the cables in the stud work but have the plug sockets externally mounted, with care taken to seal up any holes made in the plasterboard to get the cables pulled through.

Cool For Cat6

Inspired by Cranborne Audio’s CAST system for using Cat6 cable to move analogue audio signals around your studio I’ve become a big fan of using this ubiquitous cable for connecting up recording spaces. With this in mind, my electrician friend helped me design a simple, affordable system, which involved running three sets of Ethernet cables from my main studio to my new container studio. One of these would provide a high‑speed Internet connection, with the other two allowing me to send up to four channels of balanced audio in either direction from the studio to the container. A vocal booth, an isolation room for guitar cabs: the possibilities are endless!

...And Breathe

I took great care at every stage of my build to make sure any gaps were sealed with acoustic sealant which, whilst being a great idea from a soundproofing aspect, is less great with regards to ventilation and actually being able to breathe when the door is closed! My budget DIY solution to this was to cut two 100mm holes in the side of the container and through the depth of the new internal walls. To then mitigate sound being transmitted through these holes I built two fairly large ‘baffle’ boxes — essentially a piece of acoustic ducting in a sealed box. The idea of these is that you ‘snake’ a length of ducting around a short labyrinth of corners so that sound is dissipated as it works its way through your baffle. One of the holes has a small fan that works to pull air out of the room whilst the other ‘passive’ hole then pulls air in. It’s a system I use in my main studio and it works well there — and the early signs are that it’s working well in my container studio too. Without going into too much detail here, it’s necessary to factor in this important human requirement of breathable air if you’re embarking on a similar project, and my advice would be to plan and budget for it as early as possible in the process.

After some experiments with mixing, I was pleasantly surprised with how the room sounded acoustically.

So, how did it all work out? The short answer is: great! As you can see from the photos, the final space looks like a very workable, comfortable little studio. I finished the room with some basic acoustic treatment to address the first reflection points, and after some experiments with mixing, I was pleasantly surprised with how the room sounded acoustically. I feel confident that, with a little further experimentation with speaker placement and some room correction software, this could be a great little space for mixing and general music production.

The door was repurposed from another project, and had a triple‑glazed window and additional layer of MDF added. The outside has also been painted, and the entrance made more inviting!

I would describe the level of soundproofing I’d achieved as ‘decent’. It’s definitely good enough to mix and do programming‑type work, and for recording, say, vocals and acoustic guitars without disturbing any neighbours — or having to worry too much about outside noise entering my recordings. I should make it quite clear, though, that it wouldn’t be good enough for recording or practising drums, or for blasting loud guitar cabs and the like. As I mentioned earlier, I anticipated that the door would be the big weak spot, and from my rudimentary tests, it seems quite clear that this is the case. It should be quite easy for me to put in a second door when the time is right, though, and I feel confident that this will make a noticeable improvement. I should also point out that at the time of writing, I haven’t done a UK winter with the finished container so it will be interesting to see how that works out, and whether the space can stay warm, damp‑free and generally comfortable to work in. So far, so good, though!

Lessons Learnt?

This whole project was a bit of an experiment for me, and I worked on it over a number of months when I had free bits of time. With this in mind, I can’t give you a precise figure for how much I spent on materials, but It would probably be around the £2000 mark. I was fortunate that I got help with the electrical side of the project, and you would obviously need to factor in paying any tradespeople whose skills you require. That said, if you’ve seriously looked into the price of garden studios, you will understand that even if you budgeted, say, £5000‑£6000 for buying and then converting a 20ft container, it still has the potential to be the more affordable option.

If I were embarking on this project again, I would do some research about acoustic products that might help to achieve a touch more soundproofing without losing too much room space. This might include Green Glue‑type products, or mass‑loading materials that you can use between layers of plasterboard. I would also plan for a two‑door system from the off. But I think with even a small improvement from where I have ended up, you could have a well soundproofed studio space that has the potential to be moved when you need to.