John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi there.

This is my first post and i'm not natural english speaker, so sorry about my bad english
I'm from Baskeland (Basque Country), between France and Spain, and i'm in the process of building a home studio at my farm. My idea is to build a Control Room of about 20m2 and a Recording Room of about 25m2, all of this with a height of about 2,50m.

It's suposed to be a personal studio, with no big budget (i'm talking about 2000€ by the moment), and the main purpose is to build and isolate the Recording/Rehearsal room for rehearsing with my band and recording with no problems with the sound coming out to the house side. I live in a farm we've recently bought, and we have two neighbours at about 100 meters, but the main worry for me is not annoying my girlfriend while she is at the house and i'm rehearsing with my band. The farm's outer walls are made of rocks and about 50 cms thick (will the sound go through?). The farm is long, so half is the house, and the other half is the studio part. We have done a wooden middle flat in the studio half, so there are two levels in the studio part aswell, but i'm using the lower one. So my worry is that the sound won't go horizontally to the house side.

The sole is concrete, and it's different from the house sole. There's a 10cm difference in height between both (studio part is higher)

I'm a Thrash Metal and Extreme Metal maniac (some other styles as Blues/rock i love aswell), so the volume while rehearsing will be very very loud (our drummer hits like a beast). I know i must be objective, but i have no clue about how loud it would be in dBs. I think it will be around 100 or 110 dBs?

So i have to begin building it from zero, there are no walls yet, and the roof is the wood of the upside level.

I've been reading some on the net about the basics on sound isolation, and i began to make a floating floor for the Rec. Room, and yesterday it was the day for starting with the double brickwalls. They brought me all the bricks this week, and my idea was to put rubber below the walls, but i realized that the morter won't stick the rubber with the bricks!!!! so i began to think about it properly before making things worse.
Last week i built the floating floor, as i read in so many websites, but today, while i was searching for answers about the rubber below the brickwalls, i found out that maybe i should take all the bricks back to the store and buy gypsum! And also that maybe i didn't need to build the floating floor!!! Here you have some pics:










Any suggestions or help will be really apreciated. I don't want to waste money and less the time and effort on this, and sorry if i've been a numb making that floating floor
Finding this forums and John has been a great discovery! Thanks in advance!
Cheers!

Hi there "BlackStorm". Welcome. Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

I don't think it is bad at all! Pretty good, actually!

IT would help a lot if you could do the diagram in SketchUp, which is a very powerful (and free!) tool for design. After you learn the basics, it will make your life a lot easier.

Stone and rock are very good at isolating sound, as they are very massive (heavy). Mass is what you need to stop sound. So in your case, the weakest part will be the ceiling above you, as well as the doors, windows, HVAC system and electrical system.

Sound expands outwards in all directions, especially low frequency sound (not so much high frequency), so it will just take the "weakest" or easiest path out. If you have a great floor and great walls, it will go through the ceiling. If the ceiling is great too, it will go through the doors/windows. And if they are also great, then it will go through your HVAC system. And if that is great too, then it will go through your electrical system.

Probably closer to 120 dB. But to be certain, get yourself a sound level meter, and measure the real level, as well as the level that you want outside the room, in order to "no disturb your girlfriend".

In the photos, the joists are visible, but what is above those joists? How is the floor above built? What materials, how thick, etc.?

That was very, very smart! It is not possible to float a wall the way you were trying, and it would have been very, very dangerous to do it like that. It's excellent that you stopped and looked for the right way to do it. VERY good!

Yes, it truly is unfortunate that so many web sites continue promoting that evil myth! I'm not sure if it is simple ignorance, plain stupidity, or a because they want to sell you something, but it really is NOT necessary in the vast majority of studios, and in the few cases where it really is necessary, the method they show simply will not work. You might have already seen this, but I'll post it again here for you (or others who find this thread in the future) can find out the truth about how to float a floor:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173

Exactly! It was not necessary, and the way you built it will not help at all. In fact, it will probably harm both your isolation and your room acoustics.

Bricks are good for isolating, but only when done correctly, and there is also the issue of weight: Bricks are very heavy. There might be a problem with building a brick wall on top of your slab in an area that is too weak to support that weight properly. If the slab is resting directly on the ground, then you are probably OK, but don't take my word for it: hire a structural engineer ("calculista") to check.

That's a very nice stone wall, and it is almost a shame to cover it up with a second wall! What is on the other side of that wall? I also see a simple wooden partition at the far end of the room... How is that built, and what is on the other side? What about the other two walls?

Well, at least you found this forum before you went too far, and you can probably re-use most of those materials in building the studio the right way, so it's not too bad: Some people who found the forum under similar circumstance were a lot further advanced than you, and had to undo a large amount of construction! In your case, it's not so bad.

- Stuart -

_________________
I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Hey Stuart!!

A huge THANK YOU for the welcome and for the first suggestions!!! Unfortunately i read the rules befores starting the topic but i don't see the points i forgot, could you please tell me so i can give some more info?
I'm sorry but i came very late from work today and i don't have enough time to respond properly each point with the time it deserves.



Great!! I didn't know the program!! Just downloading! Thanks mate!!



Yeah, i wanted to hear that I think they are 60 cm thick.



My actual problem is that our band is a long dinstance band, and we don't rehearse unless we have some festivals or something just one or two days before. I could measure the volume in an actual rehearsal in our actual rehearsal room, but this won't happen until September minimum, as we're finishing writing our first album for recording on August.



It's a pinewood male/female type (do you understand this?) floor, about 20mm i think. The idea is to put a parquet or similar over it.



Yeah, i was frightened when i realized about this!! How couldn't i see it before buying all the rubber and bricks!!!



Buffff!!! It's a relief now that you guys made me realize. I've studied Physics at university and now i see perfectly that what i created is a perfect resonant box that will be annoying as hell with the bass player's smile looking at all of us, LOL!!!



Is a brick wall better than a Gypsum one? I have to ask at the store where i bought them if i can get my money back, i'm afraid they don't sell Gypsum and they can't change me one thing for the other. But for working i prefer gypsum by far!!



My idea was not to cover that stone wall. It took some time to me to make those nice creamish joints. I know it will be very reflective, but maybe i could balance those reflections by putting a very abstoptive wall in front?
At the other side of that wall there's only nature
Which wooden partition are you refering to? Maybe what you see are the BIG wooden slideable doors of the main entrance. I can get my van's back inside so i can take all the material down almost at the door of the rehearsing room, even if it's raining!! That door would be in the upper side of the layout i put, and the picture 1's little wooden door wall would be the down side of the layout. The room at the bottom right would be the CR, and the room over it the RR, with the floating floor i actually did. The long room on the left will be for my girlfriend's art world
The bottom wall of the layout leds to the house side, the rest of the outer stone walls in the layout are leading outside.

Thanks againd Stuart and i'll let you know if i get the money back for the bricks!! I hope so!!

I have a litte question about isolating materials in the walls. I have some 40mm Copropen (i don't know if you know this material) leafs here, like 15 leafs of 2x1 or so. Is it good to mix it with Rockwool for the double walls?

Cheers!!

Big blue bold italic letters. Point number 03. About half way down the page....

Pino machihembrado?

It can be, as it is more massive and more rigid, but there's the problem of actually building it: as you build a brick wall, the mortar can drip down inside the cavity, at the back, where you can't see it, and also debris and waste can fall in there, bridging across the gap: that joins the two leaves solidly, thus greatly damaging your isolation. It's hard to prevent that from happening. And most brick layers just don't care: they'll dump all their garbage inside the wall: nails, broken bricks, bits of wood, dried waste mortar, etc...

That might be a problem, if you need high levels of isolation. If you don't put another wall in front of that, then you are limited to "mass law" for your isolation. That might or might not be a problem....

I wasn't concerned about the acoustics in the room: stone walls can sound great. Rather, I was concerned about isolation.

Do you have a link to the manufacturer's web site, so I can see what that stuff is?


- Stuart -

_________________
I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Hey Soundman!

Thanks for answering again
OMG!!! I don't know how this happened, i promise i filled up my profile info, but somehow i didn't save it I'm really sorry.

By now, i'm very worried about taking the decission of if i should take the bricks back to the store (i asked the guy at the store if i could have my money back and he told me that i had to speak to the boss, so i don't know yet) and make the walls with wood frames and gypsum, or go on and begin with the bricks....

I'm also very confused about the floating floor man, i've just read the John's manual and see this link:

http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics3.htm

Should i decouple it and use the wood and rockwool for the ceiling for example?
I've talked to the architect who led the project of our farm reconstruction, and he told me that the previous owner designed this studio side floor concrete for handling heavy machinery for wood sewage. Actually, when we bought the farm, there were several industrial wood sewers installed (the guy was a carpenter and we used to work there), so he said that there would be no problem at all for making double brickwalls



Exactly!



I thought on building the brickwalls by myself with some help. I was thinking on how to attach the isolating material to the second wall while you are building it? This is easier with the wood frames, but how could i do it with with bricks and leave an air camera properly?



I prefer to check it out this way, and in case too much sound is getting outside, add a wood frame and another gypsum leaf. What do you think?



Oh, that's good news



Ups, sorry for wasting your time, i could have done it before. Here you have it for making an idea: (it's pretty heavy)

http://www.metrasoni.es/html/copopren.html?gclid=CPrEu63vmLcCFdHLtAodUlgAng

And i have one more doubt about the finishing of the brickwalls in case i decide to go on. Let's say that i want to put a wooden leaf over the brickwall. If i put some thin wood frames, then these RC channels over, and then the wood with some rockwool in between, would i be creating a third horrible leaf? Should i put these John style horizontal woods with gaps between? I'll make a lil schem of how i'm thinking on doing it

Thanks again Stuart, very apreciated man.

Cheers!

Ekaitz

Here's a very bad scheme of my idea of the double brickwall and the problem of the third leaf i was wondering for using the RC channels.



Is this bad if i put rockwool between the wood and the brickwall? Which is the way to do it properly when using brickwalls?

*Air gap of 100mm and not 100cm of course!!

I've been thinking pretty much about the floating floor, about brick walls, all the bricks i've already bought and i will have problems on having my money back etc. the ceiling...., this has been a reflexion week instead of action and a lot of reading in this fantastic forums (Thanks John for making it ).
So i've thought that i'm going to mix bricks and drywall. I've thought on making the outer wall of bricks, and the inner one with wood frames and drywall. I think it will be a great combination, as sound dislikes changing of media. And this way i won't have problems with the mortar bridging the two brick walls etc.
I will use the floor wood for framing the inner wall exactly where the floor edge is right now, this wall won't touch the two pylons, but the outer one will as you see in the next pic:



Will the outer brickwall being touching the pylons affect very negativelly? In the upper floor there will be no one while we're rehearsing.
I was also thinking on putting the bicks of the outer wall like this:



As i've bought plenty of bricks for the double brickwall and i'm making only one now (i know that maybe i'll need a lil bit more bricks this way) i thought in putting them this way instead of stood up. Any opinion about this? I think the wall will be much more stable, solid and dense.

The other thing i'm concerned about is the ceiling. I attach two pics so you can make an idea of the details of how the upper floor is made:





Would it be enough putting RC channels across, double drywall hanging, and rockwool down and up with an air gap between?

And for finishing, this is the Copropen i mentioned above, 4mm blankets, it's pretty dense, and i used it for the house side upper floor drywalls:



Thanks in advance for any ray of light. I'm very excited on starting with the walls!!!