John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

salam.
hi
im almost new to this community ,from Dhaka,Bangladesh.Insaa Allah , i wanna build a small studio at the ground floor which is residential small flat(about 875sqrft).
Because:
there is no studio in my city that me and my band like for acoustic drums take..and other acoustic instruments as they are totally dead or there is something wrong in the acoustics.
hopefully this will help my band and other bands and i wanna use this studio commercially also.
Goal:
my goal is to setup a studio which might be small but acoustically true....u know what i mean.

currently the whole flat (rooms)is brick walled and plastered.since im taking this flat as house rent, i cant break the walls fully but can alter a little.(like for glass windows etc.)
i don't have a great knowledge about acoustics but im trying to en reach it by seeing trough the posts ,tutorials from forums and others and recently from this forums(which is so far being
most helpful) for more than a year. by my so far understanding im attaching my plan(layout) which is made by floorplanners online, as im very poor at google sketch but im trying..........

room measurements:

CR: 19'6" by 12'7"
Live room: 14'6" by 12'7"
vocal booth/ISO room: 7'X6' available 12'6" by 12'6"

in the plan the outer walls are brick walls 7" with plaster at both side and inner walls ase 4" wood studs .....sorry for same color i couldnt make it different at floorplaaner.

Question :
can any one help me about the slate cavity ,is it alright the way it is drawn?how should be ceilings and clouds?
do the plan or layout looks ok?...............

am i breaking any rules of posting?

You have done good, it just takes a little time my friend,

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

oh.....thanx for reply and for ur time... ...... i thought i have done thing wrong.......

Tell us more about this area...does it have walls already in this area?

"CR: 19'6" by 12'7"
Live room: 14'6" by 12'7"
vocal booth/ISO room: 7'X6' available 12'6" by 12'6""

What is the height of this area, that is an important concern?

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

Yes the wall is 7" (5" brick +1" pluster at both side) . I kept 6" gap from wall that is in betn cr and live room and 1' at the other sides. Side stud wall will be 1" or more gaped from brick wall.


Room hight is 10' for all rooms.

My plan is to make the ceiling 8' for two ends and 9' at the middle
For making the ceiling slope......

Have I done some thing wrong?

A few things that I would change, listed as A and B.

A: is your existing wall that is creating a 3 leaf in between the control room and the tracking room

B: your door is being built on the treatment side of the room rather than the isolation side.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

Since the flat is taken as rent .... I can't remove the whole
Brick wall for case A.... Again for case B , I couldn't find any
Better option as the walls are already there .......
Can u guys suggest me....an alternative Idea considering my situation .......?

Is there anyway to improve the. . Situation without breaking the walls....?
Is it a big problem?

Well you do not have to remove something that is already there....you use it in the design.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

will it help if i try to attach slats to the door to continue the treatments ?

and what about the 3 leaf problem.,......what ca it cause?

another thing that it wall constructions...............,(seeing so many designs over the forum im confused)

my plan:
outside to..................inside walls
control room:
brick wall +1" gap+1/2" gypsum +studs(4")+ gypsum+?.........
live room(for drums):
brick walls +1" gap +1/2" veneer board or 1/2" gypsum (what it should be?)+studs(4")+ gypsum+?.........

the question mark is about the final finish of the inside wall ...i mean should i use just mud and color or fabric cloth.....(of course where slats are not present...)

Your goal is keep all the parts of isolation together. When you break them upo, like running a door from an isolation wall to a treatment wall, you by-pass the isolation wall, and reduce you isolation. A lot of redundancy in that statement I know, but none the less required.

If you have a wall that you are going to cut/modify to install a window, then if this wall is not a supporting wall, you need to remove this area if at all possible.

You could do a search on three leaf...

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

Insaa Allah , im trying to break the wall . the floor are complete and at this moment it is risky to break the wall. my question is without the wall can these two studs wall which i guess will be apart
from each other from 16" distance, will this isolate the cr fully? is there any chance to sound leak or travel sound from drums(live) room to cr. what shoud be these two adjacent walls
proper construction as drums is very loud. im sending some pics of current situations.

We have a saying as well, "the good Lord willing and the creek does not rise.", sort of the same thing.

The issue is not so much the distance at present of the wall frames ("will be apart from each other from 16" distance") the issue is that you have a potentially true and accurate 3 leaf. To you this means that you are running the risk of a reduced low frequency TL if you use this type of wall assembly.

You could reduce the potential of this by reducing the distance of the wood walls from the brick wall, one you would reduce one dimension, and the other side by a different dimension. But I cannot say with any authority how far for either or what the final distance would be from one wall to the other.

One thing that will help in a small way is "if" you do not couple these wall assemblies together where the window(s) will be. This means that you would install the glass in one wall frame and install the other glass into the other frame, and you do NOT couple them with a wooden frame or any type of hard connection what so ever...but try to leave as much of the hole in the brick wall as open as possible.

I know this may not help much and you may not understand what it is that I am seeing, AND I have not really offered a solution...but there is a potential problem in the area pointed out as a 3 leaf, and the break in the isolation where the door starts on the isolation side and ends on the treatment side.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

i don't know what did u mean?.............
but i meant if almighty Allah wills and let me, i will break the wall.

well the wall is being broke now.......as u mentioned it is very important. my only question is .............what should be the two adjacent stud wall construction for perfect isolation from each other?

since one is control room another is live for drums , how can i stop the transmission of sound fully from drums room to control room?.........

Basically for good isolation you need to build a decoupled and isolated "room within a room" system, with a two-leaf wall all around you, including the ceiling. That means a normal double stud wall (two sets of studs) with 2 layers of normal gypsum board (="sheetrock", ="plasterboard", ="drywall") only on the outsides of the studs, green glue between the layers of gypsum board, with the air gap between the leaves packed full of fiberglass or mineral wool insulation, and everything sealed up hermetically.

This will give you the "mass-spring-mass" principle that is the best way to achieve good isolation at low cost. The gypsum board layers on the outside of your fist stud frame is the first "mass", the air gap plus insulation is the "spring", and the gypsum board layers on the outside of the other stud frame is your second "mass". It has to be sealed hermetically to work properly, but if you do it right, you can achieve excellent isolation.

There are many variations, and many ways of accomplishing this. Use the "search" feature of this forum and you will find them all.

Build your second frame several inches away from the first, absolutely NOT touching the first one OR the ceiling. Pack the gap between frames with insulation, and put up a couple of layers of 5/8 drywall on only one side of that frame, using Green Glue between the layers. Seal it airtight.

Now build your inner leaf ceiling resting ONLY on the new inner leaf wall that you just built. Same thing: fill the gap between old ceiling and new ceiling with insulation, a couple of layers of 5/8 drywall, seal it airtight.

Now you can think about acoustic treatment to make the room sound good. It will sound terrible if you just leave it as is.

And you also have to think about HVAC. Putting several people, instruments and equipment in a small airtight room for long periods of time is not good for your health! People have a habit called "breathing", and they can't do without it for very long, so you need to bring in fresh air through a series of silencer boxes and acoustically lined ducts, and you need to exhaust the stale air through another series of silencer boxes and acoustically lined ducts.


- Stuart -

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