John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi everybody

This place is really wonderful and as a newbie to studio design is just the most valuable source on the net.



I edited the following posts to make them clearer than they were before.

I've been reading a lot around here, SAE and Studio under construction and felt it was time for posting



I'm in a house basement.

The perimeter the rooms are included in is surrounded by a air gap, then the foundations of the house. The house walls are above the rooms perimeter, not the fondations

The ceilling is not constructed on wood beams, we have cement and hollow bricks (what's their name in english??) and it is 2,40 mt. Unfortunately cannot be stuffed with insulation inside, so everything must be done below the 2.4 height.

In two points its higher, as shown in the plant. Not in the actual CR and only on the far left of the "live" room


This is how the rooms look now

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Ok now to the GOALS


The CR and live room sound like crap
.....and There's no soundproofing

I'd like to have "good", not perfect soundproofing
I'd like to have great sounding rooms


After a bit of thinking i decided to give the "serious building" a chance, instead of going for temporary solutions that may not accomplish any real result.



This is a plan I came up with

1) I'd use the rooms perimeter as the outside shell of the studio.

2) stuff all walls with insulation

3) build inner shells for live and control room, with drywall facing outside

4) use the inner framing of the shells for internal treatment

5) treat the ceilling of the CR with cloth covered rockwool (it's too low)

6) treat the ceilling of the Live R with rockwool and bass trap in the higher area (hangers)

7) wood floors, but floating it is impossible.



Can you please teel me if I'm on a good track or completly out of it?







Best,
Alberto

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anybody willing to comment?


Thanks

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relax?

work!

seriously, i'd use all the space for studio bits. either 3 rooms, or two bigger rooms, and possibly a more accessible machine room space.

Rader you may be right.


For me machine room means just computer and mixer power supply. I just need to isolate those from the Cr and live r


For the rooms dimensions....I just added measures to the plan


Do you think they're small?

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can anybody comment the design?

Is it a bad Idea? almost good? what would you improove? layout?


Thanks

Alberto

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This was an answer I received from kendale:


Aloha,

Here's a few first impressions




How much soundproofing do you require? Soundproofing accomplishes two objectives: keeping sound generated inside the studio from disturbing those outside the studio, and keeping sound generated outside the studio from disturbing the environment inside the studio.




With the room dimensions you've indicated, and the acoustic treatments and principles outline by John , you have a very good chance to accomplish this.




I believe you might be referring to what we call cinder block/hollow tile block.




By using the perimeter walls as the outside shell and building inner shells for live/control room, you will end up with a 3 leaf system. This is not good for soundproofing/achieving isolation. What ends up happening with 3 leaf systems is that the LF are transimitted more than with a 2 leaf system, thus compromising your isolation levels. You want to avoid 3 leaf systems.

Instead, I believe the principle here is mass-air-mass. and the proper construction technique would be to consider the outer foundation walls as one leaf (mass), and then the insulation you've already installed as the (air), and then beef up your perimeter walls up to two or three layers of drywall (mass) and then finish with your acoustic treatment using the inside out wall design(step 4)] http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
construction tab on left, then walls and ceilings tab at top of page.




Correct It's been said here on the forum that it's better to not float a floor, than it is to float one improperly.

Be sure to caulk each and every seam/gap/space between layers, around windows using acoustical caulking. There IS a difference between that and regular caulking, especially several months/years down the road.

Be sure to check out the Reference Section and More links for some great info on construction principles.
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2125
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1168

I think your new proposed layout (7b) looks good. Here's a few bits of information I've collected that might prove useful to your layout:
- Set up the Mix Position roughly 38% from the front wall - avoid peaks/nulls
- Equilateral triangle formed by left/right/mix position
- Monitor angles 60 degrees
- Monitor height – woofer at ear level (avoid mid point of floor to ceiling measurement – either sit higher or lower if necessary)
- Angled side absorption panels – left/right of mix position
- Side walls angled 6-12 degrees
- Ceiling angled - 12 degree slope - lower in front/higher towards rear of control room

And finally, are you planning to soffit mount your monitors? I have worked with studio monitors resting on the console at several different studios and have always had difficulties. Since soffit mounting my monitors in my current location, the improvement in sound has been absolutely amazing.

- bottom end is tighter
- imaging is clearer
- drums sound clearer, more defined in mixes
- able to hear clearer at lower volumes than before
- room sounds quieter without music playing, louder & tighter with less effort when music played
- less fatigue/more enjoyment in listening to mixes!

I am really pleased with the improvements and am looking forward to continued improvements as the rest of the treatments go in.

Hope this has been helpful,

Aloha

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Aloha and Thanks again for the quick answer






Well, the house is not in contact with any other building. I have neighbours a few meters away and my family living on the upper level. They never complained too much, but I'd like to extend the hours I can record guitars and drums at night....


Not much sound coming in from the outside.

Let's say I'd like to be quiet (not dead silent).





I was unsure about that.
But I thouht the air gap and foundations surrounding the house should be considered as "outside".

the house over the basement is built on the perimeter walls and ceilling that I intended to use as outside shells of the studio. Plus foundations are surrounded by ground


I would add that the walls you suggest I use as inner shells are mechanically connected with the ceilling/ floor and walls of the house above


It would be actually much easier to go for your solution, I hope you can conveince me I'm wrong!!!




Would it be that bad to leave it parallel to ground if well insulated? The ceilling is so low...I thought about 4inch rockwool 48kg/mt2 spaced 2 inches from the ceilling




Actually I'm not that happy with genelecs 1031A...maybe I'll replace them, maybe not... this is the first reason I was thinking about metal-stands instead of soffit





Thanks so much, look forward to your reply!!

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Aloha,


Those "bits of information collected" shared are "best case" scenarios. In an ideal situation (as in 12-14 ft ceilings ) a 12 degree angle is nice for breaking up parallel surfaces. Unfortunately, most of us "home studio guys" don't have that kind of headroom, especially in the basement. I would say, in your case, 4 inches of rockwool on the ceiling works. Try to find something between 3-4 pcf (density.)

By the way, what IS the construction of your ceiling like? If you have exposed subflooring. you might want to "beef up" between the floor joists with a couple layers of drywall, caulking edges/gaps between each layer with acoustical caulking before applying insulation.

Aloha

Aloha,

Regarding the wall construction plan - perhaps I misread/misunderstood your initial post regarding the foundation/perimeter wall construction?




A - Foundation/cement walls = 1 layer of mass
B - Air gap already stuffed with insulation = air
C - Perimeter walls = 2nd layer of mass
D - Stuff all walls with insulation = air
E - Proposed inner shells for live & control room = 3rd layer of mass

A+B+C+D+E = mass/air/mass/air/mass=3 leaf
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong here. )

Or did you perhaps mean that you were planning to beef up the perimeter walls with your 'inner shell" wall without insulation/air space between them? If so, then you would have a 2 leaf system which is correct. (My bad )

Seeking to understand

Aloha

I'll try to explain

You have the foundations hole in the ground

You have a air gap and a house built inside those foundations, approx 2mt away

I consider the air gap "B" and foundations "A" outside the house shell, therefore not influencing the soundproofing ..........>Am I wrong?




Sorry if it looks confusing!!!

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Air gap "A" is still a spring, so you have a reduction in sound isolation because of the two smaller springs (the dark green and beige coloured areas in your drawing).

Kepp the questions coming until you are satisfied with everything that you are told and how it affects your studio. There is saying in the quality control field: Funny how many people don't have the time to do it right the first time, but always find to fix it."

Good luck!
Andre

Andre,


I didn't realize the "spring" concept. Thanks for clarifying!


So I should do what Kendale says, that is really easier to do.


Allow me a few questions :lol:

1) using the foundations as the first leaf and the existing room perimeters as the second leaf, I'll have the studio inner shells mechanically connected to the house. Isn't this a big mistake? better than having 3 leaves?


2) Should I beef up with 1,2, 3 layers of wallboard the inner walls? They're meade of bricks

3) should I insulate the airgap between foundations and studio walls? Its 1mt wide (2,5 feet i guess). Maybe just apply insul to the wall connected to the studio (in the airgap of course)....?

4) What about ceiling? I will build a 2nd ceilling, but as in point 1) it will be built on walls that are mechanically connected to the house....


Thanks for taking the time guys, I appreciate a lot!

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Aloha,

Just how wide is the gap between the foundation walls and the perimeter walls?

Aloha