Advice for my basement studio plans

Hello All, First let me say what an awesome forum this is. I have read it many of the posts repeatedly and every time I do I find more information that is of great substance. I am graduating my loft project studio to a basement recording facility. I live in a town house with neighbors on both sides. No to be forewarned, I have to obnoxiously barking dogs and both neighbors when asked say the have never heard a peep. To me this is a good sign. I plan on converting my 900 sq/ft basement into a control and live tracking room. Here are my ideas, please let me know anywhere that you see room for instant improvement. Basically I am the most concerned with sound leakage. Floor: I am building a 10' x 12' tracking room on a solid slab, after reading Rod's book, I find that I do not need to put in a floating floor. For water protection reasons I will be laying a basic plastic underlayment topped with generic rubber found under most wood floors. Then a layer of cheap 'fake' wood flooring on top of that. Ceiling: I have an 8 foot ceiling. I plan to hang Z-Channel across the existing joists and pack that with 90mm insulation. Then I would hang 1 layer of 5/8" drywall followed by 1 layer of 1/2" rubber sound dampening material and another layer of 5/8" drywall. With this floating ceiling I will then run a bead of silicon around the edge to seal it all in. Of course green glue will be used in addition to everything else between each layer. Is this enough for the ceiling? My livingroom is directly above and this is where I am concerned the most for sound travel up and out to the neighbors. Walls: Since 2 of my 3 wall are concrete cinder blocks and one of the walls leads outside the other directly connected to one neighbors house. I was thinking that one wall about 2-3" offset from the concrete would be enough. I would use similar construction as above, but I think I would leave out the 1/2" rubber in place of this superseal stuff I found http://www.noisecontrolsoundproofingmaterial.com/page3.html I would construct a second wall of similar fashion with a dual panel sound proof window against the control room wall. Do you think this will be enough? with our without Z-Channel on the exterior walls? The walls will definitely be decoupled from the ceiling... This is just the start anything you can offer up would be of great help. [/url][/b]

hen I would hang 1 layer of 5/8" drywall followed by 1 layer of 1/2" rubber sound dampening material and another layer of 5/8" drywall.

The rubber is doing nothing good and making things worse. Forget it. The superseal is poppycock. Andre

Would you say its fair to forget those two in favor of a good layer of the GG between layers of sheetrock? What are your thoughts on the z-channel for the ceiling. Thanks

eightamrock wrote:

Would you say its fair to forget those two in favor of a good layer of the GG between layers of sheetrock?

Yes.

What are your thoughts on the z-channel for the ceiling.

Good. Succinctly, Andre

Started construction. Went out this weekend and bought 250 2x4's .. For the double wall construction between the live room and the control area does anyone think that using 2x6's will make that big of a difference? there will need to be a 6" gap between wall any way due to support columns that run across the basement. Also does anyone know where I can get Z-Channel? Thanks in advance.

eightamrock wrote:

For the double wall construction between the live room and the control area does anyone think that using 2x6's will make that big of a difference?

No.

Also does anyone know where I can get Z-Channel?

What are you doing with z-channel? It has no acoustic use. You are designing as constructing. Stop. Plan it ALL out to avoid disasters. Good studio building is 90% design and 10% construction. Good luck. Andre

I haven't started building yet. I do have plans, I am just trying to figure out all the details at this point. I am make the most of the knowledge that I have attained from this site, books etc. From what I understood, running z channel slats across my existing ceiling joists and then attaching the layers of drywall to that would create a floating ceiling that would reflex to sound waves and kill some of the bass tones. If this is false information then I appreciate the looking out. I was going to use isoclips and hat channel, but they are larger and consume more volume of space. My concern is the live room is 7.5 ft to the ceiling. I want to maximize my space there. Do you think its better to go with iso clips regardless of the ceiling height? I appreciate your advice, I am planning. I have not cut a single piece of wood yet. Also, is it better to not have the walls of the live room directly attached to the ceiling joists? or can have them sitting against each other with minimal sound transmission impact? thank you again.

RC is a very specific product designed to do one thing. It is best to have the ceiling not touch the walls. Leave a 1/4" or so gap and fill it with acoustic caulk. Andre

the ceiling is always the hardest part. IMO unless you can have a completely independent ceiling, u will get some sort of sound transmission above the room at high volumes and low frequencies. I am confronted with the same height issue with my current build. My CR has an independently framed ceiling as this is where most of the work will be done. I am using iso clips in my live room/iso booth and have accepted the fact that drums will most likely have to be recorded during the day. I ordered my iso clips online and got the hat channel from somerville lumber on rt 22. Good Luck!!!

Thanks for the advice. Where in HB are you? I am right across the river in BB. I would love to stop by and check out what you've done/pick your brain. I'm graduating from a project studio and have accepted that this will be a huge learning experience. I too have accepted that drums will still be loud no matter what I do. So I account for it.

To be sure, hat channel and RC(resilient channel) are two completely different materials.

To be sure, hat channel and RC(resilient channel) are two completely different materials.

u are correct, i believe the proper material is RC-2 for use with iso clips. i did use solid hat channel tho. The RC2 has little cutouts which helps reduce the transmission through the channel. not sure how big a difference between the two.

Where in HB are you? I am right across the river in BB. I would love to stop by and check out what you've done/pick your brain.

feel free to send me a PM and we will link up

no, you don't use iso-clips and RC together. It's Hat+Isoclips or just RC. IF you need it at all...

In your first post you mentioned:

Then I would hang 1 layer of 5/8" drywall followed by 1 layer of 1/2" rubber sound dampening material and another layer of 5/8" drywall.

You may want to consider loosing the 1/2" rubber and use a layer of 1/2" drywall instead, You would then want to take advantage of having 2 damping layers. You would have more mass in your ceiling which is good, and it may save you a bit of money as well. If ceiling height is an issue, you may want to use RSIC-V Clips and Hat Channel for decoupling, which when put together descends 1-1/8" from the joist and would hold 3 layers of drywall. For RSIC Clips you will want to use 7/8" Hat Channel 25 gauge, also known as Drywall Furring Strips. You want to get the 2.5" wide channel. John

Thanks for the advice that is the way I was leaning, but I couldn't find the dimensions that you provided. Thanks! I'm uploading some pictures of my progress so far. The ceilings for the live room where the only thing I was really struggling with, but everyones advice on here made it very clear what I needed to do.

This is my favorite picture of the build. My Helper!

Hey Everyone, I have moved on to construction after careful planning and have a question about drywall mounting sequence. I read the sticky thread on drywall mounting and it looks like for my installation I am going to use the 'zig zag method'. This method calls for the first and last sheets to be applied horizontally in a 3 layer installation. It also calls for backer rod to be installed around the perimeter of the sheets for each layer in addition to the drywall being 1/4" off the floor. So here are my 3 questions, since my floor is cement (basement slab) do I need to lift the drywall off of the floor and glue rather then nail any finishing to it? Additionally I have built my room to be completely detached from the surrounding walls/cement structure, do I still need to use backer rod in the corners of each layer? If so what are the relative impacts to just flushing each sheet against each other in the corners/ceiling with just some GG or Acoustiseal in the joint.. Also because I can't get full sheets into the basement, I have to cut them down to 4x4.. Does this mean I can basically ignore the horizontal vertical horizontal pattern, or does this have to do with the direction of grain in the drywall? Let me know if I didnt describe this well enough, just FYI I am hanging RSIC clips with hat channel from the existing ceiling joists to mount 3 layers of drywall on the ceiling. 5/8"-GG-1/2"-GG-5/8" for all walls and ceiling... walls are standard 2x4 with r-13. Thanks

Hi eightamrock, You are referring to staggering the seams in the installation of your drywall. This works great as the only main seams that you will have in the end will be the parameter. Even though you are using 4x4s you still want to stagger. As far as lifting the drywall off of the floor goes. I would say to let it go all the way to the floor. Usually when you do this there is a little crack around the parameter that you could stick a butter knife into but this is fine. You are going to construct a wall with 3 panels and Green Glue so your wall will be heavy and damped. The thought behind the 1/4" gap is that it allows the panel to flex a bit more. Great for a lab situation, but in the real world with that mass loaded damped wall you will not notice a difference. Then you can attach your molding. I don't think you will need the backer rods and you can use an acoustical caulk to seal the parameters. Make sure that the drywall goes up nicely against the door frames as well. If not doing sound isolation, molding will cover imperfections, but since this is sound isolation, you'll want to stop the sound from finding little flanking paths such as these. Your ceiling assembly is great. The only change I would make is to use all 5/8" drywall (as opposed to using the 1/2" panel) Unless you are concerned about the loss of the little more space. I don't think there is much cost difference and you will get more mass (= better performance) I hope this helped John

John, Thanks for the advice. I ordered my Green Glue from you :) I will take your advice on the ceiling, I am trying to get as much sound attenuation as possible. I was just told that the 2 different thicknesses of drywall would have different resonant frequencies and that it was desirable to have it layered in that way to increase the range of frequencies dampened by my leaf. I guess that this is not the case! Thanks John!

eightamrock wrote:

I was just told that the 2 different thicknesses of drywall would have different resonant frequencies and that it was desirable to have it layered in that way to increase the range of frequencies dampened by my leaf.

The difficulty with music isolation is the lows. The same critical frequency for the same thickness drywall is or significant. Use the thickest you can. Andre

Thanks for that, if only I had that little gem before I ordered the drywall :P But I should have enough 5/8" to do 3 layers on the ceilings and thats what really counts, the walls are surrounded by concrete and I can't imagine 1/8" of drywall making the critical difference there. I am more concerned with sound getting out (I am in a townhouse with adjoining neighbors on both sides ) then perfect isolation between rooms. If you suggest I do 5/8" all the way around though, I will return the 1/2" and reorder all 5/8", Its getting delivered tomorrow. Thanks again guys! -Sam

Sheesh, adjusting ordered material at 12: am? For the inside leafs of the concrete block it will not be that significant. Andre

haha good point. I will be posting some pictures of what I have done so far later today. Thanks for the help guys!

Some pictures

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