Studio control room seperation

Hi Folks I am very interested to know what sort of levels of seperation between control room and studio space, folks are expecting and achieveing with their designs. Thanks

Hi Razor – Great question, nice, concise, and to the point! :wink: I’m only speaking from personal experience of course, but will happily share this with you. The way I see it is basically as follows: Yes there are three main concerns at first, namely isolation (from the outside world), absorption (control of the sound within) and you are clearly concerned with the third, and equally vital, subject of separation between your rooms. Nice one! :) My studio is now finished (finished-ish! – proper update tomorrow) and I marvel at how many people get totally the wrong handle on this bit. :roll: The separation you absolutely have to achieve is such that when you have a gorilla in your drum room playing the heaviest groove you’ve ever heard, whilst you may be able to faintly hear him through the glass, the awesome collection of mics that you’ve placed around his even more awesome kit are not picking up what’s coming out of your monitoring. In short, dude, if you’re worried that you can still (just ever so slightly) hear what’s going on next door – then DON’T. If, however, your drum room mics are picking up noise from your control room monitoring…then you may have a problem! :shock: Then of course there’s the psychological annoyance of seeing a gorilla through a window banging seven bells out of a kit, cymbals flying everywhere, you being able to barely hear him, your brain telling you it must be louder than it actually is, and then being worried about separation. Set your control room levels loud enough to be able to properly hear your mix (without the gorilla next door) and your monitoring in the control room quiet enough not to be picked up by your mics! If it works - You know your rooms are the ‘nuts’ (From a separation perspective at least). Hope this helps my friend, :wink: Regards, Lou. 8)

So, Lou, you've hired a gorilla to play drums? Are they as smart as I have heard they are? Drummers are pack-rats by nature, wouldn't a pack-rat have been a better choice?

Ah, I know that bloke... look I had'm in my studio too:

cool, THIS is my 999th post (and what a waste it is.. again haah)... wonder if my next post will UP my rank?! :)

BBC has many Rd reports with design separation and actual achieved separation. Andre

Thanks lou and Andre The accoustician is quoting 45db flanking noise through the common cement slab so we will design around that a 50- 55db wall. There is no way of seperating the slab. Does this sound about right? Where can I hire the gorilla for my testing? Cheers

razor wrote:

The accoustician is quoting 45db flanking noise through the common cement slab so we will design around that a 50- 55db wall.

Without frequencies, those numbers are meaningless. The lower the frequency, the less the isolation. Greater than ~50 dB isolation from 125 Hz up is quite achievable with a common floor. If by a 50 -55 dB wall you mean one with that much isolation from 125 Hz up, that amount of isolation is quite satisfactory. What is important with music isolation is the low frequencies. A wall with that much isolation at 125 Hz will have greater than 30 dB of isolation at 63 Hz. A very respectable figure. Andre

Andre, can you point to a good source for common slab transmission numbers or formulas? I assume thickness, material, and other factors come into play. But I haven't run across it in my research. Thanks,

brianrcdd wrote:

Andre, can you point to a good source for common slab transmission numbers or formulas? I assume thickness, material, and other factors come into play.

You are joking in saying "common" aren't you? It is the values as "common" drywall. BBC RD 1965-22. Yes, the most up to date I know of is over 40 years old. Andre

If I meant it the way you took it, I agree it would have to be a joke :lol: What I meant was as in common to both rooms. As you used it in the above post. "common to or shared by two or more parties; "a common friend"; etc.

The scary part is I just googled for "BBC RD 1965-22" and this thread came up as the number 4 hit on the list, after only 2 days. Those google-bots are swift! Thanks for the info Andre. Something to study is always welcome.

Without frequencies, those numbers are meaningless. The lower the frequency, the less the isolation. Greater than ~50 dB isolation from 125 Hz up is quite achievable with a common floor. If by a 50 -55 dB wall you mean one with that much isolation from 125 Hz up, that amount of isolation is quite satisfactory. What is important with music isolation is the low frequencies. A wall with that much isolation at 125 Hz will have greater than 30 dB of isolation at 63 Hz. A very respectable figure. Andre[/quote] Yes low frequency is the issue but we all have to start with some kind of figure as a ball park so we can start the discussion. We are just trying to match the wall to the floor. No point talking about a 70db wall if the floor is our weakest point. Thanks for your comments and time

The accoustician is quoting 45db flanking noise through the common cement slab

I'm still confused as to what the acoustician means by that: 45dB at what frequency? 45 dB TL? STC 45? IIC 45? MTC 45? NRC 45? 45 dB for impact noise? 45 dB for rock music played loudly with a speaker on the floor? Maybe it's just me, but I really don't know what he means by "45db flanking noise through the common cement slab". Could someone explain what that means in real terms, please?

razor wrote:

Yes low frequency is the issue but we all have to start with some kind of figure as a ball park so we can start the discussion. We are just trying to match the wall to the floor. No point talking about a 70db wall if the floor is our weakest point. Thanks for your comments and time

As was just posted above, at what frequency is he (the acoustician) referring to? You started the discussion. We asking what that number you posted represents. Andre