Will this apartment work as a studio? Sound isolation wise

Started by eliya on 20 August 2009. 0 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 13517.

Hi, It's been a long time since my last post here, sorry if this isn't the wrong subforum for this thread, please move to the appropriate forum if needed. I'm no expert when it comes to acoustics and sound isolation, but I read about these subjects and try to understand as much as I can. Please bear with me, I'll try to give as much info as possible. I'm looking for an apartment that can be used as a studio place (in addition to living in it). I'm not looking for anything fancy, just a place that have a room that I'll use as acontrol room - a place to put my mixer, speakers and gear and a recording room - where I can put the drums and amps. My main priority is that I'll be able to play and make noise in this apartment without bothering the neighbors. However, I'm not going to spend money on soundproofing whatever apartment I'll find, I'm only going to rent it (and for a relatively short amount of time), I cannot afford this kind of money. I know I'm asking what might be the impossible, but please keep reading and I'll explain myself further. Because of the above I'm looking for a free-standing house, to minimize the noise that will go to my neighbors, I'm guessing that with no common walls there'll be no structural noise/transfer. However, it's hard to find houses like that for cheap. Here's an apartment I did find: It's an only apartment in a two floors building - ground floor is a photography lab that only works in the mornings, 1st floor is a storage unit and 2nd floor is the apartment. That building "sits" between two buildings on each of its sides, the buildings are "touching" the building where the designated apartment is. By touching I mean this - It seems like the buildings don't share a wall but each has its own structure and walls (i.e. not the situation when there's one wall with two rooms one each of its sides). So it looks like this: Room - Wall - Wall - Room. The two walls have contact between each other. This building was probably built in the 60's, perhaps even the 50's. The Ceiling is probably concrete or a mix of sand and concrete. The floor of the apartment is probably concrete (or could it be a mix of sand and concrete?) with tiles above it. Walls might be blocks or concrete/sand. I don't know if it's actually possible to build a wall with a mixture of sand and concrete, I just know that in many old apartment when you drill the walls you sometimes find yourself drilling into sand, or perhaps plaster. Do you think that it's possible to record and practice (loud drums and guitar) in this apartment without bothering the neighbors? The room where the drums and amps will be is the living room. To the left of the living room is what I designate as the control room, to the right of the living room is the exterior wall that's in contact with the exterior wall if the other building. The back of the living room is the inner side of the apartment, the front is the street outside. If there will be leakage of noise between the two apartments, how severe would it be? Unfortunately I can't set a drum kit in that room and test the levels outside. The land lord keeps promising me that no one will hear me play, which is spiking some confidence and optimism, but that lady isn't an acoustician. On the other hand, the current place that's used as my studio is a basement, all underneath the ground, with walls, floor and ceiling made out of heavy concrete. Still, whenever someone's playing the drums in there, you can definitely feel the floor of the floor above shaking with every kick and snare hit. The building where I work at is like a mini sky scraper all made out of concrete. Today there were workers drilling the walls five floors above the floor where I work and we could all hear the noise it was making clearly. This doesn't make this apartment seem like it would be possible to make noise there without bothering the neighbors. :( Thank you in advance, I appreciate all kinds of feedbacks.