New Studio Plans, New Construction

Hello, all. Please take some time to look at my proposed layout. I am eager to hear comments! I am in Upstate New York. The proposed new studio will be an addition to my house. My budget is 50K. I will perform most all the interior work myself. Only the frost wall/foundation and outer shell will be by others. I am in the initial planning stages and hope to break ground by June. I am located in a very rural area. The overall studio building will be 24' x 48' with 5/8" sheathing and siding. It will be of conventional framing with 2 x 6 exterior walls. The 2x6 framing will be insulated with a combination of 1" of spray foam and Fiber Glass batting. No gypsum wall board on the interior. Interior walls will be 2x4 construction, fiber glass batting and two layers of gypsum wall board inside (5/8" and 1/2") mounted on resilient channel and green glue in between. The interior walls will be separated from the exterior wall by a 3" air space and will be resiliently decoupled from the exterior structure. Interior areas are separated by double 2x4 construction and identical wall systems as described above. The floors will be a concrete slab with most like a wood laminate product on top. The Live Room will have a cathedral ceiling with an average height of 12'. The Control Room will have a sloped ceiling with an average height of 9'. I have attached a JPG of the floor plan. This being early in the process I have very general questions at this point. 1.) Does anyone see any fundemental flaws in the layout? 2.) Should I continue the design and start to add more detail (acoustic treatment etc.) or should I consider some changes first? Thank you all in advance! Tom

Tom - couple of points: - you don't need to room within a room the entry foyer do you? - that's a very small room for a drum kit - add mikes and you won't be able to move in there especially when you are the acoustic treatment required for a room that small.

General comments. Contuing with John's remark about the entrance foyer, you are showing 3 iso spaces in the studio. Have you considered having two in the studio and using the entrance foyer as a third iso space when you need it. If you change to 2 iso in the studio proper, or even if you do not, 6' deep is very shallow for a full kit. That 6' is before any sound treatment. Have a bit more variety in the sizes of the iso booths to give more options in sound. Consider angling them, as John does so beautifully in his designs for better sight lines. Could the bath go against the outisde wall in the southwest corner? Aside from better traffic movement, it also gives some "free" sound isolation on those outside wall sections. Andre

Thanks for the comments so far! John, no I don't actually need the room within a room for the foyer. I started my design with two complete walls and cut it up as I went along. I guess I forgot to take that bit out. I agree, the Iso booths are small. In my first run through--on paper--the drum booth was 8x10, still cozy, but serviceable. But, when I got to actually laying it out with space required for the inner wall, they wound up 3' wide(!) So, I had to steal 1 1/2' from the studio and the control room to get 6'. It screwed up my room ratios for both rooms in the process (I hope not fataly). Andre, I suppose I could loose one of the Iso's. Can you point me to the design you had in mind when you mentioned the booths being angled? Mooving the bath makes sense, I'll see what happens with the second run-through. I'll post something new when I have it. Thanks again, Tom

"Interior walls will be 2x4 construction, fiber glass batting and two layers of gypsum wall board inside (5/8" and 1/2") mounted on resilient channel and green glue in between. The interior walls will be separated from the exterior wall by a 3" air space and will be resiliently decoupled from the exterior structure." RC on an already separated wall, essentially decoupled, doesn't help you. I have been reading about the >so called< advanced framing techniques, single top plate and 24 inch and 19.5(one fifth of eight feet) layouts some are suggesting in the Industry. If this were incorporated into your addition, if code acceptable, the widened distribution of the studs will give a better lower frequency ability due to the reduction in rigidity and also can reduce any airborne transfer as there is less lumber (studs) to bridge sound in either direction. Also your mass is decreased by using the 1/2 inch panels, so unless you have a reason that you can verify, the refraction gained from dissimilar thickness will not exceed the isolation gain. If I were trying to push isolation, one thought would be to include double layers of sheathing to the exterior rather than looking at it as a simple addition with another room framed inside of it. And then there is the overhead. This is by and large the weak point...don't pass up the opportunity to make it as isolated as the walls and the concrete floor. In any event, good luck Brien

tdelvecchio wrote:

I suppose I could loose one of the Iso's. Can you point me to the design you had in mind when you mentioned the booths being angled? Mooving the bath makes sense, I'll see what happens with the second run-through.

Not too far in square feet, although different in overall dimensions is Leftbank Studio preliminary plan 3. The one on the bottom of the three. Imagine the iso booths with their angled walls facing your main studio room. Don't forget as thinking about number of iso booths, that the entrance foyer will be a third one for when you want four isolated spaces simultaneously. That is equal to or greater than many pro studios. Andre

Wow, great advice! This place is wonderful! Brien, "RC on an already separated wall, essentially decoupled, doesn't help you." That's great to hear! The RC channel and clips are damned expensive! "I have been reading about the >so called< advanced framing techniques, single top plate and 24 inch and 19.5(one fifth of eight feet) layouts some are suggesting in the Industry." Could you tell me where I can find more information on this framing technique? "Also your mass is decreased by using the 1/2 inch panels, so unless you have a reason that you can verify, the refraction gained from dissimilar thickness will not exceed the isolation gain." I've got so many damned books on this stuff, I don't even remember where I read about different thickness panels. Thanks for the info. Andre, Thanks I'll look at those plans this evening. Tom

I spent a few days in email with the Author Mr.Lstiburek on how this was not going to be a standard anytime soon in my area although they have the right idea, just not the clarity that should have been presented in the argument. Advanced Framing: http://www.buildingscience.com/document ... ed-framing And I appreciate these guys for addressing the seismic activity produced by earthquakes and the extraordinary wind loads from tornadoes and or hurricanes that addressed all of the things that the building science paper omitted in support of this not becoming a National standard but more a regional standard. And you may fit in that area :) Advanced Framing Techniques: http://www.toolbase.org/TechInventory/T ... tailID=625 "I don't even remember where I read about different thickness panels" I first read it on the Internet. I first understood the reasoning behind it when I read the Master Handbook of Acoustics. You may have that one too :)

From what I understood after reading the effects of refraction of sound in the master handbook of acoustics, it wasn't the thickness of material that would change the angle and frequency of refraction but the density. Going from one layer of drywall to another would not change density. The thickness of the material would increase and absorption would increase, but at the same given angle and frequency corresponding to the material's density. If they were decoupled using green glue or something like that, then I can see that the overall density isn't changing, but rather the surface density which more readily derived from area than volume. In this case frequency of resonance would change and each material would have it's own resonance (similar to a membrane absorber?), whereby each would be passing and absorbing differing frequencies, but at the same time damping eachother (unlike a membrane absorber?). I'm really not sure about all this, I'm just trying to understand and hope someone will clarify and correct so I can understand better.

Per cubic foot (weight) 5/8 inch sheetrock has more weight than a 1/2 sheet of the same measurements so the mass is increased by using the thicker of the two. The density of 5/8 requires less cubic footage than the 1/2 sheet. I see that as meaning the 5/8 inch panel has more density on the surface than the 1/2 inch of comparable measurements. Sound is not split up into different frequency bands from what I am reading, it simply states that the direction of the sound is altered. A sheet of paper has a static density per pound but the difference between one sheet of paper held up between your ear and a sound source and holding up fifty sheets of the same paper between your ear and the same sound source will, by the additional mass, stop more sound :) Does that mean it is changing the direction of the sound? When I held up the one sheet the sound came right through the single sheet of paper. When I held up fifty sheets of paper from the same notebook, parts of the sound spectrum had to start going around it because the density had changed. The low frequencies are what we look at with isolation, and that takes mass, as part of the whole picture. 'Scuse me I have to go purchase another notebook...