building a new studio in Cali, Colombia

We are planning the construction of a small recording studio in a house we have recently purchased. The house is situated in Cali, Colombia, S.A. The house is about 60 years old, the walls are about 21 cm in thickness and are made of brick and cement; there is a wall in the center of the room that arches, this wall is not a structural wall and can be removed; the floor is made of cement tiles; there is one window that faces the street; the entry is through a door that also faces the street; the ceiling is a type of drop ceiling made of wood paneling, above which is an open area and then the roof of clay shingles supported by wooden beams, there is no insulation to speak of (this is a great source of sound leakage); the studio faces a road with constant road traffic during the day and intermittent traffic at night, the road is about 6 meters from the front of the studio. I have attached a detailed sketch of the space. We are concerned about the sound that both enters and leaves the space; vibration from the traffic; and about achieving good acoustic results in such a small space. The space will be used to record vocals as well as a range of instruments including bass and drums. We will also mix and master, to the extent possible. I have done some research but find that I am still uncertain as to how to proceed. We are in the planning phase. We will be building this in stages do to budget considerations, and we plan to begin with the flooring in the recording area of the studio. We plan on floating the floor using u boats from auralex, is this a good option, or can I get away with using foam or neoprene, would that be cheaper? Philip Newell’s chapter on small studio design,suggests angled adjacent walls, is it worth my while to angle two adjacent walls in the recording area? I seem to recall having read somewhere that the two facing walls (not adjacent) should both be angled, and at equal angles. We have access to good materials here: plywood, sheetrock, drywall, mdf, osb, particle board, and there is a local distributor of a variety of items made from rock wool available in sheets and rolls of varying thickness' and densities, a "soundpanel" - which is a panel of either drywall, or cardboard with rock wool glued to one side. Lightweight materials like the uboats will be sent from the states. Our budget is about $1500 to begin the live room construction thinking of the floor first. We hope to make the most of that money, using effective reasonably priced materials. Thank you all in advanced for your cooperation Mario and Carolina

There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post (click here). Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will most likely not reply if you don't do what is written in that post. Many others who are very helpful, will most likely not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes. Having said that, the answers to most of the questions you asked are in the stickies, or can be found by searching the forum. For example, regarding floating floors: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173 - Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post (click here). Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will most likely not reply if you don't do what is written in that post. Many others who are very helpful, will most likely not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes. Having said that, the answers to most of the questions you asked are in the stickies, or can be found by searching the forum. For example, regarding floating floors: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173 - Stuart -

Hello Stuart, I am sorry, but i thought that i had followed those instructions to the letter. I will read it again. Thanks

Hopefully I'm not stepping any toes here but your budget wouldn't allow a floated floor even if it were needed. "vibration from the traffic; " Tell us about that...these are the kind of things that are so often missed in detail because the poster knows what it is they are up against and people in the forum have to assume that they know to what "vibration from traffic" level others refer too.