Is a wood floor necessary for dampening or only isolation?

I read the sticky on studio floors but it seemed to be focused on sound isolation. My studio is about 2km from anyone and on a very hard earth and will have 10cm of concrete slave with a bamboo tongue and groove floor. Is it necessary to float the floor to help dampen the sound or is that only important for sound isolation which is not a big concern in my situation. TIA!

A wood floor neither damps nor is it part of isolation, specifically, it is a matter of preference for what you want your rooms to look like, the vibe you are going for. Matter of fact, in some installation procedures, depending on the process you can actually reduce isolation and increase the floors ability to inject unwanted noise into the room(s). Please read the stickies again since you are not currently compliant. Just re-read them...trust me, I've been here a long time ;)

Is this the sticky you are referring to? viewtopic.php?t=8173 If wood floor is only for aesthetics then maybe i can just use cement slab with rugs.

please update your profile with location! thanks!

function11studio wrote:

Is this the sticky you are referring to? viewtopic.php?t=8173 If wood floor is only for aesthetics then maybe i can just use cement slab with rugs.

This one: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3231

Doh! Nothing says "I didn't bother to read or follow these instructions" like leaving your profile location blank! :shot:

Here are the missing details of my post. This room is going to double as a control room and in the future I will install 2 vocal booths on the end that has the curved rock wall. Budget U$3000. In the pictures attached, I have removed the second floor which is concrete to better see. The wall that shows the height of the studio (2.75M) is the curved rock wall. Walls are made out of granite and are 40cm to 60cm thick. Floor is being poured this week and will start off with a 5cm cement slab. The ground surface is very hard dense earth. My options for finishing the floor are wood or what they call here (cement quimado). It's a very smooth finished cement. My main question now is what is best for the floor. The room is cement and walls are solid granite so I'm guessing it's going to make the room bright. Of course I want to add dampening material around the room to help with that but should the floor be cement or wood? My nearest neighbor is 2km (I live in the rain forest) at 500M so sound isolation is not a big factor. The granite already makes the room very sound proof.

A 5 cm thick concrete from the ground up is rather thin, 10 cm would be a better start with a sand bed beneath it to attempt to decouple it from the bedrock. But to your question, it is still a matter of what do you want to see on the floor, wood or concrete, possible stained or painted. Area rugs are used with liberty and can help control whatever reflections the floor produces...if it is concrete or wood or whatever hard surface it winds up being. Your main concerns after the floor are the dense granite room that reflects very well. So your absorption on those walls and especially the overhead cloud/treatments will help get that room tamed down.

OK I will go with 10cm and a sand bed. How many cm of sand? Yes the granite is very reflective but the surface is also very reflective so diffuses the sound very well. I plan to put up panels, rugs, etc to help with the reflection.

All things considered, the concrete substrate needs to be as thick as it needs to be. And who would know that better than the folks that will place it. 12 cm would be a great thickness, but what does it need to do is always a matter of importance. But to the sand, it depends on what you are placing it on. If it is on top of a compacted earth area then you could use 4 inches thick and be good for a 10cm thick concrete slab. But if the sand is going to be placed on top of a hard rocky surface then this wouldn't work the same.

The ground it's on is a type of course sand dirt. Pretty compact but not hard to break apart when digging into it. I'm not really concerned with sounds entering or exiting since it's never a problem. I'm more concerned with the sound quality but if I can adjust that with panels, cloud treatment and rugs then I will deal with it that way.

is rain noise an issue? what are those spaces between the pillars?

The spaces between the pillars will be glass. Rain is not an issue because our place is pretty inaccessible during rain so we work around it. If it becomes an issue in the future, I think the only entry point would be the glass which could be made more sound proof if necessary.

function11studio wrote:

The ground it's on is a type of course sand dirt. Pretty compact but not hard to break apart when digging into it. I'm not really concerned with sounds entering or exiting since it's never a problem. I'm more concerned with the sound quality but if I can adjust that with panels, cloud treatment and rugs then I will deal with it that way.

The big picture is that the structure will introduce noise into the environment. The little picture is that treatments cannot always offset the issue produced by poor preparation. In your case you were willing to install a 2 inch (5 cm) concrete floor that would have done several things, one would have been it will crack simply because it is not thick enough for a barrier between environmental conditions and secondly it could and most likely would actually vibrate under the right sonic conditions. You are thinking from the in side out when you are at the part of the job that requires you to think from the outside in:) If you are in fact, no doubt, doing a build, get some information up here and let these good and knowledgeable people help you, you owe it to them and to yourself. Otherwise you are cutting corners that you cannot see around, so to speak.

I am not going with 5cm. That is what my person doing the floor said he normally does. I'm going with 10cm like was suggested here. My main doubt was in the surface treatment of the floor. Many people (not as knowledgable as we have here) that wood helped absorb the brightness of the room. If I am repeating them correctly. I know I may need to absorb any unwanted brightness but I understand I can do that with wall panels, ceiling treatment and rugs if necessary. I thought I had given the details already but if there is something I missed let me know.

Simple thing for me is this:Soft things absorb hard things reflect. Simple. What you are suggesting is that a specific flooring will have some dynamic ability to reduce the ability of sound to reflect. Mostly, not a one you can mention, saving cork, will have this effect. It is a hard surface and it will reflect, and you are spending too much mental energy on something that you should already have educated yourself on...hard means reflect, soft means absorb :) Simple as that, no matter what else you may have heard ;)

xSpace wrote:

hard means reflect, soft means absorb :) Simple as that, no matter what else you may have heard ;)

except of course slat resonators, perforated panels, membrane panel absorbers, composite panel absorbers, micro-perforated screens, single layer drywall walls, thin glazed windows, Helmholtz-based cement block, hollow plastic diffusers, polycylindrical diffusers, ... :shock: :mrgreen:

we are in the build part Glenn,,,keep up:)

Brien I understand hard vs soft and I was surprised when two people suggested it which is why I came to the experts here. For me it didn't make sense either but don't worry, I'm clear on it already :)