New practice room (planning phase)

Hello to all. Let me first say what a great forum and website this is. Most of the information i have absorbed over the last 6 months has been from here, and although it is enough to make your head spin it has been unmeasurably helpful. I am planning to build a basement practice room in a 100 year old apartment house hear in Vienna Austria. The room is about 685 cm. by 510 cm. and about 300 cm. high. The walls are made of brick and are 90 cm. thick on the long sides and about 35 cm. on the short sides. The floor is made out of 3 cm. thick planks and are sitting on packed earth. The planks have curved over the years and have large gaps between them. Some of the planks near the walls have rotted over the years and have been removed and replaced with poured concrete. I kind of like the floors rustic style but it is very uneven and moves a bit in places due to rot or missing earth underneath. The ceiling is made with iron I beams spaced about 230cm apart along the long side, holding up brick vaults between them that is about 30 cm., so the ceiling is 330 cm. at its highest points. There are no windows but some window wells that go up to the street on one long side of the wall. They have been partially plugged and lost to a 50 cm. addition to the facade on the street, but there is still air and sound moving through one of them. Above my basement is a street level shop that is now used as a church, (I will not be practicing Sunday mornings anyway), and above them are the apartments. When people are above me I can hear them walking, talking, instruments playing etc., all quite muffled but still audible. i can also hear cars on the street and people walking by on the sidewalk. So the weak points seem to be the ceiling and window wells. There are also some heating pipes moving along the ceiling that go up to radiators in the church, (their gas furnace is in another room in the basement). In the opposite wall from the street there are some old chimneys and an air duct that terminate in the basement and go all the way up to the roof (5 floors). These are old chimneys built into the wall (no pipes or such) and in the room there is one chimney door where the chimney sweeps collect the ash after cleaning, so that must remain accessible. Our band plays sound scape psychedelic rock and we like to play loud. We want a practice room where we can do that any time of day or night. We also want to record and mix. Because of the eternal problems of drums bleeding into other mikes I have come up with what I think is a good solution, albeit not perfect. The idea is to build 3 different rooms in the one room. The first room will be more like a hallway with access doors to the outside room and the other 2 interior rooms, but could be used as a vocal booth etc. The second room would be about 360 cm by 250cm and would be the amp room (where all instrument amps would be miked up). Alternatively this room could be used as a drum isolation booth, or as a mixing room since I plan to put a window between it and room #3. The 3rd and largest room would then be where we all play, (with headphones if the amps are in room #2). That is the general plan anyway. 1. I am planning to use the room in room construction technique. 2. I am planning to use double doors between all rooms. 3. I am planning to pull fresh air from the street to room 2 and 3. 4. I am planning to push air out through the air duct (chimney) in the opposite wall, from room 2 and 3. 5. I am planning to build a floating floor. (some form of new floor will be necessary) 6. I am planning to treat the vaulted ceiling before building with some extra sound insulation, (some form of hung ceiling or timber frame with insulation attached to the I-beams) Lots of plans. My main questions are; 1. Do you think the 3 room idea is a good one or a waste of resources and space? 2. How important is it to avoid parallel walls? (because of wasted space) 3. Should I build a floating floor with walls on top of it or build walls first and add floor later? 4. Is there a good way to make cable channels in the floor (timber frame with insulation and particle board) without losing STC. 5. What is the best way to get cables from one room to another without losing STC? 6. Apart from neoprene pads what is your opinion about using rubber, such as MLV or auralex sheet block on floors and walls? 7. What is your opinion about other insulation techniques such as filling the walls with sand? 8. If I build a room in room, then the existing wall is one leaf and the new wall is the second leaf, with air space between. What is so dreadful about the dreaded 3 leaf wall? Does the extra wall and the extra air space not add to the STC? 9. Last but not least, If I build the walls and ceilings according to your plans found under /studio design/construction/walls & ceilings, and I build it using a modular design, then how large can a module be before it becomes too heavy or cumbersome to move around or lift? Also what is the best technique to attach the modules together? Rubber sheet between with screws or bolts? Lots of questions, I know! But that is what your here for, no? Oh yeah, the budget for this whole thing is still unknown but I expect to spend between 5 and 10 thousand euros when it's all done. Most of the work will be done by myself with some help, and I am going to finance it through selling some of my vintage equipment, synthesizers anybody? Many thanks again and look forward to hearing any comments, advice , or opinions. Over and out, Lucas

hhmmmm.. Maybe I asked too many questions. :? Anyway here is my first attempt with sketchup with the general layout and plan. i tried to avoid parallel walls. The ceiling I have not done yet. Cheers. L.

Are you thinking of using the main room for mixing as well as performing? If so, I'd put that mixing on the top wall and make the room in that space be more symmetrical. The lower portion of the room - bass trapping. Check out some of the designs on the site to understand the symmetry aspect.

Hello Glenn and thanks for your reply! What i am trying to accomplish is a flexible situation. The big room will be the main playing room and most likely also where we will be mixing. The hallway room will be mostly a hallway but also could be a vocal booth or leslie room. The smaller room will be the amp room or the drum room depending on what works better for the situation. It can also be the mixing room if need be. I have studied the designs and this first drawing (actually the second, because the first just had straight walls) is an attempt at using angled walls but also optimizing space (We have a lot of gear!!). Also the angled wall where the drums now stand in the drawing will need to have an access door or hatch, because in the corner is a chimney door that needs to be cleaned occasionally. The step in the opposite wall will be a crawlspace to access other pipes if it should be necessary and will leave some space for Hvac tubes. Any ideas or response to my initial questions in my first post? Of course in the end we will make bass traps and treat the room with knobbed foam etc. This is just an initial idea to hear what people will say so that i can improve and optimize the design. Lucas

How's this,

hello lilith_envy, So what you are suggesting in your plan is that angled walls are not that important if you create angled bass traps and absorbers? It would certainly be easier to build straight walls. The only thing I worry about is having enough space for all the gear. i have plenty of storage space but at one time we might have as many as 8 to 10 keyboards, organs, and synthesizers set up. Add to that the guitars, the amps, and the drums and a couple of leslies, not to mention all the other various things. Up until now we practiced in a room that was about 3,80 x 3,20 and I had to store half of my gear somewhere else and bring it when needed which was a real hassle. However we were very happy with the "playing" sound in that small room. There were no bass traps and no angled walls, but on 3 walls and the ceiling it had the knobbed foam stuff. I am wondering, with all that gear set up (basically stacked from floor to ceiling and in every nook and cranny), what effect that has on the acoustics and whether it negates all the carefully calculated and expensive building techniques? I think it is also important to mention that we are an underground independent psychedelic rock band, and I am not trying to create a professional mixing studio here but a room where we can play our music without getting in trouble with the neighbors or police :cop: I like using Leslies and tape echo-effects and we create sound-scape music that takes on its own life. In other words we jam, and we don't really play songs but rather themes. With this new practice room we are attempting to create a space where we can record these live jams, but with individual tracks so that we can do a decent mix afterwards. Have a listen at our website and you might get an idea of what I'm talking about. Most of the songs are just recorded jams (with 2 mics hanging from the ceiling) so not very good quality or professional but they have that "live" feeling! Some other songs are more professionally recorded and mixed. ("Round the Bend" for example) Check it out http://www.thegoodlibrary.com/

I realized that I didn't show the existing walls in my plan. So here is the existing room. :mrgreen:

stacking the equipment will definitely influence a number of acoustic responses in the room. resonances, reflections, plus equipment noise, heat, ozone, etc. how are you providing fresh air? electric? is that chimney live? what are your plans for the floor?

gullfo wrote:

stacking the equipment will definitely influence a number of acoustic responses in the room. resonances, reflections, plus equipment noise, heat, ozone, etc. how are you providing fresh air? electric? is that chimney live? what are your plans for the floor?

Hi Glenn, I am planning to pull air in from the street through the one window well in the corner. I am planning to push air out through the air duct in the wall. I could use the chimney as well, and maybe i will hook up the exhaust from a portable air-conditioner there,(blowing hot air out), however I would have to collect the condense water and empty it regularly. For the floor i have not made up my mind yet. On the one hand the wooden planks are somehow decoupled from the structure since they are on earth. On the other hand they have their own resonant frequency and could become somewhat boomy (they sound a bit hollow when you walk or pound on them). The concrete sections around the three walls were poured at some time, after removing the rotted wood, so maybe they are also decoupled from the wall but i am not sure. They are at least not part of the original structure. My plan was to build the walls first and then lay the floor. (or is it better to lay floor first with walls on top?) The floor would then be rubber pads, wooden frame filled with insulation, then chipboard, then a layer of impact-sound reducing material, and finally a regular wooden floor or pvc floor with a wood optic. In any case the original floor is very irregular. here are some pics.. Lucas

It looks like I will be going back to the drawboard.. After talking to the other guys in the band they expressed their general wish to make the big room bigger and the amp room smaller. Also they feel there is no need for a window between the two (I disagree on this point). So I will work on some new sketch up designs, but first things first. Before I start building walls etc i need to think about What to do about the existing vaulted ceiling??? (see photos in previous post) Options: 1. Leave it as it is (probably a bad idea but who knows?) 2. Hang clouds or absorbers in the vaulted cavities? 3. Hang or fix a second ceiling filled with insulation and covered with plasterboard? 4. Fill with insulation and add slats to the ceiling so that it acts as an absorber? The existing ceiling is going to be my second leaf in the MAM sandwich. I need some professional opinions here please :wink: Lucas

Option 2 if you don't need isolation. Option 3 if it's part of your isolation plan.