New Studio buildout of existing office

Hello - I am a film/tv composer looking at a space in Los Angeles on the second floor of a two story office/retail building to use as MIDI studio with possibly a small live room. After testing in the space the sound transmission to the bottom floor is surprisingly small and not an issue with any first floor tenants. It shares one wall with a neighboring office and the opposing wall with a bathroom with loud plumbing. The front of the office has street noise entering through the front door and windows. The rear wall is also an exterior wall and not shared with anything. I am currently waiting to hear back from the builder about the load the floor can take. The HVAC is quiet and acceptable for me. GOALS (in order of importance): 1) Achieve at least moderate isolation of : a) outgoing noise to the neighboring office to right of space b) incoming noise from the bathroom to left of space c) incoming street noise in front of space. 2) Build a control room (at least 12' x 17' or whatever the closest acoustically correct dimensions to that would be) 3) Build a small vocal booth or live room. I don't need anything bigger than 8' x 8' and can go as small as a minimal vocal booth. EXISTING BUILDING: - Floor: From what I am told it is a simple wood floor, though I am having a hard time believing it as I blasted a speaker setup with a subwoofer and very little could be heard on the first floor. Floor is topped with a wood laminate. - Walls: Simple stud walls with drywall (not sure of stud spacing, etc) - Ceiling: 103" to a drop tile ceiling with actual ceiling 21" above that. Not sure what's in the ceiling construction - all I can see is a layer of drywall. OTHER ELEMENTS: I would like to have room (probably in the front of the space) for a small office and also a storage space somewhere in the room if I can manage it. BUDGET: I am awaiting to hear from the landlord if they will chip in for tenant improvements, so depending on that I could consider different plans ranging from $10k to $25k. I've included a pic of the floorplan (my first time using sketchup so hopefully it's usable). The measurements were done quickly so may not be 100% accurate, which I know will be required. I will work on some ideas myself and post them here, and I have an expert coming to look at the space soon, but I thought I could ask the insanely generous members on this forum their opinion on how to configure the space. Thank you!!

"I have an expert coming to look at the space soon" An expert what? BTW, nice first post....you read the whole sticky:)

maybe something like this? you need to factor in the isolation from 3 dimensions - the ceiling (a drop ceiling?) and the floor (noisy plumbing)

That's a pretty good layout and has a very decent size live room. Thank you for your time! You gave me some other ideas. What if I wanted a larger control room and a smaller live room.-? Are those rooms you designed based on ratios? I'm still learning about that, so I didn't take that into consideration for my new designs, I just "felt" it out. Idea one was just to move that center wall to give a larger CR and smaller live room. Another idea was to flip it so the CR is on the bottom with the speakers on the opposite side of the room AWAY from the adjoining wall to the next office. I know the bass waves will easily cross the room but is it wrong to assume it would be considerably worse if I had my woofers very close to the adjoining wall? Also - is it better to be oriented long ways in the room? Or will the short fat control room work out ok if treated properly? As far as isloation - it is a drop tile ceiling hanging under the real ceiling that's the roof of the building. I know there will be transmission through the roof and the floor. The floor, from what I understand, will be a huge headache to try to float, since I'm on the second floor so I may have to accept that for what it is. For the ceiling, this may be less true but I still have to worry about the weight load on the floor and of course the additional cost. Would it be wrong to estimate I could get at least a 50% reduction by just building the walls? I'm more concerned about me bothering the neighbor on the one side than the toilet flushing from the other side bothering me. Thanks!

either one works

Another question if you please... It's a drop tile ceiling under a drywalled ceiling. If I build the walls only up to the drop ceiling, then fill the cavity above with insulation, can I still expect a reasonable amount of isolation from the neighbor and in between the live room and cr if they are 2 leaf systems otherwise?

rubinomusic wrote:

Another question if you please... It's a drop tile ceiling under a drywalled ceiling. If I build the walls only up to the drop ceiling, then fill the cavity above with insulation, can I still expect a reasonable amount of isolation from the neighbor and in between the live room and cr if they are 2 leaf systems otherwise?

No...you have to maintain separation between all rooms to avoid any flanking or air-borne paths that need to be eliminated....or at least reduced to an acceptable level. Since you are building walls anyway, in an attempt to establish the room-in-a-room design, you may as well learn the whole system and get that ceiling framed in as well. If at all possible you want to "consider" removal of the existing grid/tile ceiling...existing hvac/sprinkler/ hardware permitting...to establish the highest possible ceiling height that you can reach.

"Floor: From what I am told it is a simple wood floor" Nevermind what I said before...you need to get an "expert" in to establish the deadload limits of an elevated wooden floor since it will be much reduced (permissible load limits) than if it were a concrete floor. You should get that checked first since you may get the bad news first and not be able to do anything...your landlord doesn't have this information readily available, trust that :)

Definitely waiting on an answer about the floor load. Money, deadload limit, and landlord permitting I think it would be great to frame in the ceiling as well. I'd love to have a plan B if that won't be possible. How about taking down the grid ceiling and building the walls up to the drywall ceiling (walls properly decoupled from ceiling)? Unfortunatley I dont know what's above that drywall but I would guess it's just one layer hanging from ceiling joists. I am on the top floor and it's a newly constructed building. Anyway- Would that at least improve isolation over just filling it with insulation? I realize I'm not going to achieve 90% isolation here but even 60%-70% would be acceptable... Thanks for your time!

My participation ended when I realized this was a wooden structure...my bad for not catching that earlier. But you are talking about loading up an already loaded structure, I don't care how new it is, and to be fair a double wall assembly on a wooden floor has a built in flanking path (the floor) that you cannot overcome with this kind of assembly. I would find somewhere else on the first level OR I would spend my time adding mass directly to the existing wall assembly, concern myself with plugs for windows and doors and if any walls were built they would be for acoustic treatment of this place...but that's just me.

Good advice. Though I have my doubts that it really is only a wood floor as the real estate agent told me because when i tested with two 8" monitors and a subwoofer blaring away there was only a tiny amount of leakage to the space directly below. I'm going to push harder to find out and if it is indeed cement or something else I'll report back. Thank you!

I like your style...:)

Best reply I got on the floor construction is "some mix of wood floor joists and cement". Hmm... I just know from trying it out that very little vibrations are passing through the floor. But I did get the deadload limits... Dead load = 26 psf Live load = 50 psf Partition wall load = 20 psf Please double check my calculations but if each wall built were to have 4x10x5/8 drywall = 2.3125psf x 2 panels = 4.6250 psf 2x10 framing = 2psf So in general I'd be adding only 6.6250 psf to the deadload limit? If that's the case I'm well under the limit... Please correct me if I'm doing this wrong... Also - assuming the floor isn't a huge flanking path and I can build under the load limit... back to my previous question... Can I improve isolation significantly over what it is now by building up to the existing single layer of drywall on the ceiling, and not creating a new ceiling altogether?

"assuming the floor isn't a huge flanking path" It is...especially a wooden framed assembly with lightweight concrete since you have two boundaries that can vibrate at different frequencies...but a wooden framed assembly alone is a direct connection(flanking path) in any bodies language.

Dammit, physics, give a guy a break.