Hi , I'm tom from Israel.
I am building a nonprofit community studio which will also serve as a rehersal room for some (pretty loud) teen bands.
We are trying to insulate/soundproof a room with a very small budget. the important factors are preventing noise pollution and retaining fair sound quality inside.
incl. is a diagram of the room (6X5.5m). the ceiling is very high (~5.5m)
the room is concrete and concrete blocks, with marble-like tiles, and has the acoustics of a cave...
the floor under the space we got is in use for tutoring etc... so I will try to "float" the floor by using wooden pallets covered with thick carpeting, and maybe some material inside the empty space in-between.
we will build a wooden (?) ceiling at ~2.2m , possibly with some triangular-edge foam sheets we made using a foam cutter.(i have pics somewhere) , maybe angled in any way? maybe incl. basstraps?
as for the walls... i thought to use about 5000 scrap books to line the walls (leaving a small foam gap to de-couple from the current wall) with some stucco in between. the books will remain exposed from the side.
Recovered from web.archive.org — originally hosted at http://www.ventasalud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/room-partition-with-lot-of-book.jpg(see img). i assume the irregular shape and material of the books will reduce the need for additional foam/cotton covers?
any comments about my idea? will the books be useless? will it sound like a cave again?
thanks!
tom
"so I will try to "float" the floor by using wooden pallets covered with thick carpeting, and maybe some material inside the empty space in-between. "
Two bad ideas. The wooden pallets will not produce a floated floor and carpet especially thick is never a good idea since it tends to pull out mid to high frequency leaving you with a boomy sound.
What kind of floor are you on, is it concrete ?
The books can help to reduce the effect the tile walls are having and possibly add some diffusion.
What about the window and doors? How are those constructed and why are you building a new ceiling that will be attached directly to the existing room?
thanks for the replies
My floor is tiles, marble-like material (not ceramic). the purpose of "floating" the floor is to prevent sound from penetrating into the floor below. if I get your drift, i'm better off covering the floor with books or some similarly-dense material?
the ceiling will be much LOWER (~2.2m) than my current one (~4.5-5m) to reduce the horrible echo, and reduce tha surface area of wall i need to build :)
about the door - this will be a "community studio" so nothing fancy... probably wooden with foam cover..
about the window - where do you suggest to look up simple (semi-proffesional) designs?
the current walls are made of porus blocks (not fired bricks)
thanks again!
a damped membrane floor may be your best best - 1" rigid insulation, 2x 1/2" plywood (staggered seams, glue and screw to make a 1" layer), 3/8" flooring, small scatter carpet as needed. should help somewhat but your air borne sound into your walls will still transfer into your structure. on the ceiling - 4" cloth covered absorbers scattered to balance. the normal culprits for first reflections - side wall, ceiling, back wall, and a heavy drape for the window when needed.
"My floor is tiles, marble-like material (not ceramic). the purpose of "floating" the floor is to prevent sound from penetrating into the floor below. if I get your drift, i'm better off covering the floor with books or some similarly-dense material?
"
Your floor covering is tile, what is the floor made of, what supports this floor?
I'm not drifting here:)... and I never said anything about books on the floor...in my house books are a bastion for knowledge so they seldom lay there long...and we have a dog:)
But yes, the decoupling method Glenn mentioned might be something to consider, but running before you can walk is never a good idea.
I appreciate your patience, a few clarifications if you please -
1. yes, the floor is concrete. sorry :)
2. Glenn- city hall basically gave us an abandoned school-building with a (mostly outdated technical) library to be discarded. we spent ~3 weeks sorting out anything with intellectual value. the rest will go to recycling, so why not recycle on the spot?
3. if I substitute plywood for particle board, would that be somewhat acceptable? we can scavenge it more easily :)
4. is there any way I can combine particle board, plywood or cotton absorbers on either side of the walls to improve absorption ?
5. per your suggestion, " 4" cloth covered absorbers scattered to balance" I am thinking about hanging the absorbers from the ceiling like this, only staggered and maybe slightly slanted. I hope it will be enough for the bass when the kids start to drum like crazy..
How much isolation do you need? Have a band play in the existing space and see how loud it is in areas of concern.
Books have significant mass but a wall of books is not a continuous mass. You may have difficulty achieving significant sound isolation without framing and drywall. Is this not in the budget?
The books I would use to build makeshift diffusers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPL0or2x2ko). You wouldn't be able to create a perfect diffuser since books all vary in size, but you could approximate one with a little creativity.
True, the diffusion is going to be there, it would be up to the OP to finger it out as to what it is, if possible.
But there would be some isolation created by the installation by the simple mass of the books.
Not a room in a room ,,,but mass is the general rule, so hopefully we can both, or all agree on that.
Regarding the use of books as a diffuser, granted we're not talking tuned systems here, in my previous studio a few large bookshelves were a given so I staggered the spines of the books on the shelves. This had a marked effect on the sound in the room as opposed to when the spines were all neatly aligned.
Looks a bit odd at first but you get used to it, and when you explain to visitors why you've done this, they think you're a genius and often do the same at home. :wink:
Just a quick anecdote,
Not long ago at an Ikea, I overheard a customer asking if they could buy a set of those styrofoam book props they use in their displays - go figure???
ipad virtual keys... "posted a" :roll: shirt cardboard is the thin cardboard you find inside new dress shirts to keep them flat or something like the hard cardboard from gift boxes. when i search for "book qrd" and "gullfo" i find a single post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7974&p=56041&hilit=book+qrd#p56041:mrgreen:
But there would be some isolation created by the installation by the simple mass of the books.
Not a room in a room ,,,but mass is the general rule, so hopefully we can both, or all agree on that.
Not sure, as there would be gaps. How would a wall-of-books transmission-loss compare to a partition of equal mass that was free of gaps?
The ability to compare a bunch of books to a studied wall assembly of the same mass is going to be difficult to predict...the mass of the books have to be considered first. Then the lose of the spring in a mass/spring/mass type assembly changes it even more.
Like said, the mass of the books will produce isolation, the gaps will produce leaks in isolation and since no mass/spring/mass really exists, you are hoping for the mass to produce isolation, which they will but to what end, we can only guess.
This is what you have to work with, which we all understand as the limitations of the build for what ever reason it may be.
