Broken Toe Studio Location 2 picture updates!

Middle of last year I acquired a space and have been sitting on it waiting for a design idea that would be effective and get me as close to top notch as is in my budget. So without any further a do-! As you beautiful people with keens eyes will notice, no walls are parallel! unfortunately I can't really do much with the ceiling so i'm kinda torn there because i really liked what was happening but i just flat out don't have the fundage to rip it all out, get all the electrical re-wired etc. I'm planning on going with a wood laminate for the floor (the current floor, is reaaaaaally thin carpet with no padding glued directly to concrete, and i have no desire to kill myself ripping that up and smoothing the floor!) and was debating putting it on the walls as well. Will have corner wedges built for the control room to recess a set of my monitors, (probably my 8's) the room itself is an odd trapezoidal shape currently. So yea, give me some feed back! thanks for the read! -J ^ Control room looking out into the greatroom, ^ Great room looking in to control room (Wall on the right has the jut out) ^ Door on the Left is leading from the great room into the "walk through" between live and control, there's going to be a door put in on the back wall of that room *can be seen in skp but not pictures* Door on the Right is load in from front for artists. ^ wall at the far end when looking out of the control room, it comes to a small triangle to help with room reflections, I planned on putting Iso Booths in both corners. (left and right)

I guess if I had to ask a question it would be what is an "odd trapezoidal shape" RE: your control room and why is the framing in this build making a direct connection to the upper ceiling? It is at least a flanking path, at worst remains the weak link in your isolation.

xSpace wrote:

I guess if I had to ask a question it would be what is an "odd trapezoidal shape" RE: your control room and why is the framing in this build making a direct connection to the upper ceiling? It is at least a flanking path, at worst remains the weak link in your isolation.

Good observation! I'd draw up the control room in SKP but i fail pretty hard at using it. I'll see what i can do though! as far as the ceiling goes, you can't see it but on one wall, but these dudes are trying to save as much of the existing ceiling as possible, so, they have been surgical with connecting the new studs to the existing ones. The cuts they made are literally one inch per side bigger than the frame. Edit* here's my fail at SKP. the room with the darker floor is the control room. the corner wedging scare or measurements are not accurate but they will do the job for what i'm "after".

" but these dudes are trying to save as much of the existing ceiling as possible, so, they have been surgical with connecting the new studs to the existing ones." All flanking paths. Any hard connection from the interior to the exterior framing is a flanking path, a no-no:) I like hard copy (pictures) of the project because that is where we can see if what you or they are doing is what they should be doing. As far as sketchup goes, yeah it takes time and effort to learn it but you will get there. That said (like the sports show commentators love to throw out) your control room needs balance and the current configuration does not show balance left to right of the human ear and that is critical.

well then, tell me now how i should request my "builders" to fix the situation with the ceiling? (Complete failure at construction on my part) also, if you looked at the skp file note like i said, it's def not "correct" just to get the basic idea. (if you were referring to the corner wedges, if you're talking about the 2 angled walls and the 1 straight one, then i'd love to hear another suggestion :D )

I would love to hear you being involved rather than throwing things at the wall thinking I have to justify your ignorance:)

So let me get this straight, because I am not as educated as you in this subject, you feel that gives you power over me? Thanks for all your "help". *edit* I posted 8 months ago looking for design ideas and got crickets, hence why I just went with "whatever". So pardon me if i sound a little "brash" it just seems the responses i get from this forum are more of a "pissing contest" than help.

Hi "Jherman", and welcome back!

So without any further a do-! ... www.facebook.com

Please check the forum rules: all photos should be posted directly on the forum, rather than linked off-site. There are very good reasons for that, among them past experience where the off-site links disappear or change over time, and the photos are no longer accessible later. So you often see old threads here on the forum, with very interesting discussions, but that are no use at all since the photos that everyone is talking about don't exist any more... So please re-post your pictures directly to the forum.

As you beautiful people with keens eyes will notice, no walls are parallel!

Why? There's nothing wrong with parallel, if done right. And nothing wrong with non-parallel, also if done right.

I'm planning on going with a wood laminate for the floor (the current floor, is reaaaaaally thin carpet with no padding glued directly to concrete,

Excellent idea to get rid of the carpet... not so good to lay laminate directly over the carpet. Check with the manufacturer of the laminate if that is permitted or not. Most laminate flooring has strict requirements for the subfloor that you can lay it on. "Carpet" is usually not on the list...

Will have corner wedges built for the control room to recess a set of my monitors,

What do you mean by "corner wedges"? Are you talking about soffits?

the room itself is an odd trapezoidal shape currently.

Is there any place where you can get symmetry? It is critical to have symmetry for at least the front half of the room, between your head and the speakers. If not, can you change that "trapezoidal shape" to something more useful for a studio?

so, they have been surgical with connecting the new studs to the existing ones.

If you are connecting new inner_leaf studs to existing outer-leaf studs then you will not get good isolation. Isolation (sometimes incorrectly called "soundproofing") can ONLY be accomplished if there is, well, "isolation"! meaning that the two sides of the wall are ISOLATED from each other: decoupled, not connected, no physical links. The inner-leaf cannot even touch the outer leaf, not even at a single point.

here's my fail at SKP.

Great! Gives us a good idea of the space. So it seems like your "corner wedges" actually are soffits (or at least, they seem to be soffits from the shape and position). It would help to know how they are made. Also, the left wall seems to be angled backwards slightly: You'll need to fix that. The room should never get narrower as you go towards the back.

well then, tell me now how i should request my "builders" to fix the situation with the ceiling?

They need to build a proper "room-in-a-room" structure that is fully decoupled from the existing structure. In other words, they need to stop what they are doing right now, and wait while you get the room designed properly!

I posted 8 months ago looking for design ideas and got crickets

It can happen. Some threads do "fall through the cracks" so to speak, and sit un-answered. All moderators and other folks who help out here with advice here are volunteers: nobody gets paid for doing this. We do it for free, just trying to help out others. But we also have our own lives, and cannot be on-line, 24/7, answering every single post instantly. It would be nice if we could, but reality is different. There are well over ten thousand members here on the forum, hundreds are asking questions all the time, and there's only a handful of folks who want to help: less than a dozen right now. We are not supermen, and cannot humanly be on top of every single thread. So if your thread sees no action after a week or so, feel free to "bump" it, and see if that helps. It also helps to follow the forum rules: some folks here just won't even bother responding at all to threads where the rules are not followed: if you look over the forum, you'll find many hundreds of threads with only one post, by someone who did not follow the rules. You can't blame us for doing that! If people can't be bothered to read the rules and stick by them, then why should we be bothered to answer? Anyway, it seems you have a reasonable space where you could build a good studio, but you don't have a design yet, and your builders are moving ahead already, doing things that simply will not work. So my suggestion would be to put them on hold for a bit, while you get the design into shape. - Stuart -

Jherman wrote:

So let me get this straight, because I am not as educated as you in this subject, you feel that gives you power over me? Thanks for all your "help". *edit* I posted 8 months ago looking for design ideas and got crickets, hence why I just went with "whatever". So pardon me if i sound a little "brash" it just seems the responses i get from this forum are more of a "pissing contest" than help.

Help comes in many forms. Once I was on a train and a boulder rolled down the hill and the train had to make an emergency stop. Luckily no one was hurt. But we found out that just 2 miles up the track the bridge was out!!!! So almost getting knocked in the head actually saved our butts :) If you are asking questions while you are preforming surgery then you do not belong in the surgery room. Is any of this making sense to you? Until you know what to do, until your help knows which direction to go in you have to STOP the forward momentum. This is not a guessing and requires strict attention to detail, layouts, procedures, et al!!! In those 8 months of silence you should have read up on this, studied, it makes sense...but it seems like it was just a lost 8 months. In any event, get some real pictures out here, stop the work and give up some real details.... We cannot fix it if we cannot see it, make sense?

Beautiful response by both of you. :D First of all, thank you both, seriously. because the first thing I did (Although i was initially pissed off, but that was the reaction you... wanted i guess?) was call my builders and tell them we're putting this on hold till we (or I) figure out a real design idea and to get everything as amazing as possible in one fell swoop. The Truth: I know little to nothing about being a structural acoustic engineer. (I've never "Worked" in a "BIG" studio, only recorded in them, and all cases were YEARS ago before I was doing anything more than Sonar for a DAW Fruity loops for drums and running a 1/8" LINE in on my soundcard to a 1/4" converter to an XLR converter to a sm57 on my Cab to record my guitars) I've tried to learn, but there are somethings I don't know proper names for (soffits for example) and I have just flat out missed some things (Sound flanking for example) while trying to stuff my noggin' full. My current space: I have put together over the years and perhaps just gotten used to the translation from my room to the real world (I do mixes for labels, so someone thinks I do a good job regularly!) I know my existing set up is flawed dramatically and when the current opportunity presented itself, I had to move on it, and well, like i said, I asked 8 Months ago and yea... Stuart - I know people have real lives and i know you guys just jump on here and do what you do outta of the kindness of your hearts and I am absolutely sure I can speak for almost everyone on here that it does NOT go unappreciated. I will fix the pictures momentarily after this brick wall post. Xspace - I appreciate you trying to help, unfortunately i do not respond well to negative reinforcement... at all. However I see that your heart was in the right place. Here's my advice: instead of being an ass why not just say "hey seriously stop, you have no idea what you're doing" Most adults prefer the direct upfront honest approach. I am certainly not too proud to stop and ask for directions. (my wife on the other hand, think's she's a GPS) ------------------------------------------ Time 4 Business ---------------------------------

Soundman2020 wrote:

There's nothing wrong with parallel, if done right. And nothing wrong with non-parallel, also if done right.

I thought it would give the whole bit a very "artsy" look, from what i read (on this forum no less) people OPT to go for non parallel whenever given the opportunity. Just figured i'd jump on the band wagon. *edit I also was trying to tackle the reflection issue to a degree as per my current set up I have foam staggered every 5 feet on opposing walls to break it up*

Soundman2020 wrote:

Is there any place where you can get symmetry? It is critical to have symmetry for at least the front half of the room, between your head and the speakers. If not, can you change that "trapezoidal shape" to something more useful for a studio? So it seems like your "corner wedges" actually are soffits (or at least, they seem to be soffits from the shape and position). It would help to know how they are made. Also, the left wall seems to be angled backwards slightly: You'll need to fix that. The room should never get narrower as you go towards the back.

Indeed, that was actually a question i was going to ask, that specific wall with the angle back is not in place yet (as per pictures it's the only wall without a set of studs) and neither are my soffits (they were just put in the SKP for what i "plan" to do.) One of my builders asked me about that wall (if you check out the pictures there's a small outcropping on the wall from where they added on to the building) and suggested doing the angle thing and me not knowing any better said "uhh, i have no idea" How should i tackle that? I'd really prefer not to move that (or i guess, i can't because it's structural support?) if i could. *edit* I would LOVE for symmetry to happen and that is certainly one of my goals. Also, i'm double walling the control room from the live room, I've seen a lot of people offset the studs and even stagger them in some cases, should I do this? i fully intend on having the 5 degree inner and outer tilts on the glass. My furnace sits ABOVE the great room (see the HUGE vent in the middle of the ceiling in the pictures, it's about 2 feet away from that and about 2 feet above it, Ceiling tile, drywall, insulation etc are in between it and the ceiling) I know i'm going to have to do something with it, Just unsure what. I had an HVAC guy tell me i should take it down, put it in a separate room all together, the same guy tells me that no matter what I do, I'm still gonna hear it. A different HVAC guy suggested I split the intakes across different rooms and hope that stops the sound a bit. ALSO there are skylights and since i have no idea of the acoustical properties they bring to that room (nor am i some kind of math wizard) I'm going to build trap doors that allow me to cover them up when tracking in the great room. TLDR Epiphanys: Carpet has to come up regardless. Best not to connect inner rooms to existing structure. Questions: How do i go about making a "room within a room" but using the existing ceiling? Is it necessary to offset or stagger my studs when double walling? Where should i move my furnace to, and should i split the HVAC routing a lot, or try to build a dampener? Both? -brickwall crits you for 99999999 you have died. *edit* i fully intend on taking down the ceiling fans and the existing lighting. DIMENSIONS: Roughly 37 x 24 (great room) 25 x 15 (control room) with 8.5 - 9 foot ceilings. *sigh*

...call my builders and tell them we're putting this on hold

Very, very smart move! This bodes well for success. I mean that: you have no idea how many times we go through this same process, seeing someone come to the forum who isn't ready to build yet, suggesting they should stop, and the usual answer is "I can't stop, I have to do it" for any one of a hundred reasons that are not valid. The fact that you stopped is very promising! My respect level just jumped several notches... :)

I know little to nothing about being a structural acoustic engineer. (I've never "Worked" in a "BIG" studio, only recorded in them, and all cases were YEARS ago before I was doing anything more than Sonar for a DAW Fruity loops for drums and running a 1/8" LINE in on my soundcard to a 1/4" converter to an XLR converter to a sm57 on my Cab to record my guitars)

OK, the raw honesty ratchets that respect level up another few points... For learning acoutics, I'd suggest that you get started with "Master Handbook of Acoustics", by F. Alton Everest. It is generally considered to be the "bible" of acoustics, and doesn't require a degree in rocket science to understand. It is written for the average guy with a bit of high school science, vaguely remembered, and walks you through the basics, then on to more advanced things.

I've tried to learn, but there are somethings I don't know proper names for (soffits for example) and I have just flat out missed some things (Sound flanking for example) while trying to stuff my noggin' full.

Yeah, it does take a while to learn this stuff. Lots of things about acoustics don't seem logical or intuitive when you are getting started... until things start falling into place, then everything about it is logical. The biggest problem for most people is first "unlearning" the stuff you think you know about acoustics, then re-learning how it actually works. There are so many myths and legends floating around, about sound and acoustics, and so many "snakeoil" salesmen who want to sell you their magical products, that it's hard to discern the good from the bad. Fortunately, you found this forum, which is one of the very few audio forums based on real science, solid research, and years of empirical experience. You won't find any incantations sung at dawn on the winter solstice here! Only good advice, based on how sound and acoustics actually work. But it does take a while to absorb that into the brain. But even so, realistically, it will take a few months to get your head around the concepts of acoustics and studio design, then another month or two to actually design it.

I thought it would give the whole bit a very "artsy" look, from what i read (on this forum no less) people OPT to go for non parallel whenever given the opportunity. Just figured i'd jump on the band wagon.

For a live room (tracking room), "artsy" is just fine. Many live rooms are designed with a specific "character" in mind, both acoustically and aesthetically. But for a control room, the acoustics just MUST be as neutral as possible. It must not "sound good": rather it must not "sound" anything. That's the entire point of a control room: its a place that tells the absolute truth about what the mics picked up, so you can make mix decisions based on what is actually recorded and coming out your speakers, not based on what the room did with that after it left the speaker. So there's a process and a philosophy that goes into designing a control room. Yes, the walls can be angled if that's the philosophy you are following. For rooms based on the RFZ or similar philosophy, that's a given: you will have to angle the walls to achieve the design goal of not having any reflections reaching the engineers head within the Haas time, and until they are sufficiently attenuated. There's no other way of doing that. But if you are following some other design philosophy, then splaying the walls might not be part of that: You still might want to splay them to deal with flutter echo, but flutter can be dealt with in other ways. Or you might want to splay them just because it looks cool, and that's fine too! As long as you take that into account when designing the rest of the room. so you can splay your walls if you want to, but you have to know WHY you want to, and then splay them at the correct angles... There are studios with splayed walls, and there are studios with purely rectangular shapes: both can be made to work just fine, provided that all the factors are taken into account, and the room is treated suitably. And yes, most people do opt for splayed walls in their control rooms, because most people are aiming for RFZ these days, or at least heading in that direction as far as possible.

Indeed, that was actually a question i was going to ask, that specific wall with the angle back is not in place yet (as per pictures it's the only wall without a set of studs) and neither are my soffits (they were just put in the SKP for what i "plan" to do.) One of my builders asked me about that wall (if you check out the pictures there's a small outcropping on the wall from where they added on to the building) and suggested doing the angle thing and me not knowing any better said "uhh, i have no idea" How should i tackle that? I'd really prefer not to move that (or i guess, i can't because it's structural support?) if i could.

It is probably a support pillar, so you don't want to move that! At least, not without the help of a structural engineer. You don't need to move it: there are other options open to you. One is just build the wall out straight, continuing the same line as the face of the pillar, all the way to the front wall (the kink going towards the back wall is not so important). You lose a few inches on room width, but that might or might not be a good thing, depending on your room ratio.... Which kind of leads to the subject of room ratios and modal response! :) I'm sure you know that sounds travels as waves in air, and for each tone (frequency) there is corresponding wavelength, the distance between any two complete "cycles" that the wave goes through. So if a wave happens to fit in exactly between two walls, it can bounce back and forth between them, reinforcing itself. Since it is in phase with itself on every bounce, it "builds up" energy, and becomes what is know as a "standing wave", which is sort of the same as a room mode. The interesting thing about standing waves is that when you cut off the sound that caused them, they still carry on bouncing around, making the room "ring" at that specific frequency. Since mode, or standing wave, sort of "stores energy", it takes a while for that energy to dissipate and decay, so the note carries on playing in the room for a long time after you stopped playing it. That "long time" could be several hundred milliseconds, or even more than a second in extreme cases. But that only happens at the exact frequency where a note happens to match one of the dimensions of the room. For all other notes, nothing unusual happens. You stop playing, the note quits instantly. So obviously modes (standing waves) are a problem. If the room carries on playing a note that your gear already stopped playing, then you are not hearing the truth! The room is "coloring" the sound, by reinforcing some notes and not others. Even worse, depending on where you are sitting in the room, you might be in a "peak" or a "null" of that standing wave, so either you hear it louder than it should be, or quieter than it should be! So your room can be distorting the truth in both time and frequency, and doing so selectively for different notes, and different locations inside the room. Clearly, this is not good. And there is NOTHING you can do to eliminate the modes, since they are directly related to the dimensions of the room. However, what you CAN do, is to choose the dimensions of your room such that the modes are spread across the audio spectrum evenly, not all bunched up in one place. After all, if there is one mode in your room for each note on the keyboard, then all the notes would sound exactly the same, since they would all be affected in the same way, so the room would no longer be changing some notes while not touching others. So if you choose the dimensions carefully, you can find a set of dimensions where the modes are spread out as evenly as possible. This is known as finding a good "room ratio", and the ratio is generally expressed as H : W : L (height to width to length), and in general the height is assumed to be one "unit", so the ratio appears as 1 : 1.4 : 1.9, for example. In that case, the room is 1.9 times longer than it is heigh, and 1.4 times wider than it is high. There are a large number of known good ratios that scientists have already figure out, so all you need to do is to plug in your numbers using one of the good room mode calculators on the forum, then fiddle with those numbers to see if you can improve things. You don't need to go nuts about this process, but you do need to ensure that your room ratio is NOT one of the bad ones, and is close to one of the good ones. I have not taken the time to check your ratio, but to my eye that room looks rather long for the height. I would check, carefully.

Also, i'm double walling the control room from the live room, I've seen a lot of people offset the studs and even stagger them in some cases, should I do this?

Double walls are great, if done properly. You can do it with staggered studs, or better yet, with separate stud framing (which is what you seem to be doing. However, once again there is some science behind how this works. A double-wall is a tuned system that resonates at a specific frequency . At that frequency it does not isolate. Mathematically, it only isolates at frequencies above 1.41 times the resonate frequency and higher, so you do need to tune your wall so that its resonant frequency is lower than the lowest one you need to isolate. If you don't do that, then it will not isolate very well in the low end of the spectrum. Walls have to be designed to do the job: you can't just slap some drywall on some studs, and hope that it works. You need to actually check the numbers and make sure that your plan will work.

i fully intend on having the 5 degree inner and outer tilts on the glass.

There is no acoustic reason to tilt your glass. That's another myth! By tilting it, you no longer have the maximum possible space between the two panes, so that REDUCES your isolation! If you tilt the glass on one side of a wall, then at some points it is closer to the glass on the other side, and at other points it is further away. Isolation is proportional to the distance between the two layers, so by decreasing the distance along one edge, you have decreased the isolation. That then becomes the weakest link in your room. You get maximum isolation when the two panes of glass are parallel. You don't even need to tilt the glass to "avoid reflections" from singers into mics: another myth. You often see diagrams on the internet showing how the sound from the singer's voice will bounce off the glass and back into the mic if the glass is not tilted, and another diagram showing how it no longer does that when the glass is tilted, as it bounces in a different direction. So you think you just saw "proof" that you must angle your glass? Nope. That would be fine, if singers only sang in straight lines, spitting out the sound like bullets that only go directly forwards... unfortunately, that is not the way sound works at all: Rather, it comes out of the singers mouth as an expanding sphere, traveling in all directions. So even if the glass is angled, you changed nothing. The sound just bounces off a different point on the glass now, and still gets back to the mic... However, there may be another reason for tilting glass, and this one is valid, but has nothing to do with acoustics: light glare. There might be lights that are positioned so that their reflected glare gets in your eyes, and you can't see through the glass. That would be a valid reason for wanting to tilt your glass. But then again, it would also be a valid reason for moving the light.... :) Truth is, if you plan your room carefully, taking ALL aspects into account, then you can plan your lighting so that it wont cause glare, thus allowing you to have your glass vertical, and maximize isolation.

My furnace sits ABOVE the great room (see the HUGE vent in the middle of the ceiling in the pictures, it's about 2 feet away from that and about 2 feet above it, Ceiling tile, drywall, insulation etc are in between it and the ceiling) I know i'm going to have to do something with it, Just unsure what.

So you need to take that into account in your isolation plan. :) If your studio isolation plan is done correctly, you can attenuate the noise of the furnace. It would be good if you could measure the sound spectrum and sound levels produced by that thing, so you can specifically design your isolation with those in mind.

I had an HVAC guy tell me i should take it down, put it in a separate room all together,

That's one option, yes, bit a bit "overkill" for my likings! A better option might be to isolate it properly from the floor and ducting, then build your studio with suitable isolation too.

the same guy tells me that no matter what I do, I'm still gonna hear it.

He's wrong. Sorry. But plain and simply, he is wrong. Maybe he doesn't have a clue how to isolate it, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be isolated. It can.

A different HVAC guy suggested I split the intakes across different rooms and hope that stops the sound a bit.

He's also wrong. That might help a bit, but won't solve the problem. Its putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Much better to get a doctor to pull the bullet out first, stitch things up properly inside, THEN put the band-aid on.

Carpet has to come up regardless.

Yup!

Best not to connect inner rooms to existing structure.

Yup!

Questions: How do i go about making a "room within a room" but using the existing ceiling?

Well, here we get to the part that you won't like. Remember I said that an isolation wall is a tuned system? Well, in order to isolate well across the entire spectrum, it can ONLY have two leaves and one air gap in it. If you add more leaves and air gaps, it can actually make the isolation WORSE, not better. This is not intuitive at first, but very true. A "leaf" is just a large flat massive surface, and it can be made up of one or more layers of drywall, plywood; OSB, MDF, fiber cement, or other things. But the sum total of all the layers that are on top of each other, constitutes one leaf. So you need a leaf, then some air, then another leaf, and nothing else. That's what makes isolation work. You'll frequently see this referred to as a MAM wall, or an MSM wall. These mean "Mass-Air-Mass" or "Mass-Spring-Mass". MSM is more accurate, since that's the principle of physics on which it is based. Air is the spring here. Yes, you don't normally think of air as being "springy", but it sure is for sound waves! The problem here is that your ceiling is probably ALREADY an MSM system. In other words, there is a drywall ceiling up there, then joists above that, then a sub-floor on top of the joists. Drywall is mass. sub-floor is mass. The air gap between the joists is "spring": So you already have a tuned MSM system up there, except that it is tuned all wrong, coupled, and not very good at isolating. So here's the issue: if you put another leaf next to that, you now have a three-leaf system, MAMAM (or MSMSM). Remember I said before that a three-leaf system will give you worse isolation than a two-leaf, all other factors being equal? Well, that's the problem you have. If you leave the existing ceiling in place, then you will have a three-leaf isolation system, and it won't isolate very well for low frequencies. So the solution is simple: take off the drywall up there. Yeah, I know you wouldn't like that.... :) But that is what you need to do. Take it off, and in fact of you do ti carefully, you can re-use it to "beef up" the sub-floor above. You can take that "mass" and add it to the existing "mass" of your sub-floor, which will greatly improve the isolation. So you cut the old drywall into strips that fit in between the joists up there, press it tight against the sub-floor, hold it in place with cleats, then seal around the edges with acoustic caulk. Doing that will make a BIG difference. So, that takes care of the outer-leaf of your ceiling, now for the inner-leaf: You simply support it on top of the wall frames! In other words, you add a new set of joists on top of your wall framing, and attach your new inner-leaf drywall to that. There are several ways of doing this, and you might not need to lose any height at all, if you do it carefully. One more "You won't like this but have to do it": the same thing applies to your walls. If your existing walls are simple studs with drywall on both sides, the the drywall on your side has to come off. And here to you can re-use it to beef up the other side.

Is it necessary to offset or stagger my studs when double walling?

No, since you are building your inner-leaf framing as a separate frame, decoupled from the existing walls. You only need to use staggered studs if you are building both leaves at once and cannot do separate framing, but you are not in that situation. Your wall will be fully decoupled as it is, so no further decoupling is needed.

Where should i move my furnace to,

Up, about one inch or so: Just enough to get isolation springs under it... :) Seriously, that's what I would do. Just mount it on an isolated base, so the noise it makes is not transmitted into the floor, then also decouple the ducts form the furnace with resilient sleeves, so that the vibrations of the furnace are not transmitted into the ducts themselves. Done like that, the furnace will still make as much noise as it does right now, bit with a major difference: it will all be airborne noise which is easy to stop, and no structure-borne noise, which is impossible to stop... Then analyze the noise spectrum that it is producing, and measure the level. That's what you'll need to figure into your MSM calculations, to make it inaudible inside your studio.

and should i split the HVAC routing a lot, or try to build a dampener?

Maybe either, maybe neither, maybe both: HVAC is a big part of studio design, so figuring how to tie in to your HVAC system is going to take a while. But the basic concept is that at every point where an HVAC duct goes through a leaf, you need a silencer box. That keeps the noise out while letting the air flow. Easy to build yourself.

brickwall crits you for 99999999 you have died.

:?: :shock: :?: :?: :?: Saywhat???? - Stuart -

"Xspace - I appreciate you trying to help, unfortunately i do not respond well to negative reinforcement... at all. However I see that your heart was in the right place. Here's my advice: instead of being an ass why not just say "hey seriously stop, you have no idea what you're doing" Most adults prefer the direct upfront honest approach. " My thinking based on doing this for many years is that people do not respond at all to a small nudge they have to be kicked in the head in order to recognize the fact that they have no idea what they just got involved in. I will take your recommendation into account as I am certain I can use information that makes me look better, and that is my primary concern, making me look better which makes you get better. Oh wait, nevermind, I think I handled it correctly :) Stuart is a Saint in that he will write you guys a book as an explanation, and that is a great thing that I respect. But I do not write books and prefer to keep it short and sweet since he and I both did it the way we want YOU guys to do it. Buy the books, read the documents, learn what you can and ask the right questions. Do not lay the first nail until you know for a fact it is in the correct spot.

just a quick reply since i don't have time to go through all of Stuarts stuff atm. Xspace - If you had said "if you don't know your ass from the hole in the ground regarding this, just hire someone to do it" I would have asked for your "suggestions on people who may do phenomenal design work". (other than john since is pretty busy) But since that was not the case and you still think your cool/better/witty/special. I am just gonna stop being nice period. I honestly have ZERO desire to get balls deep into LEARNING the construction aspect of this nor do I care to, so Yea i guess you handled it correctly in proving my point. You're just an asshat behind a computer with a nerd power trip. A trolling moderator, who would have thought?

" I honestly have ZERO desire to get balls deep into LEARNING the construction aspect of this nor do I care to, " And that is where you and anyone that might read this thread will fail. And we do not do failure around here. This might be new to you, it is not to me it is not to John Sayers and we do not direct people to get "close enough". I suspect you not only do not have any carpenter skills but know nothing of electrical, HVAC, sheetrock, plumbing, etc. Your bitterness shows much about your ability and proves me to be nothing of what you say...I have heard worse and fought greater fights than you are presenting. What you want to do is build, lets do that. You have to get a handle on the FACT that there are people that know exactly what the hell it is you are doing even before you do it...that might be scary to you...I just call it my job :) Can we put to rest the anxiety and move forward? I can help and you are resisting... Do you remember how much I get paid for this?

"And that is where you and anyone that might read this thread will fail. And we do not do failure around here." Asking for help doesn't necessarily mean I want to do all the work myself, maybe I wanted to give someone on here a chance to say they were part of designing something that's GOING to be great. Maybe I just wanted a few suggestions? Maybe I wanted to do none of the work and just pay whomever to do it so I can sit in a nice comfy amazing studio in a few months and help musicians and artists sound amazing, you know, MY PASSION/Job. "This might be new to you, it is not to me it is not to John Sayers and we do not direct people to get "close enough". I know who John Sayers is, I have no idea who you are. "I suspect you not only do not have any carpenter skills but know nothing of electrical, HVAC, sheetrock, plumbing, etc." Quite right, I'm an Accomplished guitarist, Musical Engineer/Producer and a computer tech. I have zero "real world" trade skills. Pat yourself on the back some more. Just so happens that a few locals around here ARE well versed in those areas and are MORE than willing to do the work I have for them if i supply the materials in exchange for studio time. "Your bitterness shows much about your ability and proves me to be nothing of what you say...I have heard worse and fought greater fights than you are presenting." You mean the fact that I won't let you get away with talking down to me? Or that I've actually been quite reserved in my choice of words and let you throw in your backhanded comments and still told you "Thank You"? Please. I've toured THIS country 15+ times over, played in front of thousands of people, have released 9 records on THREE major record labels, Music Videos, Played festivals etc etc etc etc. You think I'm gonna let some "guy" on the internet who name drops one of the top studio designers in the same breath as himself just to "Show me what's up" rattle me? Not at all. You have done absolutely nothing in your responses to me but further prove my initial statement. Seriously just stop responding, you're embarrassing yourself and cluttering this thread. I am well aware i'm cluttering it too, but I'm a sucker for putting egotistical maniacs in their place... Which I'm pretty sure I just did. Dear stuart, I apologize for wasting your time publicly like this, I'll go to PM's with you regarding the rest of the design. Thank you for all your help.

"You think I'm gonna let some "guy" on the internet who name drops one of the top studio designers in the same breath as himself just to "Show me what's up" rattle me?" You are right, that was never my intention to couple myself with Mr. Sayers. I am just a guest her. My thinking, if I may , was that you have some serious issues that need better development this is not a lack of fore site on your part so much as it is the complexity of the multiple disciplines involved in doing a construction job that is aimed at a high isolation/acoustical environment. These things take time, experience and cannot be handled by persons that are not well versed in this area. My bad and please accept my apology for flying off the handle with you sir.

Apology accepted. You are correct that this is turning in to a project that's going to take a lot more than i was prepared for, especially if i want it done correctly. I'm hoping to be able to locate the right "mind" on here to be able to get it done not only properly but amazingly. Now for some people to show me their design portfolios *COUGH* STUART *COUGH*. Of course, I'm always open to anyone who has an intense passion and vast knowledge base of these things to throw me theirs as well. :D I met up with my Contractor today and explained to him what i'd learned on here about what needs to happen and his face pretty much went pale haha. He still wants to work on the job, but, obviously agrees that we need a full on 100% game plan before ANYTHING else happens. -Cheers

" no walls are parallel!" Well..It is difficult to say that from where I sit. They look parallel. But that is still not the biggest issue, for me. This area that you are in, it is a finished room with sheetrock on the interior side with electrical devices and internet connections, etc. That point where this interior wall sheathing is ...is your development of a third leaf, a coupled three leaf, but a three leaf none the same. And I am seeing what appears to be ceiling grid and suspended track. I support that this has already been stated by Stuart, but have to submit one more time, you have to remedy this /these issues. These are not things you want to hear, I understand that, but that are things that are detrimental to your transmission loss and a good acoustical environment. So may I ask are there plans to repair this issue and if so would you still be requiring assistance in this endeavor?

Absolutely sir! Stuart sent me a bible and we've been discussing things, Unfortunately (for me) you are both correct. The ceiling will come down in it's entirety (/wrist) the carpet is coming up (/otherwrist) and the face of all the existing walls will be coming down as well. Once i get the OK from the buildings actual "owner" (If I take down the ceiling, I may have to remove the skylights, and I don't know if they would want and or be happy with me doing that) all 3 of those things will be done! So hopefully we can save as much of our existing situation as possible (with the exception of possibly having to trim up all those studs a bit) Trust me the walls we were putting in place were not going to parallel but now that it's all pretty much being taken down and set aside till I get a full design done, kind of irrelevant anyways. About the ceiling: here is a really awful picture I took up there when i first got the space and first posted on this forum in regards to this build. perhaps it will help? **EDIT** HURRAH STUART SAID THE CEILING DOESN'T NEED TO COME DOWN /choirofangels.

Plethora of pictures i took today. I cannot get into the attic because my contractor sealed up the attic door and was going to relocate it, but since I've halted everything, i currently don't have access to it haha. This is what currently is there, I know it is incorrect isolation building (now thanks to xSpace and Stuart) just threw some shots up for you peeps to see what's going on and how NOT to do it. :P

You are a good man Jherman, I see now how the walls are out of alignment. I am still wondering how this ceiling is going to work out, but if Stuart has it, then I know we can trust it...just would like to see/hear it. Premature? In any event, you keep up the lean towards what you want and you will ultimately get it...dang the set backs :)

Brien, from the photo it seems that the roof deck is far enough away that it won't have too much of a three-leaf effect. It also looks like it would be really, really hard to seal up that roof deck from below anyway, so trying to use it as the outer-leaf looks to be out of the question. So I'm thinking that this is one of those cases where there is no choice but three leaf. Therefore my reasoning goes: Beef up that existing ceiling as a "middle leaf", then build the new inner-leaf inside-out, 4" down. It means losing 4", but I don't see a lot of alternatives. If he takes off that ceiling drywall, I doubt it would help much: It seems unlikely that it would be possible to interleave the new joists between the old joists, as there seems to be a lot of HVAC stuff going on up there, plus the skylights (which need to be sealed off anyway, or course), so there's nothing to gain by doing that. At least, that's my reasoning for now, based on limited evidence. I'm waiting on more detailed photos of that ceiling, both from below and above, so we can get a better idea of what surprise might be lurking up there, then decide on what to do. We also need to decide on isolation goals (dB TL) to see how much mass and air gap he needs up there. On the other hand, the drywall on those existing walls certainly is coming off! :) No doubt about that! - Stuart -

" If he takes off that ceiling drywall, " That isn't drywall, as I can see it. It is an acoustical tile most likely attached to a stripped or batten type ceiling. If it were drywall, I would almost agree...but as it stands, need more pictures :) That ceiling needs to be removed.

Sorry, I should have mentioned: He told me in a PM that the ceiling is actually acoustic tile glued directly to drywall ( :shock: ), and the drywall is nailed to the joists. If that's the case, then it might be able to stay there, ... or maybe not! But like you say.. more photos will tell! :) - Stuart -

^ shredded acoustic tile, with glue spots and exposed dry wall/nail/screw ^ Complete ceiling open: bottom to top Acoustical tile, Drywall, Joists. (and of course, insulation. obviously there's a duct in this picture too) ^ picture of a completely ripped down tile so you can see that it's just drywall/insulation/joists.