I'm considering setting up a two level warehouse with multiple artist workshops, residence, and a two control room one recording room studio.
My plan here is to share the space between a few different purposes to spread the inherent cost across a wide support base so that if any one of the people involved leaves then there is leeway for the business to continue. With regards to the studio with two control rooms my thoughts are that the recording area is the space least used and yet is the most expensive in terms of floor space so to share between two engineer/producers seems like a good idea. Of course it does raise issues and we'll go through those below.
I've attached basic drawings. The first floor plan is the top floor and the residence is the right two thirds separated by a wall, the workshops are the last three rooms on the right of that floor. It is important that the house feels separate from the rest of the commercial space. The bottom floor plan is the ground floor containing the control rooms and the recording area. The stuff to the left of the ground floor is existing build that will remain. Between the two floors is a solid concrete slab with steel I-beams about every 3.5 meters. The walls are double brick though there are a number of large windows in the walls so none are blank brick. On the sketch up drawing the measurements are approximate but close and I haven't yet drawn in the I-beams as I don't know there exact location yet.
Top Floor
The wall isolating the house from the studio needs to be solid and relatively soundproof as does the door but will most likely be a single leaf construction. The artist workshop rooms need some isolation but not music making volume so I was thinking solid inside out single leaf with insulation in the resulting cavity (not in between two layers but layer on one side insulation on the other). Solid doors on these. The ceiling is some form of fibre board but I haven't been able to determine what yet and there are I-Beams at regular intervals across the roof, about 3.5 meters apart. My plan is to build the artist workshops and the residence dividing wall as soon as possible to get people in to those rooms to help cover the cost of rent whilst building the downstairs studios.
My question here is what material should I be using for the walls? MDF, Plaster board, Ortech, quality plywood etc? What sort of doors? What level of sound transmission will occur between the concrete slab and the floor below?
Bottom Floor
More serious here. As you can see from the floor plan I'm thinking isolated two leaf construction (of course) but because the control rooms need to be isolated from the live area I'm unsure how to proceed. I was thinking that I could live without windows into the studio to up the level of isolation from the control rooms to the studio and have a single larger door on the side of the live room. I am unsure how to do aircon for these spaces. I am also unsure how to do doors for both the control rooms and the live room. Depending on the isolation of the concrete ceiling from the floor above I was thinking one not building a second ceiling but instead putting up hanging clouds for diffusion and instead of building the acoustic control of the room into the building itself I was thinking of moveable gobos for altering the acoustics in both the live and control rooms so that it would be alterable and above all removable when the time comes to move. I am looking to have long lease on this property so I do want to do this right though.
Really looking for some input on this level. I have a sketch up file but it says it is tho large to upload, how can I attach it?
Converting Warehouse into multiple studios and artists space
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 19295.
Hi MylesGM, and welcome to the forum! :)
Sounds like a very smart plan! Sort of "not putting all your eggs in one basket".My plan here is to share the space between a few different purposes to spread the inherent cost across a wide support base so that if any one of the people involved leaves then there is leeway for the business to continue.
Your isolation plan is correct on three sides, but the wall at the bottom of the page is only a single-leaf wall. That needs to be two-leaf, just like the other walls, or you will have very poor isolation for the entire building.The bottom floor plan is the ground floor containing the control rooms and the recording area.
You can't have it both ways! Either it can be very sound proof, or it can be single leaf, but not both. Or rather, it can't be both unless you plan to make it enormously thick and and extremely massive. For example, 50cm of solid steel-reinforced concrete will get you about 50 dB of isolation, as a single leaf. Or a simple two-leaf wall built with stud framing and drywall can get you over 60 dB, if done correctly... :)The wall isolating the house from the studio needs to be solid and relatively soundproof as does the door but will most likely be a single leaf construction.
Maybe there's a conceptual issue, or a terminology issue here, but if it is a single leaf wall, then there is no cavity! :shock: There is only a frame with drywall on one side of it, an nothing else. Or a bunch of bricked laid on top of each other with mortar in between. Or a panel of concrete poured in place. But there is no cavity, since there is nothing on the other side to make one!I was thinking solid inside out single leaf with insulation in the resulting cavity
:?: Now I'm confused! You said that "Between the two floors is a solid concrete slab with steel I-beams about every 3.5 meters." But now you say there is also a ceiling up there someplace? So you already have a 2-leaf ceiling? I assume that you then plan to remove all of that, leaving only the concrete, then build your separate inner-leaf ceilings up there, each one resting on its own set of inner-leaf walls?The ceiling is some form of fibre board but I haven't been able to determine what yet and there are I-Beams at regular intervals across the roof, about 3.5 meters apart.
I'm still trying to understand the whole concept. I got the impression that the actual residence goes entirely on the upper floor, and that the lower floor (ground floor) is split between the studio and the artist workshops? Is that right? But since you are talking about a wall that separates the residence from the studio, I think I might have misunderstood that part. ...My plan is to build the artist workshops and the residence dividing wall as soon as possible to get people in to those rooms to help cover the cost of rent whilst building the downstairs studios.
Whatever material is least expensive in your area kilogram for kilogram, and also provides the necessary level of isolation, as calculated using the equations that give you these answers, or just by looking at the diagrams and charts on one of the reference documents that shows the various ways of building isolation walls, to find the one that matches your needs. In most parts of the world, the cheapest material that has high mass, high density, good rigidity, easy to install, etc. is plain old fire-rated drywall (a.k.a. sheetrock, gypsum board, plaster boards, etc.): You need the 5/8" (16mm) stuff, at least, and thicker if you can get it. But the materials are only one half of the issue. The other half is the actual method: How you arrange those materials is absolutely critical to how much isolation you get. If you give me ten sheets of 16mm drywall and the right amount of 2x4s, I can build you a wall 6m long. I can build it in one of several ways, using the exact same materials. Building it one way would get you about 35 dB of isolation, and building it another way would get you about ONE HUNDRED times more isolation, at about 55 dB... :shock: :!: Technique, method and design are the key, not just materials.My question here is what material should I be using for the walls? MDF, Plaster board, Ortech, quality plywood etc?
That depends on a number of factors, but the basic answer is that impact noise will transmit VERY well, while airborne noise wont. In other words, some walking on that concrete with high-healed shoes would be very audible down below, with sharp "clacking" sounds, while screaming at the top of your voice would hardly be heard at all. (Sounds like the script for a horror movie, doesn't it! :) ) The above assumes that there is no isolation system between the two rooms. Building the rooms below with a proper isolation system, and putting carper on the floor above with good underlay, would eliminate the problem. Provided that you don't decide to out the STUDIO upstairs and the RESIDENCE downstairs: all bets would be off if you did that. The studio needs to sit on a concrete slab that is poured directly on mother earth, with no other rooms (or even air gaps) below it. So it has to go downstairs.What level of sound transmission will occur between the concrete slab and the floor below?
That won't work, unfortunately. To put this in perspective, that is like saying; "I want to build an aquarium, but I think I'll just put glass on the sides, and use only cardboard for the bottom, since I don't need visibility down there... :) Just like that fish tank won't hold water, so your studio won't hold sound. Isolation is "all or nothing". If you don't do a FULL two-leaf MSM construction all around, then you don't get isolation. Sound will flank directly from the concrete drum-head above you, into your "inner-leaf" walls, which will then act as loudspeakers, transmitting the sound into the studio. And vice-versa too. Isolation is only as good as the weakest part. If you isolate your walls to 60 dB but your ceiling to 25 dB, then your total isolation is about 25 dB, and you wasted a huge amount of time, money and effort for nothing on the walls.... In other words, each of your studio rooms needs its own independent inner-leaf ceiling that sits entirely on top of the corresponding set of inner-leaf walls, with no mechanical (physical) connections at all.Depending on the isolation of the concrete ceiling from the floor above I was thinking one not building a second ceiling but instead putting up hanging clouds for diffusion
Clouds don't diffuse; they absorb. And diffusion on a control room ceiling is a bad idea (unless the room is really big).but instead putting up hanging clouds for diffusion
That would be fine for the live room, but not for the control room. You cannot create the neutral acoustics that a control room must have, by shoving a couple of bits of foam-covered wood around the room! :shock: The entire concept of a control room is that the acoustics do NOT change. Ever. They meet the EBU or ITU or AES specs, from the design stage, and once they have been tuned in the final stages of construction, that's exactly how they should stay, since they will be correct. There are equations, diagrams, curves, explanations, and graphs that show exactly how the acoustics of a control room should be (ie: totally neutral in frequency response, phase response, and time response. Not coloring the sound in any way.). Gobos have no place in that. The ONLY reason you might want gobos in the control room would be if you wanted to do something like record two vocals at the same time in there, and needed a bit of separation. But as soon as you were done with that, you'd take the gobos out of the room so you could mix in the neutral environment that is required of a control room. But for the live room: sure! Use gobos, sliding reflective panels over deep absorption, or rotatable diffusers, or hinged membrane traps, or movable absorptive panels, or tunable resonators, or whatever other type of adjustable acoustic device you want! That's the best plan for a live room: make it so that you can adapt the sound of the room to whatever the client wants, from "dead" to "deafening reverberance".instead of building the acoustic control of the room into the building itself I was thinking of moveable gobos for altering the acoustics in both the live and control rooms
Upload it to a file sharing service, such as Dropbox, then post the link here. - Stuart -I have a sketch up file but it says it is tho large to upload, how can I attach it?
Hi Stuart, couple of things that I guess I didn't make clear. Firstly the bottom floor is built on a concrete slab and the ceiling of this level is a concrete slab which is the floor of the level above. The top floor has a ceiling of some sort of fibre board that I haven't as yet determined.
Yes, that is currently left off the diagram, I'm mid drawing.Hi MylesGM, and welcome to the forum! :) "The bottom floor plan is the ground floor containing the control rooms and the recording area." Your isolation plan is correct on three sides, but the wall at the bottom of the page is only a single-leaf wall. That needs to be two-leaf, just like the other walls, or you will have very poor isolation for the entire building.
I think I got my terms wrong here, I was referring to the cavity between the studs left on one side of the drywall, the space in between the studs and the noggins if that makes sense. I'm not sure what these spaces are called."I was thinking solid inside out single leaf with insulation in the resulting cavity" Maybe there's a conceptual issue, or a terminology issue here, but if it is a single leaf wall, then there is no cavity! :shock: There is only a frame with drywall on one side of it, an nothing else. Or a bunch of bricked laid on top of each other with mortar in between. Or a panel of concrete poured in place. But there is no cavity, since there is nothing on the other side to make one!
Residence in left two thirds of top floor and artist workshops to the right of that, studios downstairs."My plan is to build the artist workshops and the residence dividing wall as soon as possible to get people in to those rooms to help cover the cost of rent whilst building the downstairs studios." I'm still trying to understand the whole concept. I got the impression that the actual residence goes entirely on the upper floor, and that the lower floor (ground floor) is split between the studio and the artist workshops? Is that right? But since you are talking about a wall that separates the residence from the studio, I think I might have misunderstood that part. …
Fair enough but I was thinking rigidity would have an effect too not just mass and I was also wondering about dual layers. Would one layer of 18mm MDF and one layer 16mm plaster board be more effective that two layers of 18mm of either material? I've built studios before but was very constrained by the materials available (I was in Africa) and achieved pretty good results but considering that now I'm in a situation where there is a lot of choice in material selection that there might be some additional methods/materials to consider."My question here is what material should I be using for the walls? MDF, Plaster board, Ortech, quality plywood etc?" Whatever material is least expensive in your area kilogram for kilogram, and also provides the necessary level of isolation, as calculated using the equations that give you these answers, or just by looking at the diagrams and charts on one of the reference documents that shows the various ways of building isolation walls, to find the one that matches your needs. In most parts of the world, the cheapest material that has high mass, high density, good rigidity, easy to install, etc. is plain old fire-rated drywall (a.k.a. sheetrock, gypsum board, plaster boards, etc.): You need the 5/8" (16mm) stuff, at least, and thicker if you can get it.
Of course. MSM construction with inside out dry walls filled with rock wool insulation is going to be vastly superior to simply piling up all the material in one place but materials are important for effectiveness and ease of build.But the materials are only one half of the issue. The other half is the actual method: How you arrange those materials is absolutely critical to how much isolation you get. If you give me ten sheets of 16mm drywall and the right amount of 2x4s, I can build you a wall 6m long. I can build it in one of several ways, using the exact same materials. Building it one way would get you about 35 dB of isolation, and building it another way would get you about ONE HUNDRED times more isolation, at about 55 dB... :shock: :!: Technique, method and design are the key, not just materials.
This was kind of what I expected, so carpets in all the rooms above the studio (which I had already intended) but another layout I was considering places one studio on the top floor and one on the bottom. Why would placing the studio on the top floor concrete slab be a poor idea?"What level of sound transmission will occur between the concrete slab and the floor below?" That depends on a number of factors, but the basic answer is that impact noise will transmit VERY well, while airborne noise wont. In other words, some walking on that concrete with high-healed shoes would be very audible down below, with sharp "clacking" sounds, while screaming at the top of your voice would hardly be heard at all. (Sounds like the script for a horror movie, doesn't it! :) ) The above assumes that there is no isolation system between the two rooms. Building the rooms below with a proper isolation system, and putting carper on the floor above with good underlay, would eliminate the problem. Provided that you don't decide to out the STUDIO upstairs and the RESIDENCE downstairs: all bets would be off if you did that. The studio needs to sit on a concrete slab that is poured directly on mother earth, with no other rooms (or even air gaps) below it. So it has to go downstairs.
But if the concrete is so good at isolating sound and I built an air tight room with the concrete as the ceiling how would the sound flank? Or are you saying that sound would cause the outer wall to vibrate causing the concrete to vibrate and pass that directly to the inner wall and therefore simply transmit sound into the studio that way?"Depending on the isolation of the concrete ceiling from the floor above I was thinking one not building a second ceiling but instead putting up hanging clouds for diffusion" That won't work, unfortunately. To put this in perspective, that is like saying; "I want to build an aquarium, but I think I'll just put glass on the sides, and use only cardboard for the bottom, since I don't need visibility down there... :) Just like that fish tank won't hold water, so your studio won't hold sound. Isolation is "all or nothing". If you don't do a FULL two-leaf MSM construction all around, then you don't get isolation. Sound will flank directly from the concrete drum-head above you, into your "inner-leaf" walls, which will then act as loudspeakers, transmitting the sound into the studio. And vice-versa too. Isolation is only as good as the weakest part. If you isolate your walls to 60 dB but your ceiling to 25 dB, then your total isolation is about 25 dB, and you wasted a huge amount of time, money and effort for nothing on the walls.... In other words, each of your studio rooms needs its own independent inner-leaf ceiling that sits entirely on top of the corresponding set of inner-leaf walls, with no mechanical (physical) connections at all.
I was thinking of a combined absorber/diffuser, I've had much success with these in the past evening out reflections from a flat ceiling."but instead putting up hanging clouds for diffusion" Clouds don't diffuse; they absorb. And diffusion on a control room ceiling is a bad idea (unless the room is really big).
Again, I think we are talking odd terminologies here. I would build the acoustic treatment for the control room to be stable but also removable so that when I move I can take the treatment easily or if I decide to alter the purpose of the room or some other unforeseen scenario. Instead of building the acoustic treatment straight into the wall/framing. I think John has a design like that on this site."instead of building the acoustic control of the room into the building itself I was thinking of moveable gobos for altering the acoustics in both the live and control rooms"That would be fine for the live room, but not for the control room. You cannot create the neutral acoustics that a control room must have, by shoving a couple of bits of foam-covered wood around the room! :shock: The entire concept of a control room is that the acoustics do NOT change. Ever. They meet the EBU or ITU or AES specs, from the design stage, and once they have been tuned in the final stages of construction, that's exactly how they should stay, since they will be correct. There are equations, diagrams, curves, explanations, and graphs that show exactly how the acoustics of a control room should be (ie: totally neutral in frequency response, phase response, and time response. Not coloring the sound in any way.). Gobos have no place in that. The ONLY reason you might want gobos in the control room would be if you wanted to do something like record two vocals at the same time in there, and needed a bit of separation. But as soon as you were done with that, you'd take the gobos out of the room so you could mix in the neutral environment that is required of a control room.
One of my reviews describes my recording as "in the cave of recording darkness" and a folk noir album too, perhaps "deafening reverberance" will feature on the next release...But for the live room: sure! Use gobos, sliding reflective panels over deep absorption, or rotatable diffusers, or hinged membrane traps, or movable absorptive panels, or tunable resonators, or whatever other type of adjustable acoustic device you want! That's the best plan for a live room: make it so that you can adapt the sound of the room to whatever the client wants, from "dead" to "deafening reverberance".
Ahhh! OK, that makes more sense.couple of things that I guess I didn't make clear. Firstly the bottom floor is built on a concrete slab and the ceiling of this level is a concrete slab which is the floor of the level above. The top floor has a ceiling of some sort of fibre board that I haven't as yet determined.
I think you are talking about the stud bays? The empty area between one stud and the next stud, up against the drywall? Where you normally put insulation of some type?I think I got my terms wrong here, I was referring to the cavity between the studs left on one side of the drywall, the space in between the studs and the noggins if that makes sense. I'm not sure what these spaces are called.
Well, yes, rigidity is involved too, but in a different part of the spectrum. There are actually four different parts to the audio spectrum, when it comes to isolation, and each is governed by a different aspect of the materials. This diagram might help: At the very lowest end, rigidity (stiffness) is the dominant aspect. The stiffer the wall, the better the isolation. The next region is dominated by the MSM resonance characteristics of the wall (controlled by mass, damping and air cavity depth), then comes the part controlled by mass mostly, then comes the coincidence dip, which is also a resonant effect but of a more complex nature, then above that it is back to mass law, at the very high end.Fair enough but I was thinking rigidity would have an effect too not just mass and I was also wondering about dual layers.
Yes! Absolutely! And for more reasons than you think. Doing that also gives you a nailing surface around the entire room, so you don't need to go hunting for studs each time you need to hang something...Would one layer of 18mm MDF and one layer 16mm plaster board be more effective that two layers of 18mm of either material?
Right!This was kind of what I expected, so carpets in all the rooms above the studio (which I had already intended)
The ground floor concrete (slab on grade) is damped by the entire planet underneath it. That acts sort of like a huge number of rubber pads pressing up against the concrete, damping any resonance that might occur. The second floor slab has no damping, so it will ring happily. Air is not a good damper... :) Basically, a membrane (eg, concrete slab) stretched over a resonant cavity (eg, the room below) is called a "drum", so building a room on the second floor is akin to building it on a drum head. Yes, you can get around that by floating your floor, but that's a major expense, very complex, and probably not something you'd want to do. You might find this thread interesting: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173but another layout I was considering places one studio on the top floor and one on the bottom. Why would placing the studio on the top floor concrete slab be a poor idea?
If the inner-leaf walls are physically touching the concrete ceiling above, then that is a flanking path. Even something as small as a single nail can do huge damage to isolation. If you need further proof, buy an old-fashioned tuning fork, strike it i¿on your hand and listen carefully. Now while it is still ringing, put the base end down on the concrete slab... Hear the major increase in volume, from the flanking? The base of the tuning for is about the same size as a nail, and the resonance intensity of a tuning for is about the same as you could expect in a wall.But if the concrete is so good at isolating sound and I built an air tight room with the concrete as the ceiling how would the sound flank?
Right. And it works both ways: airborne sound in your room can make inner-leaf vibrate, which will be transmitted into the concrete and heard everywhere else in the building. Concrete is a great conductor of sound.Or are you saying that sound would cause the outer wall to vibrate causing the concrete to vibrate and pass that directly to the inner wall and therefore simply transmit sound into the studio that way?
Once again, that would be fine for the live room, but not for the control room. You don't want anything that close to your ears that is causing changes in amplitude, direction, frequency and phase. Assuming we are talking about numeric-based diffusers (QRD, binary, etc.). They cause lobing close up that takes a while to smooth over: at least ten feet, or perhaps more depending on what frequency you tune them to. The general rule of thumb is to have at least three times the wavelength of one octave below the low cut-off frequency, between the diffuser surface and the ears of anyone doing critical listening. That's why numeric-sequence diffusers are only suitable for large rooms.I was thinking of a combined absorber/diffuser, I've had much success with these in the past evening out reflections from a flat ceiling.
You sure can do it that way, making all your CR treatment removable. Not a problem. But not with gobos. Also, it does make a lot of sense to actually angle some parts of the walls of your CR (for example, RFZ, NER or CID design concepts), which would make that non-removable anyway. So if you went with one of those, then the room is pretty much fixed as a CR, so you might as well install everything permanently: re-purposing such a room basically means knocking it down.I think we are talking odd terminologies here. I would build the acoustic treatment for the control room to be stable but also removable so that when I move I can take the treatment easily or if I decide to alter the purpose of the room or some other unforeseen scenario. Instead of building the acoustic treatment straight into the wall/framing. I think John has a design like that on this site.
Cool! :) In that case, I want royalties on all sales! :shock: :lol: 8) With a review like that, how could it not succeed? You cold even name the album like that: Deafening Reverberance does have a nit of a ring to it! (Pun intended... :) ) - Stuart -One of my reviews describes my recording as "in the cave of recording darkness" and a folk noir album too, perhaps "deafening reverberance" will feature on the next release...
Ok, no studio on the second floor but a solid slab of two foot concrete between ground floor studio and simple talking and quiet office work how much is really going to transfer from top to bottom? What's the transmission efficiency of the concrete?"but another layout I was considering places one studio on the top floor and one on the bottom. Why would placing the studio on the top floor concrete slab be a poor idea?" The ground floor concrete (slab on grade) is damped by the entire planet underneath it. That acts sort of like a huge number of rubber pads pressing up against the concrete, damping any resonance that might occur. The second floor slab has no damping, so it will ring happily. Air is not a good damper... :) Basically, a membrane (eg, concrete slab) stretched over a resonant cavity (eg, the room below) is called a "drum", so building a room on the second floor is akin to building it on a drum head.
So let's talk actual levels, it's relatively easy to design something that goes all out on paper and yet isn't actually necessary given the pace and the purpose. The more I think about this the more I lean to building one studio and a series of artist workshops/offices so that the internal sound levels are low and the level of studio sound escaping is less important. I will attach a new drawing. So sounds I need to avoid from the outside are actual external sounds (airplanes, low level traffic) and external to the studio, internal to the warehouse (both upstairs and downstairs). Volume of sound I need to reduce from inside the studio to out would mostly be quiet sounds, with the very occasional drum kit (played at a lower level, I don't do metal or anything like that) or amped guitar overdub. Have a look at the new layout the studio is the three rooms to the right of the plan. The purpose of the studio is to be a private studio (not available for commercial hire), for projects that I can't or don't want to take to bigger studios and as a post production setup for all of the projects that I do take to commercial studios. Given that I currently work out of houses and various locations I'm comfortable with a certain level of "audible interaction" with the outside world. The vast majority of the time I would be doing mostly mixing with vocals, ac guitar, BVs and group BVs, the odd horn and very occasionally a drum set. What level of isolation do you think I would actually need?If the inner-leaf walls are physically touching the concrete ceiling above, then that is a flanking path. Even something as small as a single nail can do huge damage to isolation. If you need further proof, buy an old-fashioned tuning fork, strike it on your hand and listen carefully. Now while it is still ringing, put the base end down on the concrete slab... Hear the major increase in volume, from the flanking? The base of the tuning for is about the same size as a nail, and the resonance intensity of a tuning for is about the same as you could expect in a wall. "Or are you saying that sound would cause the outer wall to vibrate causing the concrete to vibrate and pass that directly to the inner wall and therefore simply transmit sound into the studio that way?" Right. And it works both ways: airborne sound in your room can make inner-leaf vibrate, which will be transmitted into the concrete and heard everywhere else in the building. Concrete is a great conductor of sound.
Ok, gobo is probably the wrong term but removable is important as I don't want to be in a position where I *have* to knock down the room. John posted a sketch up plan called components.skp somewhere that uses all removable control room units and this is what I was thinking."I think we are talking odd terminologies here. I would build the acoustic treatment for the control room to be stable but also removable so that when I move I can take the treatment easily or if I decide to alter the purpose of the room or some other unforeseen scenario. Instead of building the acoustic treatment straight into the wall/framing. I think John has a design like that on this site." You sure can do it that way, making all your CR treatment removable. Not a problem. But not with gobos. Also, it does make a lot of sense to actually angle some parts of the walls of your CR (for example, RFZ, NER or CID design concepts), which would make that non-removable anyway. So if you went with one of those, then the room is pretty much fixed as a CR, so you might as well install everything permanently: re-purposing such a room basically means knocking it down.
That situation would probably be fine, especially if the upstairs offices are carpeted with good underlay. The main problem with upper floor slabs is impact noise, such as for example a drum kit, or vibrations from a bass cab or a sub-woofer, or footsteps. That's the number 1 reason for not putting studios on upper floors. There are ways of dealing with that, yes, but the costs start climbing...Ok, no studio on the second floor but a solid slab of two foot concrete between ground floor studio and simple talking and quiet office work how much is really going to transfer from top to bottom?
Right! That's why the isolation plan should be carefully figured out, using the equations, or tables, or literature, to provide the right amount of isolation. If you end up with insufficient isolation, the the studio is a failure: nobody will want to rent it, or your artists will complain like hell. On the other hand, too much isolation is great from that point of view, but it also means that you spend much more than you needed to on materials, and lost more floor area than you needed to as well, due to the unnecessarily thick walls. Getting it exactly right is the goal. But to do that, you have to determine how much isolation you need, in terms of decibels. Nobody else can tell you what YOUR number must be: that's something you should determine for yourself, by measuring with a good quality sound level meter ("SLM"). Use that to determine the level of isolation that you need, then either calculate the required wall parameters, or if you hate math, then look it up in the research papers, and fine a wall construction technique that provides that amount of isolation and also fits your budget.So let's talk actual levels, it's relatively easy to design something that goes all out on paper and yet isn't actually necessary given the pace and the purpose.
There's practically no difference between having one studio or two studios, from that point of view. Let's say you have one loud studio running at 100 dB inside, with decent isolation and ending up at 50 dB outside, then you add a second identical studio, right nest to it, also running at 100 inside. The total COMBINED level outside for BOTH studios will be 53 dB, instead of that 50 for just one studio. Not a big difference. So that should not be much of a factor in deciding on how may studios you want. Decibels is a log scale, so sounds add up logarithmically. For two equally loud coherent sound sources at the same level, the total will be 3 dB louder than each one individually.The more I think about this the more I lean to building one studio and a series of artist workshops/offices so that the internal sound levels are low and the level of studio sound escaping is less important.
I think you'll find they aren't as quite as you expect! :)Volume of sound I need to reduce from inside the studio to out would mostly be quiet sounds,
Drums played loud are about 115 dB. Drums played quietly are around 100 dB... The issue with drums is the very high level of the transients, even when played "quietly". The "snap" of a snare can easily hit 120 dB momentarily, even though the overall sound level doesn't seem that loud. It's those sudden very "attacking" sounds that are hard to isolate, especially if they are low frequency.with the very occasional drum kit (played at a lower level, I don't do metal or anything like that)
That's good! But will your new "outside world" be comfortable with your "audible interaction"? :) Normal monitoring level for mixing is around 80 - 85 dB, but most engineers end up pushing it to over 100 every now and then, to check the low end.Given that I currently work out of houses and various locations I'm comfortable with a certain level of "audible interaction" with the outside world.
Only you can say for sure, and you should actually measure that in a typical session right now with a good sound level meter, then also measure what you consider to be "sufficiently quite" to not annoy your artist clients. The difference between those two levels is how much isolation you need. So let's say that you measure a typical recording / mixing session, an it comes in at 90 dBC average, 100 dBC peak. Then you measure the level when it is quite enough for what you consider your artists would endure, and let's say that came in at 40 dB. In that hypothetical case, you would need a minimum of 50 dB isolation, and maybe as much as 60. They key here is that YOU have to measure what is YOUR normal level, and what you expect your artist customers would tolerate. I can't tell you cant the level is: you need to measure it. Once you have measured it and come up with a number, then I can help you figure out what wall type / building materials / construction techniques you need to get there. No problem! I can even help you estimate costs, and give you tips on how you can improve acoustics, or maximize the use of space, or guide you on how to set up the room, treat it correctly, tune it, etc. But only you can determine what level of isolation is "sufficient". - Stuart -The vast majority of the time I would be doing mostly mixing with vocals, ac guitar, BVs and group BVs, the odd horn and very occasionally a drum set. What level of isolation do you think I would actually need?