Hi Informed members,
Im wondering if any of you can help me? Im in Ireland, and am psyching myself up for studio build #2 - so this is THE one. :)
In the best contender (so far) of possible locations, I can either build on the first floor, or the ground floor.
The first floor is a very large (unreinforced) timber floor (600m2), and I will be sharing this floor with other artists. I am concerned that resonance from the floor, will effectively turn my studio into a drum skin. Also, I am concerned that the floor might not be strong enough to take any treatment I might give it.
Ground floor is poured concrete, but I can clearly hear all footsteps from the floor above. Ceiling is about 4 metres above. Will I be able to effectively suppress the low end from the floor above and also have a live room with a decent height?
Should I look for a better location?
(For anyone who is interested, heres a link to the studio Im in at the minute, and that I now have to rebuild in a more permanent location...
https://www.facebook.com/Arad.studios?r ... e=bookmark)
Thanks in advance,
Les
Which is better?Location question for new Irish studio build
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 19517.
Hi Les, and welcome to the forum! :)
Hands down, go with the ground floor. Your concerns about the first floor are very real, and very valid. Isolating an upper-floor studio is not easy, and requires lots of mass, which usually implies re-enforcing the structure to support the mass. If you have a very large budget for your build, then it is possible, but why spend more money than you have to?
On the other hand, with a ground floor build on top of a "slab on grade", it is very much easier to achieve good isolation, thanks mostly to that slab: First, it is damped by the entire planet, which is pretty hard to beat, and second, it can likely take a large load of extra mass with no issues.
Your problem with the "footsteps from above" is solvable: In order to isolate your studio you'll be building a "room-within-a-room" system, part of which often involves beefing up the existing outer shell in some way, before building the inner shell. In your case, that will likely involve doing something to that floor above you to lessen the noise, or it might even involve building a "third leaf" isolation ceiling, if there's no easy way to beef up the existing structure. But both of those are a lot simpler than trying to isolate and damp a 600 m2 drum head! And with 4m of ceiling height to play with, there's more than plenty to do that if you need to.
So if that were my place, I'd go with the downstairs "slab on grade" area as the basis for your studio.
That said, it would help if you could post photos and a rough diagram of what you have in mind, plus some more details of the goals, so that we can help more intelligently!
- Stuart -
Thankyou so much for your reply stuart - that immediately alleviates some anxiety. I will get some photos of the space later in the week - possibly friday- as I have a busy week in the meantime recording cello and vocal duets, followed by classical guitar duets, followed by a hip-hop jazz excursion!! All good clean fun! :shot:
I'll be back here soon, as this time, Im trying to do it right from the get go!
Les