Practice studio in the Philippines | John Sayers’ Recording Studio Design Forum archive

Hi all. I'm a British expat living in the Philippines and in the process of building our own house. I've also decided to take the opportunity to build a practice studio for my drums in our back garden (life-long dream). Please note that I won't be doing the actual building itself, I'm a complete novice, my laborers will do it for me. I just need to have the plan and by the materials. You'll see from my attempt at using SmartDraw that the practice studio will house a moderately sized drum set and an area for using practice pads. I play a range of styles, so at least up to 120db from what I have read. Ideally I'd like to have a window for a daylight to come through, although that is not essential for me. Although I could make this larger and have a sofa and fridge etc, my wife will be worried I'll spend all day in the studio and she'd rather see me back in the house - so it needs to be comfortable, but not too comfortable! It also needs to have enough space for recording the drums, in terms of logistics and sound quality. So in keeping with the above, my plan is to build a studio that is 4 meters in length (along the side of the wall) and 3 meters wide. I am not sure what the height should be - I would appreciate if you could provide guidance on what would suitable for a room this size, taking into account sound quality. Planning permission is not a problem. I have tried using SmartDraw, but had issues printing, so I have drawn this myself to give you an idea. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a236/radnor/studion%20A0003_zpsjpljjnld.jpg In regards to soundproofing, this isn't such as issue at it would be for others (noise is relatively tolerated here). You'll see from the picture of the garden that no-one is at the back, there are no houses to the right, but I do have a neighbor to the left, approximately 10 meters away. Whilst it should not be a problem, I don't want to give any reason to annoy my neighbor (and my family) hence the need for a practice room rather than playing in open space! So I'd like to have a little soundproofing to be polite, but probably not to the point of installing floating floors and have a room-within-a-room. Our house is being built the typical Filipino way - hollow blocks, supported by a multitude of steel rods, then filled with cement. I'm inclined to use this method for building the studio, of course the floor will be solid concrete, but I have a couple of questions I would really appreciate your help with: * What is the soundproofing quality if I was just to use 5-inch hollow blocks filled with cement? * If I was to double the thickness of the walls, how much of a difference would that make to reduce sound leakage? * Being in a tropical country, I am concerned about getting too hot in the studio and especially with regard to moisture building up and affecting the drum set. Is concrete good or bad with regard to this? Any other suggestions? * Obviously I going to need to have some air conditioning. How would I go about this without creating a large hole in the wall and letting out sound? * What would be best for the ceiling? To continue with concrete or some other material? Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Hi there Brendan, and Welcome! :) I must have missed your first post somehow... sorry about that!

I am not sure what the height should be - I would appreciate if you could provide guidance on what would suitable for a room this size,

As high as you can make it, within reason. Drums like lots of space around them to sound good, and especially if you plan to record them you want a high ceiling, so it is far away from the mics. A low ceiling close to the overhead mics can do some ugly things to the way they sound. So if you can get something over 3m, that would be great. Just don't make it the same height as the width or length: it's always bad to have dimensions that are direct multiples of each other, or within about 10% of being a direct multiple. So 3.3m high is fine, but not 3.1. Or 4.4 would be fine, but not 4.2. Or also in between 3.3 and 3.6 would be fine too. There's other rules for staying away from bad ratios, but that's the must important, for a live room: no direct mathematical relationship between the three dimensions.

I have tried using SmartDraw, but had issues printing, so I have drawn this myself to give you an idea.

Try using SketchUp: Its MUCH better for designing studios, since it is 3D, not just 2D. That's what most people use, here on the forum.

* What is the soundproofing quality if I was just to use 5-inch hollow blocks filled with cement?

"soundproof" is not a word that most acousticians use, for a couple of reasons: 1) It means different things to different people, and 2) there's no such thing! :) We prefer to use "acoustic isolation" to refer to what you do to reduce the amount of sound getting in or out, and "acoustic treatment" to refer to what you do to make the room sound good inside. They are actually two very, very different things. So, assuming you meant "isolation" in your question: You'd get about 40 dB of isolation from that, perhaps a little more. So your 120 dB inside would end up as about 80 dB outside. Pretty loud! (Point of reference: normal conversation about 60 to 70 dB, so your drums would be about 4 times louder, outside...)

* If I was to double the thickness of the walls, how much of a difference would that make to reduce sound leakage?

The laws of physics include one called "Mass Law", which basically say that each time you double the mass, you get an increase of 6 dB. In theory. For real-life, it's more like 4 to 5 dB, because real-world materials are not perfect. Therefore, you'd get about 44 dB from a brick wall twice as thick as one that gives you 40 dB. And if you double it again (in other words, four times as thick as the original), you get another 4 dB, so that would be about 48 dB. That assumes that the ceiling is done the same as the walls, and that any doors and windows are also done with the same surface density.

* Being in a tropical country, I am concerned about getting too hot in the studio and especially with regard to moisture building up and affecting the drum set. Is concrete good or bad with regard to this? Any other suggestions?

The building materials don't matter too much, from that point of view. What DOES matter, and greatly so, is that you also have a suitable HVAC system, implying an air conditioner that has sufficient capacity to take care of the "latent heat load" in your room (humidity) and also the "sensible heat load" in your room (heat, coming through the walls and ceiling, plus heat generate by your gear, lights, and you yourself, plus any other people in there. All of that has to be calculated correctly, so you get the right air conditioner. It has to keep the humidity inside at around 40%, and keep it there fairly consistently, while also keeping the temperature in the "comfort" range, at about 22°C, give or take. This is the area that normally causes the most problems for home studio builders, because most people forget about it until it is too late... But you didn't! That's a good sign. The other reason it causes problems, is because people don't want to sit down and do the math, so they just guess (or get the advice of an "expert" who doesn't have a clue about studios!), and they end up either with a system that is grossly undersized for the room ("But it was really cheap!"), and ends up running 100% of the time but still can't handle the load, or they get one that is monstrously oversized, runs for 30 seconds every hour when it manages to freeze the room to arctic conditions, then stays of for 59 minutes while the room climbs back up to tropical jungle heat wave sauna conditions, then it freeze the place again.... OK, so I exaggerate just a bit, but you get the idea! The HVAC system needs to be sized correctly for the room and for the heat/humidity loads it has to handle, while also taking into account that this is a studio, not a typical house, office, or shop. So I strongly urge you to take the time and do the math, to get it right!

* Obviously I going to need to have some air conditioning. How would I go about this without creating a large hole in the wall and letting out sound?

Smart man! Most people don't realize they need that, until way down the line... What you do is to us "silencer boxes" (a.k.a. "baffle boxes") at the points where your ventilation ducts go through the walls. A silencer box is just a large box made of thick wood and/or other high mass materials, and it has several "baffles" inside it. Air moves through it, coning in one end and going out the other end, and the baffles force the air to take a long, twisty, turning path through the box. It stops the sound form getting through, while allowing the air to move through. The basic principle is very similar to that of the muffler on your car. The silencer box is lined on the inside with a special material called "duct liner", which is sort of similar to insulation, but especially made for air ducts. Yo cannot use ordinary insulation her. The silencer box has to be designed along with the rest of your HVAC system, because it has to be big enough on the inside to allow the correct volume of air flow, at the correct speed. If you make it too small, then the air moves too fast, becomes turbulent, and makes a lot of noise, while the whole thing also won't block the sound. Making it too big won't cause any problems for the air flow or acoustics, .. but it might cause problems in finding enough space to fit the thing in, and also in cost. So it has to be sized correctly, and designed correctly.

* What would be best for the ceiling? To continue with concrete or some other material?

Concrete would be great. In fact, it would be excellent, from the point of view of isolation. Of course, if you have a concrete shell around you, then that's excellent for isolation, but not so good for internal acoustics: you will need a fair amount of acoustic treatment on the walls and ceiling, to get it sounding good for drums. So you need to budget for that, and also design the treatment to go with what you want to do inside there.

Ideally I'd like to have a window for a daylight to come through

That can be done, yes. But it will need to be fairly thick laminated glass to get good isolation, so you need to budget some extra $$$ for that.

, but probably not to the point of installing floating floors and have a room-within-a-room.

You very certainly do NOT need a floating floor, so there's no worry about that. You might need "room-in-a-room" for the walls and ceiling, though, if you want good isolation, and also to simplify installing the acoustic treatment that you'll need in there. Hope that helps! - Stuart -