Hello,
I've been doing the home studio thing for a while now and I must say that I truely like the convenience of falling out of bed and landing in my control room chair. It's nice to walk 20 feet to get the kitchen. What I don't like is having incredibly small rooms for doing drums and other instruments.
I came up with the idea and after talking to a house builder buddy, he said that it was completely possible. Note: The green mess is grass. It's supposed to represent ground level.
Here is an extremely crude drawing of a house that I may be building later this year. My idea is to use basement as my live room and control room. I'm not sure of specific dimensions at this point, but one concept that I have been playing with is not putting any floors on the left side of the home. Basically, I'd like to use the top left point as the top of my live rooms ceiling. My house builder said I could get at least 20 feet... maybe even 26 feet depending on how we do certain things in the home.
This home will only be lived in for 2 years. After that we'll sell it and build another one and pocket the extra cash. My thoughts were to go ahead and have the joists put in but not put any flooring at all on the left side of the main floor. I should be able to look up from the basement floor and see the top of the house (at least on the left side).
The idea then is in 2 years to come in, put floors in and finish the left side of the house while I build another house with a similar design (if this works out the way I hope it does).
My questions are:
1) Are there any obvious flaws in thinking that I could get improved tones (mainly for rock drums) out of a this sort of design?
2) Is it worth the trouble?
3) If it is worth the trouble, would the joists (for the main floor) running about 10 feet above the basement floor caus any significant acoustical problems?
I'm not sure how I want the room to sound at this point. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out if the idea will even work. As I know none of the details, I can not yet plan my control room either.
It seams like a great idea in theory, but I didn't know if any of you have tried ito Another problem with this design is I'm concerned about neighbers living next door. Is it any more difficult to soundproof a room of this height? I'm assuming it would cost quite a bit and I'm not willing to do that since this home is a 2 year only kind of thing.
As for picking where to build the house, I'm leaning towards building it in a brand new subdivision and hope that I don't have any close neighbors until I'm ready to sell the home.
Brandon
Actually, it will take less effort than finishing the home. I'm basically just not finishing the home up on half the house and using that as a studio. I'll skip all the flashy looking stuff that many studios focus on.
I realize to obtain perfect acoustics in the home would take considerable time and energy, but it's worth me spending a week or two of hard work to get the place how I want it every two years. In my part of the country, homes sell for more than it costs to buid them quite easily. The studio would have to profit a much greater percentage than it does now to make it worth staying.
Brandon
...In my part of the country, homes sell for more than it costs to buid them quite easily...
...and waiting until after 2 years of living in the house gives you capital gains free income on the profits, which is obviously the motive for waiting 2 years before you flip it. 8)This post does not constitute tax advice. Consult with a qualified tax advisor for your personal situation. Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. Subject to prior sale. One at this price.
Exactly.
I know several fellers who have gotten their mega dream house just from building and swapping out houses every two years. Apparently, not everyone knows about this or is willing to go through a day or 3 of headaches to move.
Regardless, does anyone know of the acoustical effects of having a 20-26 foot ceiling with floor joists running abot 10 feet above the ceiling? Would I need to treat the joists with something.... wrap them in insulation to avoid high end reflections?
Brandon
If the ceiling is vaulted you might get some wierd effects from the peak angle focussing back down to the floor, but probably not; if you did, you could either hang several poly's lengthwise under the peak (backed with absorbent to kill ringing) or at least a cloud; it's more likely you'll just have a nice open sound though... Steve
I can deal with all those thing.
Would you say it would preferred to have the vaulted ceiling or would it be preferred to have a flat, level ceiling. It seams the parallel wall thing would be a problem. It sounds easier, cheaper, and more desirable to have a vaulted ceiling with treatment as it is needed over having to treat the entire ceiling because of the parallel problem.
Brandon
depending on the design of the house, you might be able to get away with leaving the joists out all together until you're ready to sell... If you don't mind dealing with all of that work at a later date... This might make for a better looking room and less vibrational noise details to worry about...
He's got a valid point; in fact, the next owner might want the option of KEEPING it that way, who knows you might sell to another "musical masochist"... :lol:
As to ceiling, yes you would have less "artifacts" with the vaulted ceiling for the reasons you stated - for parallel walls, a combination of poly's, checkerboard absorption and/or other diffusive treatments could all be done as a temporary thing... Steve
The odds of finding someone who would have a use for a 26 foot ceiling in my area are slim to none. I live in a small area (southeast Missouri) and the number of people doing this sort of thing is quite low.
It may be nice to avoid the joists until later. Anything to make the house cheaper now is a good thing.
I only know enough theory to get me into trouble, but how would the joists effect the way sound leaves the house. We having a stronger structure that joists would probably help with cause the transmission of sound be greater?
Brandon
Having the joists in place would stiffen the related walls, which should lessen the transmission; it would also tend to cause more flanking, from the joists vibrations being directly coupled to frame effectively; but if you use rigid fiberglass or rockwool (as opposed to just regular house insulation batts) you would cut down on that quite a bit through damping of the individual joists... Steve
While I am skilled in the arts of war, I don't think you meant a way of an army attacking the enemy from two sides.
What exactly is flanking in the acoustic world?
Brandon
I'm guessing that flanking in the use above means that sound transmission will be reduced on the 2 walls strengthened by the joists, but increased on the walls that are not reinforced by the joists.
Am I close?
Brandon
The term "flanking" as used in acoustics did indeed originate from the practice of "getting behind their flanks", as in warhorses; in the case of acoustics, it's used to describe several things, all of which "flank" your attempts at blocking the sound.
On those bare joists, first of all they will firmly tie the two walls together through structure; so whatever vibrates one side will also vibrate the other. This can be an effective "short circuit" clear through one room and onto the opposite one, since sound travels so wel (and so fast) through most solids.
The things I would think could happen with your open joists are, one, a complete "pass-through" of sound from the room on one end of the joist to the one on the opposite; and two, any sound impinging on those joists would also then travel to whatever structure they are fastened to, and from there on to anything in the building that isn't de-coupled, finally appearing in any wall/ceiling/floor panel that is ALSO firmly attached to structure, then re-radiating into that area's air space.
The amount of sound affecting the joists could be lessened slightly by absorption, but the MAIN use of absorption in this case would be to "disappear" the joists acoustically WITHIN THE ROOM, not to stop much in the way of transfer to other spaces. In order to do that, you would need to box each beam with resiliently mounted double drywall, which is NOT attached solidly to ANY structure - then, those "boxes" would need to be acoustically treated for room acoustics, and they would also isolate flanking both into and out of the room.
Since this is a relatively short-term deal, only you can decide how important that is to you; I'm only making the point so you're aware of possible problems.
HTH... Steve
I appreciate your time.
So in layman's terms, the beams could make the room less soundproof going in and coming out?
Is that what you said?
In general, I'm not the kind of guy that excessively worries about stuff getting into the room. I can generally deal with that. Bands complain because their snare isn't loud enough. It's seldom a problem that some other sound got in the mix.
Obviously, sound going out of the room is more an issue.
Is there any advantage to laying the joists so that they go one way or another. If my studio room is on the edge of a house then 3 sides are connected to the outside of the home and the 4th side is connected to the house. Could you see a difference between connecting the wall that connects to the house vs connecting the two walls that connect to the outside walls. Does this make sense?
Brandon
Yeah, that's basically what I said;
There could be a difference in how much sound escapes the house; if so, running the beams in a direction where neither end bears on an outside wall would be best.
That way, any noise that "flanks" thru the beams will get partially dissipated while having to make its way through the rest of the structure in order to reach the outside walls... Steve
In most cases this probably wouldn't be a big difference, but if there IS a difference the way I described above should be the better of the two...
. . . I'm not the kind of guy that excessively worries about stuff getting into the room. . . sound going out of the room is more an issue. . .
Sound doesn't care what direction it's going in. Whether you want to keep sound in, or keep sound from going out, for the most part, the techniques are the same. Whether you're keeping it from getting from A to B, or from B to A, it doesn't matter.
Good point, Steve! :) I guess I'm just reacting to what I often see on the board... Statements about wanting to keep sound from getting out, rather than sound from getting in, as though that is a significant factor on what methods to employ.
Guess I'm not as "over" my yearly crazies as I thought -
To stop sound getting out - Shut the f--- up.
To stop sound getting in - Use earplugs, or move to Tibetian highlands...
To improve sound within the room - learn to play better, buy a more expensive guitar, amp, etc...
To stop that stabbing pain in your right eye while drinking tea, remove the spoon from the cup first
To stop getting wierd responses, stop poking the dwarf... :?