Greetings to all of you. I'm very happy to have just found this forum.
I just moved to Portland Oregon (from Los Angeles) and I'm putting as high a quality studio/listening space in my basement for my programming work and music production work. Here is my current floorplan:
The weakest link seems to be the very short basement ceiling. With a basement installation like this, are there any suggestions I should consider to get the best sound quality out of this room that I am not thinking of ?
Also since it's the basement of a 1930's cape cod style house that resonates like a piano sound board, what isolation ideas do you guys have to make it so that I'm as quiet as possible to the rest of my family that is sleeping above me (they are 2 floors above me, but this house seems to really resonate low frequencies).
I'm planning on doing 2 x 6 with staggered 2x4 studs and looking at layering up to 3 layers of different panels on each side to isolate the room. What layers and thicknesses do I need to consider.
Finally with the ceiling, I'm really worried about the low end. Adding 3 layers to the existing height will drop it under 7 feet high. Are there other better/thinner panels I can consider using that will isolate really well and not take up so much width - or is width part of what helps with the isolation.
Many thanks to all that contribute to this.
Regards,
John Lehmkuhl
John - the reason the house resonates is because it's all timber locked together. What you have to do is build a room inside your basement that is NOT connected to the rest of the house.
Unfortunately all US basements appear to suffer from the 7' ceiling problem. (It's illegal in my country - 8' minimum).
You'll find variations on how to treat it if you search this site.
BTW - to what extent are you prepared to build?
cheers
john
John Sayers wrote:
BTW - to what extent are you prepared to build?
cheers
john
Yes - that is the VERY big question to ask. I'm really not prepared to build a room inside of a room - but I have in the area of 15K to build my studio - if I really must spend more, then I will.
I've consulted with one acoustic company and have a meeting early next week with a different company. The first consultant is suggesting the 3 layers of 3 different materials on each side of the walls with air in the walls instead of insulation.
I'm more concerned about the ceiling than with the walls to be honest - If sound gets upstairs, it's just going to get amplified. The walls will have better treatment than the ceiling due to how low it is. The current plan is to add 3 layers to the existing drywall that is on the ceilings and leave it at that.
Thanks for taking time to ask a few questions and I wish you were in Portland Oregon instead of "Down Under" !!
Regards,
JL
Hey John, welcome to the board -
First, "The first consultant is suggesting the 3 layers of 3 different materials on each side of the walls with air in the walls instead of insulation." - unless you have moisture problems with the walls, this isn't a good plan; but without seeing what's there it's hard to be sure.
Second, "The current plan is to add 3 layers to the existing drywall that is on the ceilings and leave it at that." - have you checked with anyone to see whether your existing joists can support that much more weight? Adding three MORE layers of 5/8" drywall would raise the dead load requirement by 7 PSF, more than enough to cause failure of the structure in a lot of cases.
Do you know what the actual size of your basement ceiling joists is, along with distance from center to center? This will have a large effect on how much mass it will take to isolate.
Third, until some tests are done your upstairs noise (especially 2 floors away) could just as easily be WALL flanking as anything.
Finally, if you're interested in pursuing this further I'm quite a bit closer to you than "down under" - like about 70 miles south of Portland. If you like, PM me for more details.
Once again, welcome... Steve