Drum/vocal booth

First, I thank you in advance for your advice...nice forum. I have been lurking for ~ 2 months and have been designing my new garage studio using info I have gleaned from this site. This "studio" will also serve some other "extra living space" functions so I have decided to not angle any walls but will treat for acoustics in the control room using home built slot resonators and diffusors etc from the SAE site. I am using resilient channels and double wall board inside walls and ceiling with rubber puck/firring strips and plywood on concrete slab for floor to sound proof from the outside and keep as much sound inside.. The big "live room" will have movable "baffles" to help isolate players and bring different acoustics ie- one side reflective the other absorbtive. The big question i have at this point is to how to acoustically treat a ~ 8.5 X 9.5 ft room to use for a drum iso and vocal iso booth. Can this be done? It is a small room so i don't have much room for large built-ins I am using this studio for mainly a hobby and personal music recording, but I would like to do it as close to "right" as possible from the ground up. What should I cover the walls of this iso room and the other rooms with. they will all be dry-wall, and then have slot resonators and traps and diffussors as I deem neccessary after more in depth planning. I have been searching the site but can't seem to find an answer to this particular question, Thanks for any help!! Dan

here is a layout. This is a studio with some duty as extra living space ie. teenage hangout, extra sleep space for guests (day bed in live room) but I want to maximize recordability. It will have central heat & air. Floor was to be rubber pucks plywood and carpet. Would the live room be better with stained concrete?? Can you use rugs for acoustic changes? I realize the control room walls are parallel and perpendicular but I would build home constucted resonators diffusors and traps from the SAE site. Please critique!!! Dan

Can you resize that picture a bit? You should still be able to edit your post. Thanks Ryan

Yeah - I resized it :) So how do intend to layout your control room?? access to the booth in the corner is going to be a problem with your speaker setup - we also need to know what your ceiling height is as that's the only place you have for serious treatment in the booth. cheers john

Amazingly quick response!! I plan to layout the control similar to these examples I found thru you (this site) The ceiling is 8 ft now...will be less by ~6 inches or so if I use resilient bars and sheet rock over entire ceiling to sound proof for the neighbors. [quote]access to the booth in the corner is going to be a problem with your speaker setup - [/quote] I'm not sure what you mean??? The thing close to the live room that separates the iso room with the control room is a window for visual connection between the 2 rooms.

I have read several ideas on this forum concerning flooring. Initially I was going to float a wood floor on rubber pucks, however some have used concrete for the increased "live" sound it gives. Am I correct in my thinking that I could do concrete in my "live" room, and float the floor in the drum/vocal booth and control room. Then use rugs in the live room for variable acoustic sounds??? I fear I sound like an idiot....I feel like a fish out of water here....and I appreciate any help I can get!!! Any questions about anesthesia you may have and I can hook you up there!!!! Dan

When you say concrete, do you mean a floated concrete floor, or just concrete? There are many ways to go, depending on your isolation needs, budget, existing construction, etc - so it would help if we had more info on your intentions, etc - Don't apologise for lack of knowledge - knowing and not using it is much worse. I've been studying this field (somewhat sporadically) for over 15 years, and I'm STILL an idiot... Shoot us some more details of what you're trying to accomplish and what you already have, and let's get started... Steve

Thanks for the encouragement!! I have a detached garage with the dimensions as seen on my layout. Right now it is a pool house with screened in sides and no garage door...just closed in at that end. It will basically be closed up all the way around with the interior layout as we have drawn it, and sound proofed as much as possible using resilient channels and 2 layers of drywall...hermetically sealed as described in this forum in great detail. The floor is slab concrete with crappy carpet now, that is definitely going away. i think the concrete floor in the live room may give me some different sound options and do floated wood in the other rooms. The building has a hip style roof with pulldown stairs into an attic. The ceiling is attacheed to 2x6 rafters. No insulation, Ceiling is now 1/4 inch plywood. planning relient channels and insulation and 1 layer sheet rock. i have neighbors about 100 feet to one side of the building. The exterior will have celotex or similar on the studs, then hardy plank siding and stain. The only exterior door into the studio will be a sliding glass door, with one on outside and 1 on inside( see layout) I have an estimate to put in a 2 ton airconditioner/heating system with 5 ducts, the aircon man says he can make it quiet...~ $3000.... i will use it to record mainly my own and some friends original music....some Rock...some Jazz...some bluegrass....some indescribable. I have a yama aw 4416, various mics, preamps ,amps, pedals, plugins...always getting more...eventually a computer for editing etc... I want to have a place that is versatile and functional.I will want to treat the room with buildable resonators, traps etc...things I can take with me if I move to different location...the SAE site and your wall unit page is what I was using for my resource for this stuff. I will use acoustic drums mainly, amped guitars, acoustics guitars, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, stand-up and electric bass.........etc... Does the layout I sent look like it can work or am I missing the boat completely???? Thanks, Dan

Dan - I was thinking along these lines so you get a bigger better sounding control room yet can still have a couple of booths. cheers john

Thanks for the advice John!!! Given the fact that this area will be used as extra living space also, I need to keep the biggest room open and more generic..as the "live" room, with movable gobos to change sound quality and help isolate. My question really is whether or not you think I can treat the control room adequately...similar to the 2 examples I posted off your site...the control rooms with the panel absorbers etc. Also, how best to treat the iso booth so it is versatile enough to accomodate vocals, drums and maybe guitars,etc. Maybe variable panel absorbers or panels that are live on one side and dead on the other taht can be flipped around as needed?? How about the floor ideas...Concrete with rugs that can move around?? Or would floated wood thruout be better or a combination of conctete in the main "live" room and floated wood in the others??? I appreciate that you are a professional recording specialist, and I would love to have a perfect studio that is just there for that purpose, but I am trying to make this work out for the whole of my family....leaning heavily toward the recording studio aspect, but keeping them in mind. The control room and iso room are mine, they will need to be smaller than one may wish for...the big main room will need to be shared!! Do you have a wife??? Teenagers!!! Some times it would be nice to lock them away in a separate area, away from the house....no??!! This site is awesome and I can't imagine the effort you put forth to answer all of us out here!!! Thanks again!!! Dan

Dan, I noticed one problem you're headed for, thought I'd clarify if I can - you said,"hip style roof with pulldown stairs into an attic. The ceiling is attacheed to 2x6 rafters. No insulation, Ceiling is now 1/4 inch plywood. planning relient channels and insulation and 1 layer sheet rock. i have neighbors about 100 feet to one side of the building. " - In another part of your post, you mention using double sheet rock and RC on the walls. That part is fine, but sound proofing adheres strictly to the "weakest link" theory - and your proposed ceiling treatment will be slightly more effective than a double layer of SARAN WRAP... You already have 1/4" plywood on the ceiling joists, then you're going to add RC and ONE layer of sheet rock. That will give you (barely) a two-mass, one air space barrier, which is the best use of materials - however, what makes this work is MASS of each leaf, DISTANCE between leaves, and FILLING of the air space with insulation. Your distance will be minimal, the 1/4 ply has about the same Transmission Loss as cardboard, and a single layer of sheet rock won't help nearly enough to be worth putting up. This is ignoring the fact that your pull-down stairway probably leaks like a cheap boat. In addition to this, unless your 2x6 ceiling joists are part of engineered trusses, (and assuming they are #2 and better Douglas fir on 24" centers) they have a maximum span rating of 14'7" for a 5 pound dead, 10 pound live load or only a 10'4" span for 10 pound dead, 20 pound live load. So, if they are NOT part of trusses, you shouldn't add much of ANYTHING to their load. (16" centers, no trusses would increase span with 10/20 psf rating, to 12'8", which would allow you to add a second layer of sheet rock, etc) If the joists ARE part of trusses, you would be fine adding some mass - but, as I said, the 1/4 ply is nearly worthless and will keep you from putting the RIGHT amount of mass in the RIGHT places. If your roof IS trussed, that would make it nearly impossible to put a mass layer ABOVE the joists and get it to seal (important) so you should build DOWN as you planned. However, you should first put a layer of sheet rock against the plywood, then furr out with 2x4's, put the RC on those and TWO layers of sheet rock, staggered seams, caulked with REAL acoustic caulk and finished to taste. The stairwell will need to be sealed (peel-and-stick foam weatherstrip can work fine for this) and beefed up the same as the rest of the ceiling, or you're wasting your time. Between the joists you can improve TL noticeably by blowing in cellulose insulation for a 6" fill. If your joists are NOT part of trusses. before I added ANYTHING to them I would get a professional out there and see just what IS there - the alternative is likely DISASTER. If I've assumed incorrectly, a basic drawing would help clear things up - the main thing is that you don't endanger anyone, and the second thing is not to waste time/money on things that won't help sound proofing, or can even make it worse... Steve

Fine Dan - I understand - yes I've had two wives and four kids ;);) Well - bearing in mind what Steve is saying, you can treat those two rooms fine, as illustrated in the frawings you posted. mind you - I'm not sure about having drums in that small booth but depending on what is being played it can work. Concrete with rugs is fine - just paint it :) cheers john

You guys are great!! The ceiling joists are trussed into the roof, very heavily fortifde if I'm to believe my heating/air man. I was planning to do 2 layers of drywall on the ceiling, originally, then I thought maybe I could get away with skimping on the ceiling due to the attic space and such...I was wrong obviously!! I will involve my contractor with all this info and I'm sure he won't let me do anything too dangerous. You have been a great help and I will keep you informed on the progress of my studio. I meet with the contractor in 5 days....I'm excited!!! I'll speak with my wife about the floor choices..thanks for all the input. I look forward to using all this information about room treatment, I'm sure I will require some more salient wisdom from this forum!! Thanks, Dan P.S. Ihave planned to do the same to the pulldown door as the rest of the ceiling realizing it is going to be my weakest link...thanks for the advice on how to attempt to minimize its affect1!

OK, Now that I have a plan for the studio rooms, some details are spriging to mind. I have an 8 channel snake, a 16 channel board. I will most likely not record more than 8 channels at once but no doubt will come across that scenario. What is the best way to get the snake and any other cords I need to run theru the walls or floor and into the control room? I have seen some examples of channels poured into a floated concrete floor, but I haven't run across any real examples of what to do thru wood or walls and keep everything sealed and sound proofed.??? Thanks, Dan

What about framing the ceiling and sitting it on the framing of the interior walls? No contact between the existing rafters and the ceiling. Just a thought.

Charles, properly isolated that ceiling would work fine, provided there WERE inside frames, as in a full "room-in-a-room" scenario - however, in Dan's case his outside walls will be a single frame, with Resilient Channel on the inside of the studs and two layers of sheet rock over that. His existing ceiling height is already only at 8 feet, so doing a full inner room would impact ceiling height too much to be practical (unless he and all his family are 4'6" or shorter... :=) Dan, I finally got a chance to run your control room dimensions for modal response and with 8' ceilings it looks really good (for a small room) - In fact, lowering the ceiling to 7'6" doesn't hurt the modes any (assuming you were to "fur out" the ceiling with 3.5" steel studs (instead of using RC), first adding a layer of 5/8" sheet rock to the plywood, then attaching 3.5" steel studs, finally adding two layers of 5/8" sheet rock, your ceiling would be reduced from 96" to about 90.5" - Gonna try to include a screen shot from Excel showing modes. This is with 90" ceiling... You would keep the steel studs about 1/2" from reaching the (already built out) walls, leaving about 3/16" around ceiling edges, caulking as you go with ACOUSTIC rated caulk ONLY - Physically isolating the inner ceiling from any HARD contact with walls like that will keep things that vibrate the walls from automatically energizing the ceiling, and vice versa. This improves overall sound isolation. Be sure to use plenty of CORRECT drywall screws to fasten to the ceiling studs - also, you should think about removing the 1/4 ply on the ceiling and using two layers of at least 1/2" sheet rock before putting on the steel studs and (2 more)sheet rock - the 1/4 ply is likely to vibrate against the added sheet rock. If you run a bead of construction adhesive lengthwise between ceiling joists before adding the sheet rock (in order to combat vibration), that will give you somewhat of an air gap between the 1/4 ply and the sheet rock, which will worsen isolation noticeably. Best of luck - remember to "measure twice (or 4 times) cut once"... Steve

Hey, thanks for the info, I am talking with the ASC Iso-wall people. They have kits they send you woith all the parts to do resilient channel construction, walls and ceiling. I like what they have...a little pricey..but seems like good stuff, and they have instructions so I can probably do alot of it myself. Any one have any experience with this company?? Dan

Dan, some of those kits may be OK, others are largely a waste of time and money compared to other methods. Do you have a link to the particular kit you're looking at? And you're right, this sort of thing is almost always more expensive than DIY options... Steve

I'm looking at the Iso-wall system from this company...go thru the recording studio link..very informative site with nice pics and info http://www.acousticsciences.com. The kit comes with all the resilient channel, rubber pading, felt,caulking,etc... I will get the insulation, wall board and do most of the labor. Tell me what you think...Can I do the same sort of thing buy buying the materials, from local places, similar to what they have?...is their stuff that much superior to what I can get? There is always the convenience factor...they send what you need for the space you have...it may cost more, but you generally get what you pay for... Look at this site and tell me what you think. Thanks, Dan

Dan, I couldn't find anything on their site regarding the Iso-wall stuff - can you give me a better idea of what they charge for what you want, and what it actually includes? Usually, you get what you pay for OR LESS - the trick is to avoid the "or less" part - also, someone has to find/gather/package these kits, so you will pay their labor (at the inflated rate their company thinks it's worth) - then, there are all the "snake oil" fixes, most of which are unbelievably high priced and replaceable with much cheaper subsitutions. These guys' facility is about 50 miles from my home, believe it or not - I'm considering a tour when I get some time... Steve

Hey Steve, If you go thru the soundproof button off the main page from the web site http://www.acousticsciences.com/ you wiil have 2 options to look at...wall damp, which is a component of the iso-wall system and the iso-wall system. For the layout that i sent at the beginning of this thread, using iso-wall for the perimeter walls and 1 side of the interior walls between the separate rooms it will run me ~ $ 4,500.00 shipped to my doorstep. This does not include insulation or wall board. It is for the wall damp pads,stripping, felt stripping, resilient channels, acoustic caulking and that is it...seems pretty high dollar to me. i am thinking I can maybe do better getting similar products peicemeal. Check out their site again and see if they are making accurate claims, in your opinion, and if their stuff may be worth what they charge. TRhanks, Dan

Finally found it, thanks - after checking the diagrams, it actually looks like an effective wall system. I agree, however, that it comes at a hefty price - In your case, it looks like you would have about 165 lineal feet of wall that needs double sheet rock, or about 90 sheets of sheet rock not including ceiling - ceilings should take about another 30-32 sheets. You will need about 880 feet of RC-1, at about $3 per 10 foot length (if you can find it locally) You will need about 125 lineal feet of wall insulation 8 feet high (if you open the walls and use rockwool) - That's about 1500 square feet of insulation including ceilings, which could run around $1 per sq foot, maybe less. You'll need about 5000 screws @ around $.03 to $.05, or around $250. 125 sheets 5/8 sheet rock @ $5.75 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $718 tape and mud for above - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -$200 90 pcs of 10' RC-1 @ $3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -$270 1500 sf insulation @ $1/sf - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $1500 5000 fasteners - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $ 250 at least 24 1 qt tubes of acoustic caulk @ $4 - - - - - - - - -$ 100 doors - wild guess - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -$2000 cable, boxes, connectors (another wild guess) - - - - - - -$1000 electrical, lights (REALLY wild guess) - - - - - - - - - - - - - $1000 various seal materials - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $ 500 ____________________________________________________ Total - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $7538 Granted, there will be other expenses but that is the major materials part of doing your walls/ceilings WITHOUT the ASC stuff - about $300 of the above would be replaced with the ASC stuff, so it looks like there would be about $4200 difference in cost added to use the ASC kit. Maybe I need to quit my day job and start a pre-fab wall company... Steve

I am beginning to think that it may be easier and cheaper to just do the room in a room, or double wall, deal. Originally I thought I could save money doing the resilient channel thing, but I may be better off doing the double wall treatment, plus I think it would be more effective, according to the SAE site stc page. Dan

probably. I built a room inside an existing room in my house (control room) and so far I have spent around $1,000.00 I am waiting to get the acoustical sealant needed to seal everything. I have floated the floor, put in all my walls, almost done building the soffits (exterior treatment). Of course I cut a few corners. Nothing major that would mess up the sound isolation. I expect, with the window, doors and rockwool (safb) installed to spend no more than $1600.00 Bryan Realize my cost is so low because the original room is already built, I am just building inside of that room. I start the control room next week and I expect the cost to be around the same with 4 slot resonator sections, 703 and floated floor on Neoprene.

OK, Now here is what my wife and I have come up with. - Interior walls will be done using the Iso-wall system - the ceiling will be Iso-wall system - the exterior walls will be double walls with 2 layers wall board on inside. - exterior means the long walls along live/control rooms etc. not the iso booth walls -floors: painted cocrete in live room, floated wood in other rooms - 2 sliding glass doors for entry - inside doors will be solid core with small windows for site lines. I will treat the control room like the examples I show in the ealier posts. Ther iso-room will have iso-wall atound its' exterior, but the wall next to the live room with the door????? Mabe just cover t6he insulation with cloth to give a differnt medium to this wall....703 maybe...??? Please let me know what you guys think!! Thanks, Dan