SoulFood's studio design

Hello all! My dad and I are moving to a house in about 1-2 years. Next to the house, there will be a studio, wich i have to plan now :D The budget is also important, unfortunately. I've come up with some ideas, that may be good or very bad to save some costs (really as much as possible!!!), but I don't want to comprimise the sound of the studio. 1.) I don't know, if I save anything by not needing sound isolation betwen the studio and the sorroundings. The idea now is to make the studio kind of half basement. The studio will be about 3,5 m high and about 1,5m would be underground in the start. when the shell is built, instead of paying to contractors to drive away the massive ammount of dirt from the house (normal house with a basement) and the studio, we'll use the dirt to cover the remaining part of the studio, that is still above ground. This would save costs at construction of the shell, but also 2-3m of dirt arround the studio (I think) makes a pretty good isolation with the outside world, doesn't it? I don't know if I'll even need to float the floor! This seems like a win-win solution BUT (and there's always a but...) I don't know how much isolation I lose when thinking about room-to-room isolation in the studio (no floating floor). Would i still need to isolate ceilings and floors of the rooms, or just the walls dividing them? I have a feeling that I need that isolation anyway... :? This is the first thing to think about, because I can't tell the architect the exact size of the shell, If i don't know how much room the isolation will take. And then all the carefully calculated ratios will be lost... Thank you so much! Borut

I think i didn't explain well enough what i'm thinking of doing, so i've drawn my first little pic in SketchUp :shock: It is not in scale.. It's just to give you an idea of what's going on in my confused mind :wink: I think that I will get enough isolation from the outside world with the dirt ( :oops: I don't know the correct word... the thing you put plants in to grow... sorry!) and concrete ceiling. Positive things about this Idea: +Lower "digging" costs (lower than if i wanted the whole thing underground) +Lower "removal" of the leftover "dirt" :oops: +hopefully lower isolation costs Negative (as far as I see it) -confusion about isolation... How much does not having a floating floor effect "room to room" isolation? what isolation don't i need anymore, if I don't need the "outside world" isolation? I hope I made myself more clear this time... Thank you all! Borut

if you plan to cover your building with the dirt you dug out in order to put half of the building underground your going to have to build the whole building out of concrete so it dont colapse from the weight of the dirt

Thank you for the reply! :D I also thought of that. I haven't talked to any construction engineers yet, but my common-man logic is telling me, that if it is built like a basement, is should be strong enough... It is designed to hold 2 floors of a building, so 1m of dirt shouldn't be that much of a problem. But I'll ckeck with a construction engineer as soon as i can! If my thinking is correct, What isolation won't i need? Floating floor? Outisde walls? Ceilling? Borut

dirt is heaier than your thinkin youll need to use a reinforced concrete to prevent colapse

hm... sounds expensive... looks like I'll have to consult with someone... some pillars could help maybe... DreaminDrumBeats, do you think it would be cheaper to use standard isolation, than to reinforce the building and cover it with 1m of dirt? One thing to think about is just how much isolation does the ceiling need. If the building is sorrounded with dirt, but only about 20-50cm of it is on top, this should also provide some isolation... On top of the building there could be a great spot for the musicians to chill, except in the winter time... This could be a really nice feature of the studio... I like this idea very much!

having the dirt incasing the building would be much more isolated for sure but much more of a headache due having to build the whole exterior out of concrete before incasing it. In my area it would be cheaper to just build the exterior shell like a normal house with a roof and then do the interior as a room in room construction ( MAM )

Thx for your help DreaminDrumBeats! I found a construction engineer here in Slovenia, and I will be able to ask him more specific questions about using pillars, how many pillars should be used and the like... And how would it effect the building, if it were sorrounded with dirt (like on the previous picture...) Oh and yes, you were absolutely right! I never thought 1 m3 of dirt would be somewhere arround 1,5t !!!! Borut

Here's the latest news... The engineer looked at my idea and told me that i would need 3 pillars... But I don't have to make the whole building out of reinforced concrete... So now that I know that it's possible, I finally have some sound isolation questions. I'll try to write them down as clearly as possible ;) 1.) The shell of the studio would be next to a house (possible more than one, we haven't decided where we will build it) I think (I could be dead wrong here) the most important isolation is on the sides of the studio shell, because these will be "directed" in the direction of other houses nearby. The ceiling could be much less isolated (it points upwards)... 2.) does anybody have any idea how much isolation does about 20cm of dirt provide? (that's for the ceiling) 3.) What part of the "normal" MAM do I need for the inner sound isolation? Would I have a lot of sound leaking to other rooms, if i didn't have the floating floor and outside wall isolation? I'll try to keep it short to get any answers and not to scare anyone away ;) Thank you! Borut

Hello! :D I've made some rough sketches of the layout... I didn't even break paralell surfaces... Really rough, but just to give you an idea. The red thingies are support pillars. This is ofcourse NOT the final position of the rooms or th pillars. I just got some info on how much pillars there should be (3), but because of the control room, i removed one and divided the weight betwen to new ones. The dimensions of the studio are 9m x 14m I also thought about only floating the drum booth. I don't think i'll need that much isolation betwen other rooms (outside walls, ceiling and floors will probably not be isolated). There won't be any sound leeking into the control room from outside if there will be about 2m of dirt on the sides of the shell and about 20-40 cm on top of it! :D

i have thought about doing this so many times...keep us updated.

As long as you can hide the beams in walls you're fine, but if they're going to end up in the middle of a room, don't do it! Otherwise you'll end up with what I'm dealing with. which in the end won't be too horribly bad, but I wish it weren't there at all.

Thank you for your replys SonicClang and aetucker1! I definately don't want any any beams (pillars in my little secret language :lol: ) to be visible! That is why i will do the studio design first, so that I'll know where the beams have to be... and ultimately mix the prefect room layout and whatever the construction engineer wants ;) Does anyone here know where would I find out just how much isolation dirt has to offer? Thank you! Borut

A TON of isolation! Dirt is so heavy, with so much mass, it'll stop a LOT. I've never run any tests on it but I'm sure someone has. There's a highway that runs parallel to my house only about 75 yards away. To keep down on the noise in my neighborhood they built an earth berm and it does wonders. We can have our windows open at night and hardly hear a thing. We'll hear police cars and ambulences and stuff like that, but that's much louder than normal. I'd have to imagine a couple feet of dirt with grass on top would stop a large amount of any sound you've got going on in your studio. Plus whatever mass and air gap you've got on the inside.

I thought so too... The mass is huge! Now I have some questions that need your attention guys :D 1.) the way i see it, the most important isolation is on the WALLS of the shell. The ceiling could be much less isolated, because the sound will mostly go up (mostly)... am i correct or way off? 2.) would i need to add isolation from the inside (not acoustic treatment of the rooms... the isolation from the outside world)? 3.) If I don't use the outside isolation IN the building, how does this effect my room-to-room isolation? Thank you all for your help! Borut

ALoha Is a ton really all that much ? I calculated the total mass of the drywall I plan to use for the inner room of my smallish studio to be in excess of 7 tons ... that's just for the walls .... I'm not to sure about the idea of earth for isolation ... the rule is Mass Air Mass ... having the earth is just like having one thick-ish wall. Do yourself a favor and post this idea in the studio construction section, or PM knightfly about it ... he'll set you straight.

Thank you Screamer! I'll PM knightfly

hm... Nothing happened i na few days now... I don't want to post the same question in other sections, I'd like to keep this whole planning in one thread, that way people will get the most out of it :) Could anyone help me with these questions (i'll post them again so you don't have to go back to the previous page): 1.) the way i see it, the most important isolation is on the WALLS of the shell. The ceiling could be much less isolated, because the sound will mostly go up (mostly)... am i correct or way off? 2.) would i need to add isolation from the inside (not acoustic treatment of the rooms... the isolation from the outside world)? 3.) If I don't use the outside isolation IN the building, how does this effect my room-to-room isolation? Thank you so much! Borut