Reducing sound through a single wall.

As a newcomer here, let me please open my question by first taking the time to thank all of you guys for the time you take and have taken to help the multitude of strangers that come here for advice. You truly have my respect!! I have a question that is really going to get some heads shaking with disbelief, but I am hoping that I can convey my "realistic" expectations accurately. I have recently emmigrated to the United Kingdom and will be moving into a semi-detached house in January of 2007 (currently in a tiny flat with all of my beloved studio gear tossing to and fro in some container ship powering up the Atlantic Ocean making its way to a very lonely owner). I could go into a very lengthy explanation of where and why, but to get to the point a little quicker, let me lay out a few points to summarise the situation and set the scene. 1. I will be renting this house and do not have the landlords permission to undertake any serious structural changes. 2. The room to be used measures approximately 3m x 3.5m and is located on the ground floor with wooden floorbaords (fully carpeted). 3. Being a mirror image semi-detached house (actually a mid-terraced house --- ie. flanked on both sides by mirror image houses), the single wall dividing my prospective music room from my neighbours adjoining room, is brick (ie. NOT drywall/plasterboard) and as my terribly amateurish sketch below shows, I am primarily concerned about the one single room which will literally be "the room next door" for now. 4. As mentioned in the above point, I refer to this room as my music room and not my studio, because although I have a considerable collection of analogue gear (5 x 14U racks plus 3 x 6ft racks stuffed with synths, recorders, patchbay etc) and a medium/large format console (Soundtracs InLine 3632) --- this room will be solely for my own use (programmed drums, Pod Pro XT guitars, DI bass etc) with vocals to be done offsite at 3rd party studios and brought home for me to knock up rough mixes/demos, so I do not really need to capture any performances in this particular room as such --- ie. this is really simply a WAY over the top songwriting studio. 5. I will be making little or no attempt to isolate this room from the rest of the house (adjoining lounge/dining room with 3 bedrooms upstairs) --- I say this to give an indication as to "domestic" mixing levels (NS-10's) with a wife and 2 kids in the rest of the house. OK, so my probably obvious question is --- is there anything I can do to the single wall between myself and my direct neighbour to reduce the leakage into his lounge? Damn, I can see the heads shaking already --- but I am really not expecting to get true seperation or isolation. What I am envisaging is that by the time I am playing back anything at the sort of level that could be tolerated by the wife and kids in the room next door (taking into account the unsealed door leading straight into the passage that links the rest of our downstairs living areas), it will obviously be leaking through to the neighbour to a similar degree --- and my hope is that I can do something to that wall to lower the transmission enough to keep him happy enough as I am sure that my wife and kids may be ever so slightly more tolerant than a stranger and this slight decrease in tolerance is what I would like to address. Will I achieve anything worthwhile by placing a double/triple skinned drywall on a frame a few inches off the wall in question --- and if so, are there ANY possible ways to support this frame in such a way that when we leave this house (and probably have to remove this wall), that we will not have completely buggered up the existing walls and ceiling in any expensive (deposit risking) way? I know this is all a bit ridiculous, but I am really looking for minimal reduction compared to your typically louder requirement if you know what I mean --- but I also don't want to waste a few hundred pounds and get a zero result. Thanks for any time and suggestions.

I would think you should also be concerned with flanking noise if the whole structure shares the same floor construction. Beefing up that wall would help that wall, but sound will travel through the floors and ceiling as well. I don't have specific design help, but just a general thought.

Yeah, I do agree with you on that one --- this is why I am pretty much convinced that I am barking up a non existent tree here. It would probably be incredibly time consuming to research this effectively, but what I suppose I am looking for is some sort of indication as to what sort of reduction one would get in a step by step approach to isolation. What I mean is if you took a single room and sat in the corner playing acoustic guitar it would obviously be "X" audible on the other side of the same room. Now put up a single skin drywall partition dividing player from listener and it would obviously be "X" less audible --- replace the single skin drywall with a brick wall and it would be even better --- float the floor and we are getting there etc etc. I suppose my "theoretical" question is realistically unanswerable, but would be an extremely valuable bit of research for those of us that simply cannot either afford or get permission to reconstruct properly. Anyways, regardless of the waste of money in this endeavour, I will attempt some sort of improvement in the new year as soon as we are in and will post back here if I have achieved anything worthwhile --- for the little guys that is --- little guys like me that would be quite happy to get the headphones off from time to time and be able to get "X" more on the faders before the thumping on the wall from the neighbours, because in a situation like this, every tiny bit of fader travel accomplished is actually a HUGE gain and basically allows us to do something rather than confront the dead ended "all or nothing" syndrome. Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

Could you please read through: WELCOME TO RECORDING STUDIO DESIGNIt's IMPORTANT that you read this if you hope to gain any help on this site!!! AND then: DON'T EVEN think ABOUT POSTING before you READ THIS... AND update your profile with a location (this is a worldwide resource.)

It would probably be incredibly time consuming to research this effectively, but what I suppose I am looking for is some sort of indication as to what sort of reduction one would get in a step by step approach to isolation.

Time consuming YES. Incredibly time consuming to research this effectively... NO, with "spare time" ( or at least my average amount of spare or down time) my guess is about a week to get through and absorb info from above links. This will give you you're "indication", other wise it would take our forum members WAY TO long to indicate what you could, could not and should do in your situation. BTW at the very least you should be willing to patch a few holes in the concrete slab when you move out, if you want a degree of isolation. Also think about permit, building code etc... For me all this stuff boils down to "well it does not really matter if I can't exactly afford to build all this... I can not afford not to" Hope this helps Marc

guitardad72 wrote:

For me all this stuff boils down to "well it does not really matter if I can't exactly afford to build all this... I can not afford not to"

...or as I like to say...

If you can't afford to do it correctly, can you afford to do it over? :roll:

--Keith :mrgreen:

OK, I have updated my profile to include my location (having emmigrated to the UK earlier this year after spending a GOOD few hours EVERY day on this site for the past 2 years --- I had obviously missed this prerequisite ---- sorry!). For what it's worth, I have trawled through so many threads on this site (including MANY re-reads of all the sticky lead-ins etc) that my head sometimes hurts, although I have gained an incredible amount of invaluable knowledge --- hence my opening thanks to all who assist around here. I seem to remember reading (somewhere) about a UK semi-detached resident who had basically (in layman's terms) applied some relatively basic treatment to his room which adjoined a direct neighbour and had achieved a situation whereby his neighbour did not even know that he had a "studio" next door. If I recall correctly, there where no floating floors or flanking considerations --- I think just a double/triple sandwiched studwall and this guy did mention that he monitored at reasonable levels (ie. not slamming the meters, but enough for him to be happy). Anyways, I realise that this forum is mainly for those that are building "proper" facilities and that small guys like myself are really wasting everyones time by coming across like newbies without a clue. Like I said before, if I achieve anything worthwhile for the little guys out there who do not have thousands of pounds/dollars and their own buildings to renovate then I will post my results. Thanks again.

I have trawled through so many threads on this site (including MANY re-reads of all the sticky lead-ins etc) that my head sometimes hurts, although I have gained an incredible amount of invaluable knowledge

I share you feelings.

I seem to remember reading (somewhere) about a UK semi-detached resident

I do not recall it.

Anyways, I realise that this forum is mainly for those that are building "proper" facilities and that small guys like myself are really wasting everyones time by coming across like newbies without a clue.

IMHO, I think this forum is for everybody, sometimes "newbie like" question need to be asked as it is easy to get overwhelmed with information overload and miss part of "it". Even professional builders who are suppose to "know what they are doing" and are not overwhelmed from learning new subjects, are completely capable of baldy screwing up a project.

Like I said before, if I achieve anything worthwhile for the little guys out there who do not have thousands of pounds/dollars and their own buildings to renovate then I will post my results.

Please do, we look forward to pics of your progess :D Marc

Yeah, there is a wide cross-section of project types represented here -- everything from pro or near-pro quality projects (both commercial and residential) to simple bedroom spaces and everything in between. The leaders around here do tend to approach them all with the same mindset though -- do what works, use what's been proven, and be safe & legal. By all means, this place is not just for big spenders. One could argue that even when budgets are very tight, it becomes that much more important to stick with proven methods and products, because one can't afford to throw money away on experiments. Hoooooooweeeee, I went off on a bit of tangent there. :roll: ;-) --Keith :mrgreen: