floors on concrete covered with rubber - free leftovers!!

Hello all. - UPDATE - the concrete floor of this space (used to be a fitness club) is covered by a very dense rubber material about 1/4 to 3/8 thick. might this rubber be suitable to lay ply over top of - soimewhat floating the plywood as descibed below??? I am starting a new studio build (5500 sq. ft). My last project (www.iswstudios.com ) in 2004 was made much easier due to my countless hours on this site! My question is - this build will be on the 2nd floor of a commercial building. Ground floor is block construction. Second floor (us) is concrete floor with frame (stucco) exterior walls. I want to use real 3/4 hardwood flooring on all the accoustic rooms - 2 control rooms, 2 vocal booths, drum room and 20 X 30 live room. I had planned on putting down 2 layers of 3/4 t&g ply on the concret and nailing the hardwood to that. I don't really want to float the floors, with maybe the exception being the drum room (12X 16). My main concern is both accoustical sound quality and sound insulation throughout our premises (we also have a media/ad agency on site) and sound insulation for our down stairs neighbors. As always - thanks in advance. Feels good to be back Dan McGuinness

anyone??

Not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if putting the 3/4 hardwood onto 2 layers of ply and all that on top of the rubber, then concrete? And is this a question of sound quality in the room or isolation?

Sorry, just re-read your post and saw the last paragraph. I think sound quality would be fine, isolation probably not but need more description of the floor construction. How bad is the sound transmission right now?

Not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if putting the 3/4 hardwood onto 2 layers of ply and all that on top of the rubber, then concrete? And is this a question of sound quality in the room or isolation?

hi and thanks for the reply. My main concern is shielding noise from our neighbor below. The construction of the floor is concrete over steel joist truses. There is a dense rubber 3/8 thick over the concrete - gym rubber I think they call it. I want to put 3/4 hardwood flooring down and want to stop as much noise as reasonably possible. I had thought of 2 layers of 3/4 T&G ply over the ruber then the hardwood on top? Suggestions?? thanks Dan

I think this is a workable idea, and one i was planning on doing in my own non-floated floor slab concrete studio. Those gym mats are super dense, almost 90lbs per 4x6 mat and are great at noise isolation. A layer of plywood and then hardwood flooring should be enough to drop TL down quite significantly but on the second floor of any building there is going to be a more difficult job of keeping the vibrations down going through the flanking paths of the walls etc. A drum riser would be really helpful to take care of the worst offending beats.

hi there i don't think this rubber is the same thing you are talking about. this is 3/8 of an inch thick - deinately not that dense. i will weigh some tomorrow and let you know. thanks dan

Oh at 3/8 inch those may not be thick enough. I'd go with at least 1/2" or 3/4" thick. Depending on what they are made of (recycled tires or higher quality rubber) the weight will vary. 3/8" mats i am familiar with weighed around 60lbs @4x6.

hi all. I have finished floating the drum room floor on our new project. I have some EPDM and Neoprene (some cut to 1X1.3 inch blocks - this is 60 duro - 1/2 inch thick. There is uncut Neoprene - about .5 sq ft and about 25 cut blocks. - enough to float a small floor I suspect. I will gladly send it out to whoever wants it - first come - first served. later Dan ps - we are about 85% done on this 5500sqft - 25 room studio build in St. Thomas - finally light at the end of the tunnel!

congrats... so euh, any pix? or it didn't happen ;)