Hearing sounds from live room through control room window?

Hello Everyone Great place you got here! My 1st post I have been to a few great looking commercial studios that also sounded great but I noticed you can hear the drums coming through the walls (bleeding) etc from the live room into the control room. When you opened the door it was very loud in the live room and it was apparent that the majority of the sound was being blocked from getting into the control room but not all of it. It didn’t seem to bother the engineers at all. Now it seemed to be workable but I'm wondering if this is the norm? The engineers all said as long as the monitors are turned up louder than the bleed it’s no big deal and come mixing time there is no bleed. I'm thinking about building a smaller home studio and I wanted to know if anyone’s studio is completely sound proof from room to room? Is completely sound proof possible with out spending millions? Anyone care to share any similar experiences or enlighten me?

I don't know about anyone else, but in all the years I've worked in or been in different studios, I have yet to hear a drummer playing full steam and not hear a "lick" from a drummer's booth to a control room. The degree of exactly how much you hear a drummer playing will vary from studio to studio I would think. One place may have 1 sheet of 1/2" drywall all around a drum booth with no acoustic caulking and another studio's drum booth may have concrete walls with all sealing done with acoustical caulk and a thick double pane glass to see him with. Guess which one you'll probably hear more??? Simply put, to me, how much you hear depends on the construction of the booth and even the soundroom. They both need to have adequate mass, air space and to be sealed properly. So, in Stan's humble opinion...In the "AVERAGE" studio (not one of those multi-million dollar jobs) it's normal to hear "some" sounds from a drummer between a drum booth and a control room.

Cool So it didn't seem to bother you either. I was kinda thinking that with the monitors in the control room real loud there might be some sort of delay picked up by the overhead mics that might cause some sort of comb filtering? It seems windows and doors are the weak link between even well designed rooms. For extra isolation it may be a good idea to put up 4 windows and 2 heavy duty doors. Is this is what the million dollar guys do? Who here has been in huge studios and still heard drums coming through the walls. How big of a deal is this issue to everyone else? Please share your expierences on this subject

Four windows = bad... That's four leaves. You want two. Two windows made of LAMINATED glass that are at least 1/3 as thick as the sum total thickness of each wall not counting studs = good. For example, if the walls have three layers of 5/8" drywall each, then the laminated glass should be at least 5/8" thick. --Keith :mrgreen:

Yes it is more usual than not to hear a bit of drum leakage outside the drum booth unless there is a bunch of mass, AND some airgap. Some places have the control booth on the other side of a main room from the drum booth. In that case you may not hear the drums in the control booth, but wherever the drums are sharing a common wall with the drum booth, it is tough to get enough mass between them, particularly with the glass. Most studios, you would be extremely lucky to get over 65 decibels isolation through the glass, when the normal drummer is playing at or over 100 decibels.... you can hear it. Tom

If you think about it, it doesn't matter one bit whether you can hear the drums or not. The question is if other MICROPHONES that are recording can "hear" them. Even a cheap cardiod or figure 8 mic should have about a 20dB loss in the null areas so even if you are recording more than just the drums, mic positioning should be able to cut any bleed. Another thing to remember about your monitor speakers getting back into the drum mics is that if you have any isolation at all, if the mic drums can hear your monitors in the control room, your monitors are turned up too loud! Also, the walls and glass that the drum sound had to travel through to get to the control room have to be passed through AGAIN to get back to the drum mics. It's been my experience that most drum mics are not that sensitive because they are subject to such high SPLs that in order to get the transients when the drums are hit, they sacrifice the sensitivity on the quiet end. On the other hand, if got a couple of cheap MXL mics that can pick up a fart through the walls of 3 rooms! And I've got pretty good walls. len