Studio - live room build in Belgrade - Serbia

[Nikola Cuk]

Hi guys.
My band is trying to build a live room from a backyard "shed". I am putting shed in quotes since it's not made of wood but from brick and mortar.
Current situation is like this:
1. we own the "shed"
2. it's built from brick and mortar, 120mm thick walls with 30mm mortar on top of it.
3. There is one door.
4. There is one window.
5. There is a dividing wall and we will tear it down. There will remain two pillars.
6. Foundation is connected to the adjacent residential building.
7. There are 2 sheds on adjacent parcels - not residential, one is connected via wall, one has some 300-400mm distance.

All dimensions and spec are on sketch-up pictures down or in a model I will try to include within this post.

Pic 1.
View from the residential building

pic 1.jpg

**************************************

Pic 2.
View from a side

pic 2.jpg

**************************************

Pic 3.
View from a side

pic 3.jpg

**************************************

Pic 4.
Inside roof

pic 4.jpg

**************************************

Pic 5.
Inside toward door

pic 5.jpg

**************************************

Pic 6.
Sketch-up current state 01

studio--current-01.jpg

**************************************

Pic 7.
Sketch-up current state 02

studio--current-02.jpg

**************************************

Pic 8.
Sketch-up new 01

studio-new-01.jpg

**************************************

Pic 9.
Sketch-up new 02

studio-new-02.jpg

**************************************

Pic 10.
Sketch-up new 03

studio-new-03.jpg

**************************************

So, we are going to play some loud rock n roll.
Our plan was:
1. Make a hole in a dividing wall. Leave two pillars for support.
2. Put separating rubber on floor for decoupling. Its locally made and called MATA. It's a recycled rubber flooring 15mm thick.
Supposedly it's great for decoupling.
3. Put 2 layers of OSB panels (12-15mm each) on top of the rubber. - they should not touch the outside walls, but leave 10-20mm space.
4. Put AZMAFON on the walls. It's, again, made localy. Its a sound dampening - isolation layer 12-30mm thick made of compressed thread.
There are some spec sheets for azmafon.
Pic AZMAFON

AZMAFON.jpg

************************************
CONTINUING IN ANOTHER POST CANNOT INSERT MORE PIC

[Nikola Cuk]

PIC AZMAFON TECH
- vertical axis is sound absorption coefficient, and horizontal axis is sound in Hz.

AZMAFON TECH.jpg

************************************

5. Put drywall on resilliant channel over azmafon.
6. Make a dropdown ceiling from heavy OSB 30mm thick in 2 or 3 layers and put rockwool to fill the rest of the space to roofing.
7. Put 300-400mm rockwool or fiberglas on the outside (it's a small room so we hope to get most of isolation to sit outside)
8. Put OSB 15mm or drywall over it, and finish with cement or mortar.
9. Make a slit with circular concrete saw in the foundation so that the "shed" is isolated from residential building fundation.
Pic 2a.

pic 2a.jpg

************************************
10. Get a new heavy door
11. Blast some prog music.

Now, we are a live band with a drum set, bass, guitar and vocals.
We are a loud band. We don't have audiometer, but i made some inquires and should be able to find one for rent or to borrow in the near future so I will post results when I have them.
As you can see from picture below, there are several objects near.
Residential building is the most important.
Shed 1 and Shed 2 are not residential. Building 3 is also not residential.

Pic Studio new 04

studio-new-04.jpg

*****************************************

Now for the questions. Our goal is to be able to play all day, and possibly all night without being shot by the neighbours.
1. as a rough estimate, how much sound absorption will we get from measures described above.
2. We are most concerned about bass and low freq so would it help to make a slit in the concrete (picture 2a above) bicose it's
sooo expensive, so if we don't have to do it we would like to avoid it.
3. What would be your advice for the roof.

Yet again I will try my best to get audio levels measuring and post them as son as posible.
Also, if you have any questions, I will try to respond to them as soon as posible.

Thanks in advance,
Nikola Cuk - band DIFFRACTION

[Soundman2020]

Hi there Nikola, and Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, there was a glitch with the forum server yesterday, and your photos seem to have disappeared, with no trace! Please could you re-post the photos. Sorry about that!

I can't comment on your layout, as I can't see it until the photos are back in place, but I can comment on some of the things you mentioned:

2. Put separating rubber on floor for decoupling. Its locally made and called MATA. It's a recycled rubber flooring 15mm thick. Supposedly it's great for decoupling.

Do you have a link to the technical characteristics of that stuff? I'd be very surprised if it would be useful in a studio. It might be, but there are a lot of factors involved in doing floors right.

Also, why do you want to decouple your floor? What is the floor made of? Is it a concrete "slab on grade"? There aren't many valid reasons for trying yo float a floor, and very likely you do not need to float yours. Floating a floor correctly is very expensive, and complex. There are many ways to do it wrong....

3. Put 2 layers of OSB panels (12-15mm each) on top of the rubber. - they should not touch the outside walls, but leave 10-20mm space.

... and that's one of the ways to do it wrong!

4. Put AZMAFON on the walls. It's, again, made localy. Its a sound dampening - isolation layer 12-30mm thick made of compressed thread.

I can't see the specs, because your photos disappeared in the server glitch, but if you want to isolate ("soundproof") your room, then that stuff won't help much. It might be useful, but I can't find any information at all about it, even using Google: all the links to the manufacturer don't work any more...

But anyway, you don't say if you are trying to isolate your studio, or treat it. Those are two very different things. That stuff by itself will not isolate at all, but it might be OK for some types of treatment.

7. Put 300-400mm rockwool or fiberglas on the outside (it's a small room so we hope to get most of isolation to sit outside)

sorry, but that won't work. Fiberglass, mineral wool, and probably also "Azmafon" are porous absorbers, made up of a large number of fine fibers with tiny air gaps between. They are great for acoustic treatment, by they do nothing for acoustic isolation when used by themselves. Isolation is a system: a set of materials arranged in a particular way. All of those products can be used as part of an isolation system, but they have to go inside the MSM cavity, between the two sealed leaves of mass. If yo put them outside the wall, the result is zero. If you put them inside the MSM cavity, then the results are very good (assuming that the entire wall is built correctly). So putting 400 mm of porous absorber outside the room would be a total waste of your money, since it would do nothing at all. On the other hand, butting half of that amount (200mm) inside the MSM cavity would be very useful.

In other words, the materials have to go in the right place to work. In exactly the same way, if you take out the shock absorbers from your car and bolt them to the wheels, they would do nothing at all, but if you bolt them in toe correct location, between the wheel and the chassis, they work very well. Putting porous absorption outside your room is exactly the same as bolting shock absorbers to the wheels.

8. Put OSB 15mm or drywall over it, and finish with cement or mortar.

That would be a bad idea: the water and acidity of the cement would damage the drywall, and it would not stick well in any case. It would be much better to just finish the drywall in the normal way.

9. Make a slit with circular concrete saw in the foundation so that the "shed" is isolated from residential building fundation.

That would probably be illegal, and would definitely be very unsafe. That would disconnect the floor slab from the foundations, leaving the slab unsupported: It will crack for sure, and will likely sink in places. You cannot cut structural members in a building without suffering the consequences. If you want to isolate your floor, then you would have to do it properly.

1. as a rough estimate, how much sound absorption will we get from measures described above.

Very hard to say, but not much. Maybe 40 to 45 dB or so.

2. We are most concerned about bass and low freq so would it help to make a slit in the concrete (picture 2a above) bicose it's sooo expensive, so if we don't have to do it we would like to avoid it

Apart from being expensive, it is dangerous and probably illegal! Why do you want to do that anyway? That is not the correct way to float a floor: here is a thread about how to float a floor correctly:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=2&t=8173

3. What would be your advice for the roof.

The entire building must be isolated to the same level, all around. The walls, ceiling, windows, doors, HVAC system and electrical system must ALL be isolated correctly, to the same level. Isolation is only as good as the weakest part, so for example if you isolate everything to 60 dB but only do the roof to 30 dB, then your total isolation is 30 dB.

There are equations and publications for calculating the amount of isolation you can get from different types of building materials used in different ways, and you should use those equations to determine how to build your room. Right now, you are starting out with a plan on how to build it but, not knowing how much isolation you will get, or even how much you need. In reality, you should do this the other way around: first determine how much isolation you need, then look for materials and methods that will provide that amount of isolation.

- Stuart -

[Nikola Cuk]

Hi Stuart and thank you for your response.
First off I re-uploaded all of the pictures.
Secondly I now see the incorrect way we approached this little venture of ours.

Do you have a link to the technical characteristics of that stuff? I'd be very surprised if it would be useful in a studio. It might be, but there are a lot of factors involved in doing floors right.

Also, why do you want to decouple your floor? What is the floor made of? Is it a concrete "slab on grade"? There aren't many valid reasons for trying yo float a floor, and very likely you do not need to float yours. Floating a floor correctly is very expensive, and complex. There are many ways to do it wrong....

Unfortunately I cant find any detailed info on the MATA stuff. About the decupling, as you will se from the pictures we are trying to make a small makeshift studio for band's rehearsal at our bassist's house-apartment. He has a small backyard (since he lives on the ground floor) and a "shed" in it. Unfortunately he has some ... well let's call them grumpy neighbors on the first and second floor who really don't appreciate loud music. I, as a drummer, and he as a bassist are very worried about low freq noise from his bass amp and my bass drum so after numerous youtube videos and numerous forums we got the idea and fear that we need to address that low freq by decupling the entire floor.
By the way, floor is made of concrete. Maybe even out of reinforced concrete.

I can't see the specs, because your photos disappeared in the server glitch, but if you want to isolate ("soundproof") your room, then that stuff won't help much. It might be useful, but I can't find any information at all about it, even using Google: all the links to the manufacturer don't work any more...

But anyway, you don't say if you are trying to isolate your studio, or treat it. Those are two very different things. That stuff by itself will not isolate at all, but it might be OK for some types of treatment.

We are trying to isolate our studio as much as possible.

That would probably be illegal, and would definitely be very unsafe. That would disconnect the floor slab from the foundations, leaving the slab unsupported: It will crack for sure, and will likely sink in places. You cannot cut structural members in a building without suffering the consequences. If you want to isolate your floor, then you would have to do it properly.

As you will see from the pictures the foundation slab is just extended from the residential part of the house to the back yard where the "shed" is built upon it. Believe it or not but it would not be illegal to cut it. At leas not where we wanted to cut it, and it was regarded in our minds as a final stage of how we could decuple the entire "shed" from the rest of the building.

As for insulation outside, it was, yet again, grasping for straws as we need to save internal space as much as possible. We have only 14m2 to work with and have a 4 piece band. As we are playing prog - hard rock you could imagine just my drum set occupying a large amount of those 14m2.

And again, thank you for your kind response.

Best regards, Nikola.