New Studio from Ground Up - Materials for Ext Walls and Roof

[BanjoBend]

First, please let me say “Thanks” for any and all assistance that may be provided.

I have always wanted a recording studio of my own that I can use for personal projects and as a possible source of some revenue. I have retired, and now have the “where-with-all” and the space to build one from the ground up. I have an excellent GC that built our home that is excited about learning / applying the CORRECT processes to minimize acoustic issues, so this seems like the time to go for it!

I have a 20 acre tract in the Arkansas Ozark mountains. My nearest neighbor is about an 8th of a mile away. There are maybe 10 cars a day that pass by on the clay/ gravel road that fronts the property, and rarely are the vehicles anything but pickups. . I would have loved to put the studio in the middle of the tract, but common sense (other wise known as “sticker shock”) prevailed and it will have to be located around 25 yards from the road. The closest highway is 4 miles away, so heavy vehicle traffic is not an issue.

I’m in the research stage and don’t want to get too far along if the path is wrong…so would like opinions on general materials for the external walls / roof of the building. These are the options I have considered so far…

1. Use of a metal building – Sides and roof are metal, framing is wood. Main reason is economic…much less expensive to put up one of these than to build traditional exterior walls…looking at a 40’ x 60’ building with a 12’ side wall with arched trusses. This would allow the ceiling to be higher than with standard trusses. Would use this as the external skin, and build a “room within a room”.

2. The other option is using concrete blocks for the walls. Doing a concrete beam-and-block roof may be too expensive, would appreciate any opinions on what some of the roofing options are that would be effective. Still doing a “room within a room”. Or is this isolation overkill for my location?

Thanks again for any comments…

John

[Gregwor]

Welcome to the forum John!

Great first post. Basically, everyone here is trying to achieve their dream studios using the cheapest methods. It looks like you've understood that even though the "room in a room" construction technique seems extreme, it truly is the cheapest and best method. Having said that, the general principle of isolation building a room in a room is Mass Spring Mass. Mass = outer leaf (your building shell), Spring = the air gap filled with insulation for better dampening, Mass = inner leaf (your wood/drywall combination of your room inside the building). I would say that no, this isn't overkill.

Basically, build your building out of whatever materials you deem to be the cheapest and still provide you with the amount of surface density you deem necessary to achieve the level of isolation you require. You told us a distance from the road, but you didn't provide us with any dB levels. I posted a MSM transmission loss calculator here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21373 that you can use to type in different air gaps and material weights.

Hopefully that gets you going in the right direction!

I look forward to seeing your progress.

Greg