Hi all,
My name is Simon and I'm from Mordialloc (Melbourne Australia),
I'm new to this forum and sound spaces so please bare with me and with all the newbie questions.
I am planning to convert our home garage into a band room/studio for my 18 yo. son Spencer.
Spencer currently practises in his bed room and records in my office (not really practical) He has just completed year 12 and is getting serious with his songwriting, playing and recording.
Instrument of choice is electric guitar, but he also sings, plays accoustic guitar, bass guitar, drums, keyboard and harmonica. (and any other instrument he lays his hand to). Playing and recording rock and RnB (including drum kit). He also plays live gigs, so this space may also cater as a rehearsal space.
The space is (approximately) 6220mm deep x 5610mm wide x 2650 high. (20' x 18' x 8' 6"). One long wall is a single brick wall (external wall), the other walls are timber stud walls, lined both sides in 10mm plaster board (gyprock/dry-wall) with no insulation (internal walls), the floor is a concrete slab (on ground floor) and the ceiling is 10mm plaster board (gyprock/dry-wall) below upstair bed rooms with some thermal insulation. The garage also has a tilt panel lift door (short side). This is my starting point.
The plan is to build a wall behind the tilt panel lift door reducing the room size to 4570mm deep x 5610mm wide x 2650 high (15' x 18' x 8' 6") with 600mm of the ceiling at 2000mm (2' and 6' 6") the cater for the tilt panel lift door fully open, This creates a space were I can still store my garage stuff via the tilt panel lift door. Access to the room will be via the existing door from the house in our front hall way.
I plan to construct the new wall using one of the following system (see links) or a hybred of these systems. My question is which system would be best, without over killing it.
https://www.gyprock.com.au/solutions/cinema-wall
https://www.gyprock.com.au/products/pla ... one-galaxy
https://www.rondo.com.au/products/walls ... insulation
https://www.usgboral.com/content/dam/US ... nSHEET.pdf
As for the existing walls and ceiling, I was proposing to line these with 50mm Solomit Strawboard Acoustic Ceiling Panels. https://solomit.com.au/acoustic-strawboard-ceilings/
And the floor carpeted with a heavy carpet and double underlay.
Questions:
1. Which wall system would be best, for the new wall being constructed behind the tilt door without over killing it?
2. Is the Strawboard Acoustic Ceiling Panels a good product to stop sound escaping, reduce external noise entering, and produce a good acoustic space?
3. Is carpet and double underlay a good solution for the floor?
4. Am I on the right track, or do I need to go back to the drawing board?
Any other advice welcome.
Look forward to your reply,
SimmO.
Building a home band room/studio.
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SimmO
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- Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:03 pm
- Location: Melb, Aust
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Soundman2020
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Re: Building a home band room/studio.
Hi there SimmO, and Welcome to the forum!
Let's take things step by step: First, you need isolation. Some people call that "soundproofing", but acousticians tend to steer away from that word, as it means different things to different people, has no technical definition, and is impossible to achieve anyway! (You cannot "sound proof" a building, since there is no conceivable barrier that can stop a sufficiently loud sound.) But what you CAN do, is to attenuate the sound passing trough the barrier, so it is quieter on the other side, which is technically called "isolation".
OK, so that's what you need: isolation. But how much? .... and that's the key question here! You won't be able to build the isolation "thingies" for your studio, until you first identify how much isolation you NEED. You provided links to several products that you have found on-line, and one (or more) of those MIGHT be useful, but in order to find out which one, you first need to define that key number: how much isolation you need.
Isolation is sometimes also called "transmission loss", abbreviated "TL", and it is measured in decibels. "Transmission Loss" means how much sound is "lost" inside the wall as it is "transmitted" from one side to the other.
Don't get confused by other non-useful measurements: TL or isolation is what you need. You will occasionally see companies advertising that their product has an STC rating of 51, or an Rw+C rating of 47, or something like that. Forget those: they don't actually tell you much about how well a wall, ceiling, door, or window will stop loud music getting through. The REAL way to see how much sound a barrier can stop, is simply to test it! Make a loud sound on one side, measure the decibel level of that, then measure it on the other side as well. The difference is how well the barrier isolated. So if you have a guy playing an electric guitar on one side of the barrier, and you pull out your sound level meter and see that it is showing 100 decibels (dB), then you go around the other side and measure that the level is only 70 decibels (dB), then you know the barrier provides 30 dB of transmission loss, or 30 dB of isolation. Whatever sound you have on one side will be 30 dB quieter on the other side.
It really is that simple.
If a wall has a TL of 40 dB, then ANY full-spectrum sound you make on one side, no matter how loud, will be 40 dB quieter on the other side. So if you turned up the volume on that guitar to 120 dB, then you would get 120-40 = 80 dB on the other side. And if you turned it down to 7o dB, then 70-40= 30 dB is what you would get on the other side. It's amazingly easy with decibels, as the relationship holds true for any sound level of any loud music.
Simple!
That simple relationship ONLY works with decibels, not with STC or Rw, or other methods.
So your first priority is to define how much isolation you need, in decibels. There are books and research papers and tables and charts that show how much isolation you can expect, in decibels, for different types of barriers. So all you need to do is to figure out how many decibels you need!
And that, too is simple. You measure it! You measure how loud your son plays his instruments when he's really having a ball, then you get him to stop, and measure what you think is an acceptable level of "silence". The difference between those two is the answer to the question: "How much isolation do you need?"
So let's say your son is playing his electric guitar, and you measured a level of 100 dB (as in the example above), but then you measure levels when he is NOT playing, and decide that you would be happy if the level is 60 dB. Thus you need 40 dB of isolation.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Because what YOU consider acceptable might not be the same as what your neighbors consider acceptable. They might prefer 50 dB, or 40.... And the neighbor on the other side might not be happy until it is down to 30 dB! And then to make it even more complex, there's the Legal Problem! There are undoubtedly legal limits that govern how loud you can be in your area, and those limits usually change for day and night, so you have to be more quiet at night, but you can be a bit louder by day.
So, part of defining how much isolation you need, involves how strict you want to be! If you are determined to live by the letter of the law, then get a copy of the local noise ordinance, and check what the legal limit is. Very likely, it will be something hopelessly ridiculous, such as 35 dB at night, 45 dB in the day, which basically means that even if you whisper too loudly you will be arrested.... And to make matters worse, those regulations often have some type of hidden clause way down on page 47, sub section 237, paragraph 142, sub-point g.5, that says "... or any other perceived sound that is considered disturbing or annoying". In other words, even if you meet the letter of the law exactly, and do not exceed the level at all, they can still get you because somebody THOUGHT they heard a noise and they were annoyed by it....
So there you have the basis: You need to define hoe much isolation you need, because that in turn will define the building materials that you need, and the building techniques that you need. To determine what that level is, you will need a sound level meter (set to "C" weighting and "Slow" response), to measure how loud the problem is, how quite you want it to be, and subtract. (Or use the silly levels defined by law, which are basically meaningless.).
Then, once you have your number, we can help you decide how to attain that. To put this in perspective, a typical house wall will give you about 30 dB of isolation, and the very best isolate studio on the planet gets about 100 dB of isolation (that would be Galaxy Studios, in Belgium. Designed by a forum member, who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago). So that's the range you will be looking at.
One other thing: the decibel scale is logarithmic, not linear, so each step up the scale is LARGER than the step just before it: increasing isolation by an increment of ten dB at the lower end, say from 20 dB to 30 dB can be done for a few dollars, but increasing isolation by ten dB at the top end, say going from 90 dB to 100 dB of isolation will cost you many millions of dollars..... Just something to be aware of. It gets exponentially harder (and more expensive) as you go further up the scale...
Ceiling panels alone will do NONE of the above. The won't stop sound escaping, they wont stop outside noises getting in, and they won't make the room sound good. Not on their own.... they might be used in some way as part of the SYSTEM that you need, but by themselves, no. No use.
If you don't like the look of the concrete slab, or if it is in bad shape, then you cold lay laminate flooring on it, or maybe ceramic tiles, or linoleum tiles... anything hard, solid, and acoustically reflective. Or you could polish the concrete, or stain it. Many options. But what you need is a hard, solid, rigid, massive floor. That's the goal.
Start by defining how much isolation you need. To do that, get a sound level meter and do some tests, as I outlined above. You can get a decent meter for around US$ 100 or so. Avoid cheap Chinese junk meters that you see for US$ 50 or less: those are useless toys. So get out your meter, set it to "C" and "Slow", then go make lots of measurements, and decide on a number. With that number, we can help you look at different construction techniques and construction materials that you could use to get that number, then you can decide which method fits your budget and your building skills.
Basically, without that number there's no point in trying to decide on anything at all about your studio: that's the starting point.
Hope that helps you get on the right track!
- Stuart -
OK, so your actual total available space is roughly 4.6m x 5.6m = 25.7m2. That's a reasonable size space, and the 2.65m ceiling is nice too, but that's not the FINAL size of the room. You will lose some of that to the isolation system that you will need. More on that below....reducing the room size to 4570mm deep x 5610mm wide x 2650 high
Let's take things step by step: First, you need isolation. Some people call that "soundproofing", but acousticians tend to steer away from that word, as it means different things to different people, has no technical definition, and is impossible to achieve anyway! (You cannot "sound proof" a building, since there is no conceivable barrier that can stop a sufficiently loud sound.) But what you CAN do, is to attenuate the sound passing trough the barrier, so it is quieter on the other side, which is technically called "isolation".
OK, so that's what you need: isolation. But how much? .... and that's the key question here! You won't be able to build the isolation "thingies" for your studio, until you first identify how much isolation you NEED. You provided links to several products that you have found on-line, and one (or more) of those MIGHT be useful, but in order to find out which one, you first need to define that key number: how much isolation you need.
Isolation is sometimes also called "transmission loss", abbreviated "TL", and it is measured in decibels. "Transmission Loss" means how much sound is "lost" inside the wall as it is "transmitted" from one side to the other.
Don't get confused by other non-useful measurements: TL or isolation is what you need. You will occasionally see companies advertising that their product has an STC rating of 51, or an Rw+C rating of 47, or something like that. Forget those: they don't actually tell you much about how well a wall, ceiling, door, or window will stop loud music getting through. The REAL way to see how much sound a barrier can stop, is simply to test it! Make a loud sound on one side, measure the decibel level of that, then measure it on the other side as well. The difference is how well the barrier isolated. So if you have a guy playing an electric guitar on one side of the barrier, and you pull out your sound level meter and see that it is showing 100 decibels (dB), then you go around the other side and measure that the level is only 70 decibels (dB), then you know the barrier provides 30 dB of transmission loss, or 30 dB of isolation. Whatever sound you have on one side will be 30 dB quieter on the other side.
It really is that simple.
If a wall has a TL of 40 dB, then ANY full-spectrum sound you make on one side, no matter how loud, will be 40 dB quieter on the other side. So if you turned up the volume on that guitar to 120 dB, then you would get 120-40 = 80 dB on the other side. And if you turned it down to 7o dB, then 70-40= 30 dB is what you would get on the other side. It's amazingly easy with decibels, as the relationship holds true for any sound level of any loud music.
Simple!
That simple relationship ONLY works with decibels, not with STC or Rw, or other methods.
So your first priority is to define how much isolation you need, in decibels. There are books and research papers and tables and charts that show how much isolation you can expect, in decibels, for different types of barriers. So all you need to do is to figure out how many decibels you need!
And that, too is simple. You measure it! You measure how loud your son plays his instruments when he's really having a ball, then you get him to stop, and measure what you think is an acceptable level of "silence". The difference between those two is the answer to the question: "How much isolation do you need?"
So let's say your son is playing his electric guitar, and you measured a level of 100 dB (as in the example above), but then you measure levels when he is NOT playing, and decide that you would be happy if the level is 60 dB. Thus you need 40 dB of isolation.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Because what YOU consider acceptable might not be the same as what your neighbors consider acceptable. They might prefer 50 dB, or 40.... And the neighbor on the other side might not be happy until it is down to 30 dB! And then to make it even more complex, there's the Legal Problem! There are undoubtedly legal limits that govern how loud you can be in your area, and those limits usually change for day and night, so you have to be more quiet at night, but you can be a bit louder by day.
So, part of defining how much isolation you need, involves how strict you want to be! If you are determined to live by the letter of the law, then get a copy of the local noise ordinance, and check what the legal limit is. Very likely, it will be something hopelessly ridiculous, such as 35 dB at night, 45 dB in the day, which basically means that even if you whisper too loudly you will be arrested.... And to make matters worse, those regulations often have some type of hidden clause way down on page 47, sub section 237, paragraph 142, sub-point g.5, that says "... or any other perceived sound that is considered disturbing or annoying". In other words, even if you meet the letter of the law exactly, and do not exceed the level at all, they can still get you because somebody THOUGHT they heard a noise and they were annoyed by it....
So there you have the basis: You need to define hoe much isolation you need, because that in turn will define the building materials that you need, and the building techniques that you need. To determine what that level is, you will need a sound level meter (set to "C" weighting and "Slow" response), to measure how loud the problem is, how quite you want it to be, and subtract. (Or use the silly levels defined by law, which are basically meaningless.).
Then, once you have your number, we can help you decide how to attain that. To put this in perspective, a typical house wall will give you about 30 dB of isolation, and the very best isolate studio on the planet gets about 100 dB of isolation (that would be Galaxy Studios, in Belgium. Designed by a forum member, who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago). So that's the range you will be looking at.
One other thing: the decibel scale is logarithmic, not linear, so each step up the scale is LARGER than the step just before it: increasing isolation by an increment of ten dB at the lower end, say from 20 dB to 30 dB can be done for a few dollars, but increasing isolation by ten dB at the top end, say going from 90 dB to 100 dB of isolation will cost you many millions of dollars..... Just something to be aware of. It gets exponentially harder (and more expensive) as you go further up the scale...
Now we get on to the next point: Isolation is a SYSTEM. It's just the materials themselves, but rather how they are put together. And it is also an "envelope": You cannot isolate a room so that you get 80 dB of isolation out the left wall, but only 30 out the right wall. If you tried to do that, the total isolation would be 30, not 80. In other words, you have to isolate all sides to the same level, because once the sound gets out through the "weak" side, it will just wrap around to the other sides in any case, ignoring the wonderful wall on the "best" side. So you need to isolate all parts of the studio to the same level. That includes all four walls, and the ceiling, and the floor, and the doors, and the windows, and the electrical system (a common cause of lousy isolation) and the HVAC system.... Everything must be isolated to the same level, because isolation is only as good as the weakest part.I plan to construct the new wall using one of the following system (see links) or a hybred of these systems. My question is which system would be best, without over killing it.
As long as you don't need much isolation, that would be OK... but your son playing drums can easily produce 115 dB inside the studio, and that has to be attenuated down to levels where the neighbors won't try to lynch you.... and you won't achieve that with ceiling tiles! It takes a LOT more than that to isolate drums.As for the existing walls and ceiling, I was proposing to line these with 50mm Solomit Strawboard Acoustic Ceiling Panels
Bad idea.... more on that later...And the floor carpeted with a heavy carpet and double underlay.
The best system is the one that does the job of providing the isolation that you NEED when you define your number! And it is is a mistake to think of this in terms of how much you isolation you need on this wall or that wall or the door... You need to stop thinking of the individual parts of the room, and start thinking of it as a system: All the parts work together and interact with each other, to provide level of isolation that you need. So this is nowhere near as simple as saying "I'll put up an XYZ brand wall in front of the door, then an ABC brand ceiling, and a QRX wall at the back, and an JKL floor, and....". That's not how it works. What you need is to design a system for the room, and that system as a whole will give you the isolation.1. Which wall system would be best, for the new wall being constructed behind the tilt door without over killing it?
No. That's the only question that I can answer definitely!2. Is the Strawboard Acoustic Ceiling Panels a good product to stop sound escaping, reduce external noise entering, and produce a good acoustic space?
Ceiling panels alone will do NONE of the above. The won't stop sound escaping, they wont stop outside noises getting in, and they won't make the room sound good. Not on their own.... they might be used in some way as part of the SYSTEM that you need, but by themselves, no. No use.
No. The very best floor you can get for a studio is concrete slab on grade. You already have that! So you are doing fine. Carpet is a really bad choice, because it has exactly the opposite acoustic effect from what a studio needs. Take a look at pictures of leading studios from around the world, and see how many of them have fully carpeted floors... the answer is "none"! There's a reason for that. Carpet does not isolate, and it has the inverse effect of what you need. So forget that.3. Is carpet and double underlay a good solution for the floor?
If you don't like the look of the concrete slab, or if it is in bad shape, then you cold lay laminate flooring on it, or maybe ceramic tiles, or linoleum tiles... anything hard, solid, and acoustically reflective. Or you could polish the concrete, or stain it. Many options. But what you need is a hard, solid, rigid, massive floor. That's the goal.
See above!4. Am I on the right track, or do I need to go back to the drawing board?
Start by defining how much isolation you need. To do that, get a sound level meter and do some tests, as I outlined above. You can get a decent meter for around US$ 100 or so. Avoid cheap Chinese junk meters that you see for US$ 50 or less: those are useless toys. So get out your meter, set it to "C" and "Slow", then go make lots of measurements, and decide on a number. With that number, we can help you look at different construction techniques and construction materials that you could use to get that number, then you can decide which method fits your budget and your building skills.
Basically, without that number there's no point in trying to decide on anything at all about your studio: that's the starting point.
Hope that helps you get on the right track!
- Stuart -