Design/Build a Ceiling and Rooftop for Studio

[wlvrne]

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: THIS POST WAS RECONSTRUCTED FROM OTHER SOURCES AFTER THE OP [WHO CLAIMS TO BE A PROFESSOR AT A UNIVERSITY! ) THREW A TEMPER TANTRUM AND TRIED TO DELETE HIS OWN POST, WHEN HE DIDN'T LIKE THE TOTALLY CORRECT AND VALID ANSWER HE WAS GIVEN. POOR LITTLE TRIGGERED FELLOW WITH NO SAFE-SPACE TO RUN TO. SO THE POST MIGHT BE INCOMPLETE.]

I am building a small structure in my backyard (no need to look at my profile. I’m in Eugene, OR). I need this structure to be soundproof enough to allow me to play drums at any time of night or day. I realize that’s asking a lot and am somewhat flexible. I am still trying to visualize the complete picture before building or buying anything. I have a few specific questions regarding the roof and inner ceiling.

The plan is to pour a 21 ft x 21 ft concrete slab. The four walls will be cinder block (16x8x6 - l,w,h) construction and span apx. 20x20x8 (l,w,h). The cinder blocks will be inner-filled with concrete. Inside the space will be an inner wall of 2x4 studs - 1/2in drywall facing the inside, soundboard facing the cinder block, and Owens Corning 703 (or similar) inside the wall cavity. One of the inner walls will be set in by 4 ft to allow for some storage space. There will be one outer-door that leads to the storage area and one inner-door that opens to the actual studio. Three of my walls will be 8in of solid(ish) concrete and another 4.5 in of inner wall for a total of 12.5 inches. The fourth wall will back up to the storage area.

BUDGET
My budget is less of an issue here because I have accounted for all of the building supplies except the rooftop. I get to build this thing one time so I want - NEED - it to be right. That said, I don’t want to spend a fortune on this one aspect if possible. I’m looking for the best solution for sound that is the most cost effective (aren’t we all?).

My next hurdle is to decide on a design for the rooftop and inner-ceiling. My initial thought is to lay 4x12 beams across the top of the cinder block and attach the outer-roof to the top and the inner-roof to the bottom…or something like that.

So far I have a very square box. I am open to ideas to reduce the parallel surfaces.

1. Am I on the right track with my ceiling design (photo #3)? More specifically, will this design offer similar or adequate soundproofing compared to the walls? I know it will not be the same.

2. Is the inner-wall that is next to the Storage area (photo #2) adequate at 2x4? Or should I consider 2x6 or 2x8 for that wall?

3. I’m going to use solid doors. How much sound will I lose through the outside door given its proximity to the open storage area and the inner-door? (photo #2).

4. Should the inner-door be a double door?


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Given the level of soundproofing I am looking for and my proposed construction of the walls, what will be needed in order to acheive my goal?

What is the most cost effective way of acheiving that outcome? I'm more concerned (right now) with how to do this the right way....I'll deal with costs as that is a separate issue to me.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: AS PART OF HIS INFANTILE OUTBREAK, THE OP ATTEMPTED TO REPLACE THIS ENTIRE POST WITH A SINGLE LINE READING "THIS WAS A WAST OF TIME". YES, IT CERTAINLY WAS A WASTE OF GREG'S TIME, AS HE COULD HAVE USED THAT TIME TO ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR SOMEBODY WHO ACTUALLY DESERVED TO HAVE AN ANSWER; AND APPRECIATED IT]

[Gregwor]

Welcome to the forum Steve!

I am building a small structure in my backyard (no need to look at my profile. I’m in Eugene, OR). I need this structure to be soundproof enough to allow me to play drums at any time of night or day. I realize that’s asking a lot and am somewhat flexible. I am still trying to visualize the complete picture before building or buying anything. I have a few specific questions regarding the roof and inner ceiling.

Got it! So you're facing the same levels inside your room as most home studios -- that of drums!

The real question though is what is near your building? How far is your property line? What levels of sound does your bylaw enforce?

The reason I ask that is because if you live on a farm and your nearest neighbour is 1 mile away, you don't need much isolation if you just want to bash away on your drums.

Initially I thought you just wanted to practice drums. Then I saw your speakers and desk. I assume you want to do some recording in there as well? If this is the case, your isolation needs are becoming more defined in that you need to keep sounds like rain, thunder, dog barking, traffic, etc OUT of your recordings.

We need to know these things before anything else.

The plan is to pour a 21 ft x 21 ft concrete slab. The four walls will be cinder block (16x8x6 - l,w,h) construction and span apx. 20x20x8 (l,w,h). The cinder blocks will be inner-filled with concrete. Inside the space will be an inner wall of 2x4 studs - 1/2in drywall facing the inside, soundboard facing the cinder block, and Owens Corning 703 (or similar) inside the wall cavity. One of the inner walls will be set in by 4 ft to allow for some storage space. There will be one outer-door that leads to the storage area and one inner-door that opens to the actual studio. Three of my walls will be 8in of solid(ish) concrete and another 4.5 in of inner wall for a total of 12.5 inches. The fourth wall will back up to the storage area.

You certainly do need to partition the building. For both acoustic performance (square rooms sound horrible), and for space required for silencer boxes, HVAC, electrical panels, plumbing (even with no toilet, you need plumbing for your HVAC), and of course, storage.

I'll get into more below.

BUDGET
My budget is less of an issue here because I have accounted for all of the building supplies except the rooftop. I get to build this thing one time so I want - NEED - it to be right. That said, I don’t want to spend a fortune on this one aspect if possible. I’m looking for the best solution for sound that is the most cost effective (aren’t we all?).

So if this room costs you $100,000 (I am slightly overshooting here of course), you're okay with that? Can you even roughly state a budget?

My next hurdle is to decide on a design for the rooftop and inner-ceiling. My initial thought is to lay 4x12 beams across the top of the cinder block and attach the outer-roof to the top and the inner-roof to the bottom…or something like that.

You need an engineer involved in this stage of the design. You need to state your needs - you need a lot of mass up there for isolation reasons.

What type of roof are you hoping for here? Some require cold air to flow through them, others don't. Again, this is something your engineer can help you with. Do you have height restrictions for this building? You need a lot of height. Higher the better really. In some places there are quite low height restrictions and people get around the limitation by digging into the ground.

So far I have a very square box. I am open to ideas to reduce the parallel surfaces.

Run your FINISHED interior dimensions into a room mode calculator. Bob Gold's calculator is great. So is the Amroc one.

Parallel surfaces are not a problem whatsoever. For mixing/listening rooms, they're actually preferred as we can predict and easily tune their acoustic response.

1. Am I on the right track with my ceiling design (photo #3)? More specifically, will this design offer similar or adequate soundproofing compared to the walls? I know it will not be the same.

Unfortunately not. First off, you have a three leaf system. Lastly, your surface density is far from sufficient.

2. Is the inner-wall that is next to the Storage area (photo #2) adequate at 2x4? Or should I consider 2x6 or 2x8 for that wall?

Presuming you have a ducted air handler in the storage area, that wall you're referring to needs to actually have another wall like this:

MSM-two-leaf-WallChunk-conventional--NOT-inside-out--one-room--S06.png

3. I’m going to use solid doors. How much sound will I lose through the outside door given its proximity to the open storage area and the inner-door? (photo #2).

If you build your door properly (we can show you examples if you have troubles finding them on the forum), your door will perform great and not compromise your isolation whatsoever.

4. Should the inner-door be a double door?

My answer to your second question implies that yes, it needs two doors. One for each leaf.

Greg

[wlvrne]

As in, a complete waste of time.

[Gregwor]

Given the level of soundproofing I am looking for and my proposed construction of the walls, what will be needed in order to acheive my goal?

Lots of time and quite a bit of money. That's my answer.

Read acoustic books. Read as much as you can on the forum. Ask questions. Then finish a design (post it on the forum throughout the design process of course!). Then take it to an engineer and get his stamp. Then build it.

What is the most cost effective way of acheiving that outcome? I'm more concerned (right now) with how to do this the right way....I'll deal with costs as that is a separate issue to me.

Throughout your design, you will face things like:
- where do I buy an air handler unit?
- where do I buy seals for my doors?
- what electrical panel should I buy?
- what size does this type of insulation come in? And what about that type of insulation?
- what model of conduit should I use?
And about 700 other questions (no joke).

Make a spread sheet that has all of those questions on it and on a specific column have your answers: what model do you buy? where do you buy it? how much do you need? how much will it cost?

Once you have that spread sheet finished, you can easily add up your costs. Time is a different story. Building a studio in your spare time is the cheapest way to go about it. But in my experience, everything takes between 4 and 40 times longer than you initially think it will. That's why most studio build threads span several years on the forum. As much as we curse at how long the builds take, the positive side of it is that we presumably are still working and making money throughout the build process at which point we avoid depleting our studio build funds!

Greg

[Soundman2020]

As in, a complete waste of time.

Really? Why do you think that? Greg gave you good answers to your questions, and good orientation on how to approach your design. How come you think that was a waste of time?

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

Greg gave you good answers to your questions, and good orientation on how to approach your design. How come you think that was a waste of time?

He probably wanted someone here to give him a completed design that would take 3 weeks to build. I hope he reached out to John or someone else and just hired them to design it for him. He clearly wasn't alright with the self help approach even though there is pretty much all of the answers here on the forum and in the texts we link to continually.

Can't win em all.

Greg