Studio Build in old house

[dbfeenix]

Hello

I introduce myself, David, sound engineer for 20 years, I participated in the creation of many studio and finally it's time to create my studio in our recently purchased house.

The outbuildings that will be transformed into a studio date partly from the 18th century which is to take into account for some aspect of the soundproofing.
At term the studio will include a control room of 27m2, a live room of 35 m2 and a cottage of 50m2 which will also serve as live room.

LSDR exterieur mini.jpg

The first step will be the creation of the control room.
The dimensions of the piece are 5.85 m x 5.42m. The roof is inclined with at the lowest 2.40m and 4m at the highest.
The walls are limestone, 50 to 60 cm thick, the floor is clay, the roof fiber cement.

Studio doors.jpg

The level of listening will be between 85dbC at 100dbC in peak. There is a wall adjoining another house which must be about 80 cm in stone. Ideally, there should be no noise or vibration in the neighbor's house.
The environment is very quiet, I measure less than 45dB A or C in the room, I hear no noise from the neighbor. The room for now has 3 old doors that are not sealed.
The ideal would be a soundproofing of 50dB .... I mix a lot of hip hop and urban music, so i need a good soundprooffing in the bass range.My speaker are A77X ADAMS for the moment

The weak point of the structure is the fiber cement roof, according to my research the plates are 20kg / m2. I think to cover from below the plates with a liquid bitumen coating to make the roof perfectly waterproof.
The floor would be made by a slab directly on the dirt floor separated from the walls
The walls will be coated to make sure there is no leaky place but I can not put a paint to make it even more airtight, indeed the old wall needs to breathe so to avoid the accumulation of water by capillarity in the walls.

There will be 3 access to the control room including access to the outside with a glass part to have natural light and enjoy the view.

I think first of all to make the slab, the doors and seal the roof to measure the insulation of the outer leaf. Is it a good idea ?

The slab will not be in contact with the walls, must it leave the space empty or fill it with sand or other?

Concrete slab.PNG

First Step.PNG

I have a budget of about 5000 euro for the construction of the control room.

Hope i'm clear , english is not my native language.

Thanks to all

[Gregwor]

I think first of all to make the slab, the doors and seal the roof to measure the insulation of the outer leaf. Is it a good idea ?

Yes, but you haven't mentioned HVAC. What's your plan with that?

The slab will not be in contact with the walls, must it leave the space empty or fill it with sand or other?

It must be filled with insulation. No voids.

Greg

[dbfeenix]

Hi Gregwor,

Thanks for your reply.

there is of course a hvac planned, and an air conditioning Mini-Split.

What type of insulation between the slab and the wall? how many kg / m2?

Thanks

[DanDan]

Lucky you! It looks like a lovely spot and buildings.
I recommend that you become very sure about sound proofing before spending money.
Rural spaces can be very very quiet, so any sound leakage is really obvious.
Also afaik, French people go to bed really early!

Is there another building which has no joining wall to your neighbour?
Please listen and measure inside your proposed CR, the noise of rain on your roof.

DD

[dbfeenix]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply

The place is very very quiet, a haven of peace that I will try not to disturb too much. A lot of tourists in summer but very quiet in winter
I have no other place to do the studio so I must be certain of the soundproofing and not spend money for nothing.
I will measure the noise during the rain, this will be a good indication.

The roof is really my question, the wall with the neighbor is very thick and the slab decoupled walls should limit the transmission.
The other nearest neighbors are more than 50m away.

The last solution would be a soundproofing with 3 leaf for the roof but I would like to avoid it if possible.

Maps Studio.jpg

[dbfeenix]

I did the math with MSM calculator with inner leaf 2 layer of normal gyproc and the roof by setting a custom value to 15kg \ m2 and I am surprised at the result?
An error in my way of filling out the spreadsheet?

MSM Roof 1.PNG

MSM Roof 2.PNG

[Gregwor]

What type of insulation between the slab and the wall? how many kg / m2?

Fibreglass in kg/m^3
High Freq = around 40 (others say 60-80)
Mid Freq = around 35
Low Freq = 20-25

Mineral Wool in kg/m^3
High Freq = around 65 (others say 90-120)
Mid Freq = around 55
Low Freq = around 30 (others say 40-45)

The last solution would be a soundproofing with 3 leaf for the roof but I would like to avoid it if possible.

This is often unavoidable.

I did the math with MSM calculator with inner leaf 2 layer of normal gyproc and the roof by setting a custom value to 15kg \ m2 and I am surprised at the result?
An error in my way of filling out the spreadsheet?

Maybe an issue with how you filled it out. What you filled out was a 2x8 joist holding your 15 kg/m^2 sheathing fully decoupled by a distance you didn't show us (you filled out 30 but it didn't show by what units. It could have been mm or feet... the difference here changes the results greatly). Then your inner leaf is created by using 2x4 joists with two layers of 1/2" drywall screwed to the bottom of the joists.

I doubt you could safely/legally use 2x4's for ceiling joists!

Greg

[DanDan]

I think Isover is a common product in France/EU. https://www.isover.ie/products/isover-a ... l-wmk-0036
I like this little presentation on SoundProofing.
Greg's density broad strokes are correct for absorption, but depth interacts..... But in soundproofing, the different densities of the insulation filling and damping the void show little or no change in performance of the partitions. From memory, and other sources, much higher densities are not advisable either.
Overall I would recommend the lowest density, which is probably also the cheapest. They are usually called Acoustic Roll or similar.
Be sure to use wires or whatever to prevent it from sagging over time in a wall.
Fill the space fully, touching the leaves just enough to dampen vibrations in them.

Air borne sound insulation.ppt

DD